How to 'Engineer' Your Dreams and End Nightmares

Michelle Carr was in high school when it first started happening — waking up and being unable to move. It was a terrifying experience, but one she eventually learned was a relatively common phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. That discovery was the beginning of a deep fascination with the world of dreams that eventually led to her current research into the neurophysiology of sleep, the science of nightmares, and the emerging field of “dream engineering” — an effort to study and influence the content of dreams.

We talk with Carr about why we have dreams and nightmares, the benefits of lucid dreaming, and what researchers are learning about our ability to “engineer” our dreams. Carr is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Addiction at University of Montréal. Her new book is called “Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer’s Guide Through the Sleeping Mind.”