The Mel Robbins Podcast#1 Neuroscientist: How to Unlock the Power of Your Mind Using The Science of Dreaming
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 11,777 words- 0:00 – 6:40
Introduction
- MRMel Robbins
Do you ever wonder about your dreams? What does that dream mean? What does that nightmare mean? Could I control what I'm dreaming about? Are they random? Like, does this mean anything? Today, you're gonna learn how to tap into the power of your dream state to create deeper connection, solve problems, unlock more creativity and clarity, and even create deeper meaning in your life.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
We spend a third of our lives dreaming.
- MRMel Robbins
Wait, a third of our life is spent dreaming?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Dreaming is not an accidental byproduct. It's something essential for the human mind.
- MRMel Robbins
Dr. Rahul Jandial is a world-renowned cancer surgeon, neuroscientist, and pioneering neurosurgeon who is here to teach you and me about all of the fascinating things that your brain is doing when you're dreaming.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
That nightly dreaming process happens for all humans all the time. We do things we couldn't imagine. We fly, we fall, we run from monsters, we get into awkward social situations. You can influence what you're about to dream about.
- MRMel Robbins
No way. What are the most common dreams that people have?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Everybody's had a nightmare. It's a universal dream. In a wellness way, a flare of a nightmare can remind you that something is not going well with your mental health.
- MRMel Robbins
Now, how do you define a nightmare?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
A nightmare's not a bad dream. By definition, it's terrifying, and it's gotta wake you up.
- MRMel Robbins
What exactly is lucid dreaming?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Waking up while inside a dream. So the first step is to set an alarm at about five or six hours.
- MRMel Robbins
So you're intentionally waking yourself up-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
A touch earlier than you want to, and then you-
- MRMel Robbins
Dr. Jandial, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Oh, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, well, thank you for getting on a plane. Thank you for carving out the time. I have never talked about the topic of the science of dreams on this podcast. I have so many questions, and I cannot wait to dig in. And here's where I wanna start. How could my life be different based on everything you're about to teach us that we need to know about dreaming? If we apply all this to our lives, what's gonna change?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Well, when you have the insight that we spend a third of our lives dreaming, uh, you'll be excited to learn that there are simple steps where you can influence your dreams, remember your dreams, and cultivate the direction of dreams to live a life that is, uh, not possible simply with the waking brain.
- MRMel Robbins
Wait, a third of our life is spent dreaming?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Dreams can happen at any part of sleep, and even when you fall asleep and when, when you're waking up. So now we are thinking that a third of our life is spent dreaming.
- MRMel Robbins
Wow.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
That sleep and dream phase of our day and of our whole lifespan is something that we should cherish, that we can access, that we can influence, and it's our own personal therapist, if you will, in some ways. So that's the biggest goal that I have for today. Dreaming is not an accidental byproduct. It's something essential for the human mind. It's your nightly reset.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay, you've already delivered because I had never thought about the... I've thought about the fact that you spend a third of your life sleeping, right? But I've always thought about it as a reset or rest. The idea that we could crack open a third of our lives and really understand what our brain is doing and what it's trying to tell us, that's pretty cool.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah, and, and it is rest, but it's not inactivity. Your brain is on fire when you sleep. Your body's resting, and I'll explain to you how we have those measurements. But when I saw that, when I was thinking about dreaming and I thought about, "Wait a second, that's not a quiet time in our skulls." Every- we go to bed, we think, "Ah, the computer screen went down."
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Then we wake up, and we hit the keyboard, and now we're awake. No, no, no. It's, it's engaged. Blood is coursing. Electricity's firing. So that means we gotta figure out what, what's going on. It's gotta be essential.
- MRMel Robbins
I would love to hear you talk about how does understanding what you're doing in a third of your life, your dream life, how does it help you take control of your awake life?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
When you realize your dreaming brain is working with your imagination, your life experiences, your memories-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... that any glimpse you have of that is a portal to your life. It's a portal to what you're living but from a different perspective, from the dreaming brain perspective, which is much more imaginative, much more sexual, much more emotional, and that's digestive- digesting, processing, and delivering the same, uh, readout on the experiences you had during the waking day, where your brain is a little bit different. And so you have two windows to your own experiences. And when you catch a little flare of a dream in the morning, not all dreams, but some dreams, I think they invite a process of reflection-
- 6:40 – 8:59
Why You Forget Your Dreams After Waking Up
- MRMel Robbins
wanna address up front, because we asked our global audience about dreams, and 26% of people said either, "Well, I don't dream," or, "I don't remember my dreams." And if you're somebody who doesn't remember your dreams or doesn't think you dream, I'd love to have you speak directly to that person and tell them what is possible for them based on what you're about to teach us.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah, I mean, if you don't remember your dreams, uh, this episode is especially for you. That's how I feel, because the practical and simple answer is when the London publishing house was working on this book, a lot of them came in when they were editing saying, "I'm dreaming a lot more or remembering my dreams a lot more." So one, dreaming and remembering dreams can be cultivated. Two, you may not remember your dreams now, but you remember nightmares when you were a kid.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
And I can tell you after having taken care of 15,000 patients that at the end of life, dreams will return for you.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So right now you may not have dream recall, but it can be cultivated, and it's a r- it's there for you, it's just not the window in your life journey to where it's a prominent feature, but I think it can be.
