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Antonio Zadra
SLEEP SCIENTIST, ONEIRONAUT, AUTHOR
  • About
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Couverture du livre "The Dream Keepers"

“A brilliant and mind-bending debut that interweaves both the science and the mythology of dreams in a tale that is inventive, original, and utterly spellbinding. The Dreamkeepers will change how you view your own nocturnal dreams, and the figures that inhabit them.”

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Couverture du livre "When Brains Dream"

"A comprehensive, eye-opening exploration of what dreams are, where they come from, what they mean, and why we have them."

Our research focuses on the scientific study of dreams
- including everyday dreams, nightmares and lucid dreams -
as well as on sleep terrors and sleepwalking.

Did you know?

The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.

Want to read, watch and find out more about our work?

Visit these pages containing a wealth of information about dreams and sleep disorders

Publications

Science articles and book chapters.

Media

TV documentaries and other presentations.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about dreams.

infolettre du Zadra Lab

Interested in new ideas and discoveries in the world of dreams?

Sign up for our newsletter which goes out every couple of months. You'll receive info on the latest research findings, books, and art-related projects focusing on sleep and dreams.

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Random FAQ question

What about themes of falling, being paralyzed and suffocation? Why are they not on your list?

The list above is based on a careful analysis of thousands of dream reports collected prospectively (for example, on daily dream logs) as opposed to asking people about the last nightmare they remember on a questionnaire. Themes of falling or being paralyzed appear infrequently in dream logs, but their high saliency makes them particularly memorable and thus more likely to be recalled in interviews or questionnaires long after their occurrence and many people can remember having one of these nightmares at least once in their lifetime, often many years ago. So nightmares of falling or being paralysed are certainly common in the sense that many people remembering having had such a nightmare at least once in their lifetime, but the themes above occur much more frequently over any given week, month, or year.

Also, it is important to bear in mind that themes of falling, being paralyzed, or suffocation may well represent other commonly experienced parasomnias such as hypnic jerks, isolated sleep paralysis, or sleep terrors. When faced with broadly defined questionnaire items, people may be more likely to report these types of sleep experiences as if they were nightmares. Providing subjects with clear definitions for nightmares as well as sleep terrors and requiring actual dream narratives to be reported in daily logs greatly reduces the inclusion of other sleep phenomena in these results.

FAQ page

Antonio Zadra
SLEEP SCIENTIST, ONEIRONAUT, AUTHOR

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