Overview
- DREAM compiles 2,643 awakenings from 505 participants across 20 studies using EEG and MEG, creating the largest open dataset of sleep brain activity paired with dream reports.
- Initial analyses show dreams occur during non-REM sleep, where pre-awakening brain activity can resemble quiet wakefulness rather than deep sleep.
- Across awakenings, participants reported dreams after about 85% of REM episodes and roughly 40% to 60% of NREM episodes, with frequency declining as sleep deepened but not vanishing.
- Artificial-intelligence models predicted whether a person was dreaming from the final seconds of brain data, with simpler features helping in deep NREM and more complex patterns aiding in REM.
- The consortium spans 53 researchers from 37 institutions in 13 countries, coordinated by Monash University with Bial Foundation support, and the database is publicly available on Monash’s Bridges platform for global reuse.