Nightmares have always been a dreaded human experience. In certain cultures, they were thought to be premonitions of the future. It was this ominous notion that prompted indigenous cultures to construct dream catchers. When a bad dream entered the dreamer’s sleep, the webbing of the dream catcher supposedly trapped this nightmare. The first light of morning then caused these bad dreams to melt away.

Despite our inherent fear of nightmares, current research has demonstrated that they may be a necessary and functional aspect of dreaming.

The Dream and Nightmare Laboratory, which is associated with the University of Montreal, and Sacred Heart Hospital, conducts research in the areas of the scientific study of dreaming and sleep disorders. While this laboratory does not interpret dreams or give sleep consultations, it aims to provide insight into the important psychological role that dreams and nightmares play.

The brain appears to apply the same neurological machinery during the night and day to examine past events. Dreams allow the brain to process conscious experiences and regulate emotions.

Over the course of the night, sleepers experience a variety of neurological and physical states, with the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep period being one of the most prominent. Dreams occur most frequently during REM period.

According to the researchers at the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory, this period of sleep is characterized by an emotional ‘surge’ that unfolds over time. Specifically, they believe that the content of one’s dream is used as a mechanism to regulate or contain this surge.

Essentially, dreaming reduces the intensity of the emotional surge, allowing these feelings to be processed through a series of dreams that unfold over successive REM periods of the night. In this manner, dreaming acts as a method of emotional problem solving.

Nightmares, like dreams, are connected to the REM sleep period. They occur when dreaming cannot contain the emotional surge, causing the dreamer to undergo disturbing and highly realistic mental experiences. Many can relate to the feelings of anxiety, fear, or terror brought on by nightmares.

Despite the inner turmoil they cause, researchers at the Dream and Nightmare Laboratory think that these bad dreams have a function. In cases of bereavement, for example, vivid images of the deceased may persist for years as hallucinations, illusions, and intense dreams. Dreams of the dead should not necessarily be feared. Nightmares like these may help individuals accept the reality of his or her loss and facilitate a sense of closure.

Nightmares are also an excellent indicator of one’s emotional state. “Whether or not a bereaved person finds dreams comforting likely is a reliable indicator of if the mourning is taking a favourable course,” according to a paper written by UdeM researchers Tore Nielson and Jessica Lara-Carrasco.

Craig Webb, a McGill graduate who has helped with dream and lucid dream research at both Stanford and UdeM, is the executive director of the nonprofit Dream Research and Experimental Approaches to Mechanisms of Sleep (DREAMS) Foundation. He has a similar view to offer.

“Whether bad dreams are full-fledged nightmares, anxiety dreams, or just a bit unsettling, they serve as ‘pressure-release therapy,’” Webb said in an interview with the site WebMD. He explained that, “nightmares are a very bitter but much-needed medicine.”

The DREAMS foundation postulates that nightmares serve an important purpose by sending the dreamer a valuable emotional message. In addition to an emotional check-up, nightmares may have also played an important role in evolution. In the past, dreams often warned people about dangerous situations. If a tiger killed in a nearby village, a nightmare would keep one anxious about that happening to one’s own village.

Research conducted by Erin Wamsley, a sleep scientist at Beth Israel Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, also supports the teaching function of dreams. Mainly, she focuses on the relationship between memory and the different stages of sleep. Both dreams in non-REM sleep and the vivid dreams of REM sleep are important in terms of teaching the dreamer based on experiences from the day.

This evolutionary role of dreams may explain why nightmares are still present in today’s society. It seems they are evidence of the role of dreams in an ancient fight or flight mechanism. With all these functions in mind, perhaps nightmares are not so undesirable after all.

Last week, the McGill Office of Science and Society hosted the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium, a lecture series that brings science to the public.

Food: A Serving of Science featured four lectures on the science of diet and nutrition. The panelists explored topics ranging from fad diets to the enduring culinary misinformation spread by a 19th century chemist.

Dr. Walter Willett—Diet and Health: A Progress Report

The first speaker, Dr. Walter Willett, is a physician and nutrition researcher from Harvard University. Willett’s talk focused on the failings of North American dietary recommendations. He singled out the low-fat movement and milk consumption as two pieces of health advice that have been disproved by research.

In observational studies, the much-touted low fat diet has actually been linked to weight gain. The problem, according to Willett, is that North Americans simply traded refined sugars and processed carbohydrates for fats, to the detriment of their waistlines. Instead, dietary guidelines should focus on the type of fats and carbohydrates consumed.

He also showed the traditional—and current—Canadian recommendation of drinking two to three glasses of milk per day is not beneficial and may be harmful in some cases. While the guideline is touted as a bone health measure, studies  show that drinking milk does not reduce the risk of osteoporotic bone fractures.

Jeffery Blumberg—Evidence-Based Nutrition: The Problem of Proof

If you’re not sure whether or not to take vitamins, you’re not the only one. Jeffrey Blumberg, a professor of nutrition from Tufts University, presented his explanation for the constant contradictions between one vitamin study and the next.

While randomized clinical trials are regarded as the ultimate test, Blumberg argues that researchers shouldn’t be so quick to disregard observational studies, their less controlled counterparts. Randomized clinical trials are a tightly controlled test of a random group, generally used in the pharmaceutical industry. Half the participants are given the drug, and the other half, a placebo. In studies of nutritional supplements, Blumberg asserts, it is impossible (not to mention unethical) to deprive one group of vital nutrients, therefore the test can only compare two groups who are taking different doses of the supplement.

Blumberg believes researchers must develop better experimental methods to test nutritional variables. In the meantime, observational studies provide helpful guidelines that shouldn’t be ignored.

Jane Brody—Eat for Life: Separating Wheat from Chaff

“sGood nutrition is not rocket science,” according to Jane Brody, a New York Times columnist and author who has been dispensing nutrition advice for the last 30 years. While Brody is not a university-trained nutritionist, her background in biochemistry and relentless pursuit of the truth behind various diet fads and studies has earned her an international readership.

In her talk, Brody explained how to spot a bad fad diet, arguing that healthy eating habits have changed very little over the course of human history. She advised the audience to follow the advice of Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemna who coined the mantra, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Many of the questions following the lecture were directed to Brody, asking for everyday nutritional advice, although one brave audience member jokingly defended bacon—asking, “What’s moderation for bacon? Once a week? Once a day? Once a meal?”

Harold McGee—Playing With Food: Four Centuries of Science in the Kitchen

Harold McGee quit science for literature early in his academic career, only to find himself publishing a paper in Nature. His paper, on the science behind the French tradition of whipping egg whites in a copper bowl, was inspired by a Julia Child recipe.

A playful curiosity, and a preoccupation with the science of the kitchen, propelled McGee’s career as an author and amateur experimenter. In one case, puzzled by grease spatters that only appeared on the inside of his eye glasses, McGee set up eye glass ‘sensors’ throughout the kitchen to collect data on the strange phenomenon. It turned out that grease particles, thrown high into the air, were drifting down into his glasses from above as he bent over the pan.

McGee’s lecture gave an overview of science in the kitchen from its early beginnings to the current advances in restaurant cooking that include precision temperature cooking and extracting aromas using a device called a rotary evaporator.

One anecdote involved a 19th century chemist named Justus Lieberg, who initiated the popular notion that searing meat seals in its juices, a theory that seems logical considering practices like cauterization. Despite the fact that this theory can be easily disproved by watching juices run out of a seared steak, it is a persistent culinary myth that still appears in cooking text books: evidence that sometimes bad science is worse than no science.