# '...PERCHANCE TO DREAM: On the neuroscience of sleep and dreaming...

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/perchance-to-dream-on-the-neuroscience-of-sleep-and-dreaming
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/perchance-to-dream-on-the-neuroscience-of-sleep-and-dreaming.md
Podcast: [BRAINLAND](https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859)
Published: 2025-11-27T14:27:53+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/brainland/episodes/perchance-to-dream-the-neuroscience-of-sleep-and-dreaming
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6452b6516dd22500113dc7ca/e/69270f78064897cd5fd01fe3/media.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brainland-6744859/episodes/perchance-to-dream-on-the-neuroscience-of-sleep-and-dreaming
Duration seconds: 3551

## Resource

In this wide ranging conversation Mark Solms talks about his seminal research in the '80s on the effect of brain lesions on patient reports of dreaming. After a brief visit to Charcot and Wilbrand in the late 19th century, we discuss the research of Dement and colleagues in the 1950s, when it was discoverd that every 90 minutes or so during sleep our EEG is more like the awake state, with asociated rapid eye movments (REM). We discuss Jouvet's work in the '60s in which the origin of REM sleep was found to be in the brain stem the belief at the time that REM and dreaming were part of the same process, later disproved by the work of Mark and others who found it to be cortical. There's an interesting diversion into culture wars in the science community (where, in his early days, studying something as subjective as dreams was 'unthinkable') before moving on to somnambulism, the implications of all this for Freudian theory and concluding thoughts about current dream research including a quite incredible recent Japanese study. Great conversation with an enthusiastic communicator. Participants:  Mark Solms, Professor, Department of Neuropsychology, University of Capetown, SA. https://neuroscience.uct.ac.za/contacts/mark-solms Ken Barrett, visual artist, writer and retired neuropsychiatrist: http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk Mark's books 'The Hidden Spring': https://profilebooks.com/work/the-hidden-spring/ 'The Neuropsychology of dreams: https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/the-neuropsychology-of-dreams-a-clinico-anatomical-study/94585/? Opening and closing music: Prelude to the opera Brainland , composed by Stephen Brown.  Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk Sketch by KB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brainland-6744859/episodes/perchance-to-dream-on-the-neuroscience-of-sleep-and-dreaming/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/perchance-to-dream-on-the-neuroscience-of-sleep-and-dreaming.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.