- MRMel Robbins
I was talking to a friend this weekend and she a- she adamantly said, "I don't dream." And I said, "I don't think that's true." Is it true that people don't dream?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Well, if you have people, so again, I'm gonna try to explain the science.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
People who remember the dreams and people who don't remember the dreams, if you put those electrical stickers and record the electricity, it's firing on both of them. So that suggests that the dreaming process is happening, it's just a matter of recall. But that, that nightly dreaming process happens for all humans all the time. It's so important. It makes us sleep, it makes us, it exposes us to threat, and then it safely, when our bodies are paralyzed, you know, we wild out. We do things we couldn't imagine. We do things we wouldn't dare.
- MRMel Robbins
Like what?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Well, I mean, all the thing- we fly, we fall, we run from monsters, we get into awkward social situations. Like, that's not stuff we would choose to do during the day, but it seems to n- be liberated at night. And so that might suggest a little bit about why we dream.
- MRMel Robbins
What is your opinion on why we actually dream?
- 8:59 – 13:05
Why We Dream: The Science of Dreams
- MRMel Robbins
Like, what do you think the purpose of it is?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Neurons that you don't use will be, will wither-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... because they're so metabolically demanding.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
I believe, and what the, some of the exotic scans are showing, is that emotion, creativity, sexuality, um, imagination, these regions that we don't fully use during the day, it's like high-intensity training. They're, they're liberated, rehearsed, kept warm when we dream, so they're accessible for us during the day when we face our challenges. Because that's the p- those are the parts of the brain that are ramping up. There's no on or off. They're ramping up, and during the day, they ramp down, and the executive network of these regions and our, the CEO of our brain has to put it all together to get on the tube, to get on the subway, to get the kids to school. But at night, those neurons that we don't use during the day, those concepts we don't use during the day, if we don't rehearse them, we don't keep them activated in some way-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... warmed up, they may not be accessible for us later in our life as individuals or even as species.
- MRMel Robbins
How, uh, do you know when a dream does mean something versus when your mind is just doing something?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
There are five sort of categories of dreams. There's the obvious dream. You have anxiety about giving a talk.
- MRMel Robbins
Mm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
You show up, you're naked at the dais or whatever. That's just your day, day anxiety rolling right into your, your dream anxiety. Then there are two types of what they call genre dreams. End of life, um, so you're at the, you're at the end of life, and they tend to be of reconciliation-
- MRMel Robbins
Mm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... not of doom. And then pregnancy dreams rep- in these surveys and questionnaires, uh, pregnant women report certain patterns of dreams about names, about rolling over in bed, and these sort of things. And then there's, like, dreams that are, like, you know, just random thoughts. They're not gonna, they don't need to be, uh, deciphered or even reflected upon because they, they're not attached, uh, to anything deeply emotional or deeply visual. Then the last one that I think is the dream to reflect upon. So-
- MRMel Robbins
And what's that one?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
And that's the one that has a strong emotional imprint and a strong central image. And so if, if you have the opportunity to wake up a little slower or you've had a dream with strong emotional imprint, try to hold on to what that emotion is. And if, if it's got a strong visual image, that's the one that I think is the portal to how you're doing, how you're reflecting upon life, how you're processing things.
- MRMel Robbins
Can you give me an example or a couple examples of what that might look like?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
For example, there were reports of Vietnam veterans, when they're going through a divorce, they would have their war dreams return.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
And so it's, it's metaphorical, um, and they would be emotional and visual. Um, I was in a difficult relationship, and the, uh, interaction was always in this, like, like an elevator falling- It's like a normal conversation, but they're just, [gasps] the emotion is just that, the butterflies, you know. It seems like it's casual. Um, and then as, as that relationship improved, the- there wasn't that- that dropping, uh, that crashing elevator sort of feeling. So, and whether that gave me an answer, I don't, I don't think it was about getting an answer, it's about reflecting, looking backward, and engaging the dream thoughts that you've had. That is a portal to your brain, uh, that only dreaming can provide, because it's a lens that's emotional and visual, uh, and imaginative. So to me, it's an insight to myself, and then I have to try to put it together with what's happening in real life and what's happening in my dream life.
