#78: How To Better Recall Your Dreams and Solve Creative Problems While You Sleep (with Dr. Deirdre Barrett)

Dr. Deirdre Barrett is a renowned psychologist, author, and dream researcher affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Serving as a Lecturer in Psychology within the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance, she teaches courses on dreaming to undergraduates, psychiatry residents, and psychology interns.Dr. Barrett's research explores dreams, hypnosis, and evolutionary psychology. She has authored several books, including The Committee of Sleep, Supernormal Stimuli, Waistland, The Pregnant Man & Other Cases from a Hypnotherapist’s Couch, and Pandemic Dreams, which explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on dreaming.In addition to her writing, Dr. Barrett serves as Editor-in-Chief of Dreaming: The Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams and has held leadership roles as Past President of both the International Association for the Study of Dreams and the American Psychological Association’s Division 30, The Society for Psychological Hypnosis.Her work has garnered attention from major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and Newsweek, and she has appeared on programs such as Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, and the BBC. Beyond academia, Dr. Barrett creates digital dream-inspired artwork, which has been featured in National Geographic and exhibited internationally.In this episode, Dr. Barrett shares how her childhood experience of dreams led her to a career in psychology and dream research. She talks about the role dreams have played throughout history in problem solving and gives specific, mind-blowing examples from her research where students or colleagues solved word problems in a dream, sometimes in startling ways. Dr. Barrett also provides a step by step breakdown of a technique called “dream incubation” that she finds to be a more effective tool for creativity than lucid dreaming. Many people say they don’t remember their dreams. If that’s you, don’t worry, we end the conversation with some practical steps you can take to increase your dream recall.Website: www.deirdrebarrett.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/deirdre_barrett_dreams/ FOR EXCLUSIVE CREATIVITY TIPS, MUSINGS, AND EXERCISES, SUBSCRIBE TO THE ALWAYS CHOOSE ORANGE NEWSLETTER: https://www.alwayschooseorange.com