- MRMel Robbins
What are the
- 13:05 – 23:05
The 4 Stages of Sleep Explained
- MRMel Robbins
phases of sleep that dreams happen in? Can you, like, teach us about that?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
I have some blocks here-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes, yes
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... that your team set up. So the first one, when you fall asleep, sleep entry is N1.
- MRMel Robbins
So sleep entry is N1. How long does that last?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Well, it's variable. Uh, the- the time that's most fixed is this thing we're gonna get to called, you know, rapid eye movement.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
But it's longer in the beginning. Then it goes to N2, which is deeper into sleep.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
These are... Then it goes to N3. And the thought was that dreams only happen occasionally in these deeper sleep phases.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
And that most of the dreaming happens in REM sleep. And REM-
- MRMel Robbins
Okay
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... rapid eye movement is when, when your eyes are wigging out behind your eyelids. It's not that the eyes are doing anything, it's just that w- when you're in that brain mode, that's wh- how your eyes behave. And this, this was thought to be where you have the wildest dreams. What we-
- MRMel Robbins
In REM.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
In REM, and REM increases as you go deeper into the night. So the thought is that dreaming is most vivid closest to when you're waking up.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
But that's not what we're seeing now.
- MRMel Robbins
Oh, wow.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
We're seeing that dreams, when you wake people up, can happen when you're falling asleep, through the entire night, and when you're waking up. So I think the big answer here is dreams can happen at any time when you're asleep, even during sleep entry and during sleep exit.
- MRMel Robbins
I love the blocks, and what I love about the blocks is that it, yes, shows us the different phases of sleeping, but it also kind of visually shows us that dreams are happening-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
All the way through
- MRMel Robbins
... from the very beginning all the way through.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
That is the current understanding, and I believe it.
- MRMel Robbins
It's super helpful to visualize it. Um, so will you describe for the person, uh, that's listening or watching, how do you study dreams? How do you know that people have this electrical activity and that these parts of the brains are awake and working in all the phases of sleep?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
A lot of ways.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So one, one way to study dreams is to wake people up, so in sleep labs. And some families have had their children, uh, participate over decades.
- MRMel Robbins
No kidding.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah, so you get, so you get these longitudinal studies where when they're kids, they are- are woken up, and then when they're teenagers, and then when they're adults. And so you can see how dreams happen throughout their life.
- 23:05 – 29:32
Can Dreams Reveal Health Problems?
- MRMel Robbins
Uh, Dr. Jandial, how can dreams help us predict the future, especially around your health?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
There is an example we'll get into. It's, uh, it's a little bit nuanced, and that has to do with when men in their 50s develop Parkinson's disease, and the brain withers, 90 something percent, which in medical terms is [laughs] almost 100, if, 15 years before, their dreaming pattern changes.
- MRMel Robbins
Really?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah. And so everybody can look this up. It's called REM behavior disorder. You can look it up on Scientific American. So in that one way, REM behavior disorder, when the brain withers, its earliest warning sign was a change in dreaming 15 years prior, where they act out their dreams. So that's, that's one example. The other is that when o- in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and when, when the brain decays and that sort of thing, uh, people's dreams change. They start to talk more about animals, and it's not their pets. It's beasts and things like that. These are reports. And that almost mirrors when you ask children, uh, when they're four, five, six, they'll mention animals, but it's not really Fido or their puppy or their... And so in some ways, it almost feels like the brain is developing, and when, at the end of life, when it decays, it returns to its sort of immature, I mean, biologically immature features.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So the dreaming pattern changes as we get these neurodegenerative changes. That's number two. And then, and then number three is that some of my patients, um- You know, they, you can't prove that it's... That maybe they're looking backwards, but they say if they have breast... I take care of breast cancer patients when the cancer spreads to the brain. They've mentioned that, "I've, I had a dream about my body. I had a dream about my breast. I had a dream about something physically wrong with me." And I don't see too many having that dream and coming in and getting checked out, right? It's not forward. But when they come in, and part of their journey's of having, how did, how did you get diagnosed? How, how did it happen for you? You know, that, the, in their story, they will wa- they're called warning dreams, they will mention, "But you know what's interesting is that I had this feeling in the past, I had this dream in the past."
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So I can't prove that the dream could have given them an early window and early detection. So those warning dreams, that's, those are the three way, three buckets I would say is to think about dreams and health.
- MRMel Robbins
Wow. Dr. Jandial, how can dreams help you process trauma or traumatic experiences?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Uh, uh, an idea is that a dream is your nocturnal therapist. It, uh, it helps you digest difficult things. But we have nightmares, and we have PTSD and flashbacks, so-
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... I mean, I just wanna say is the, I'm not saying no. I would just say let your dreaming brain have as wide of a range of, uh, thoughts and experiences that we, what our waking brain. There's no perfect thought. There's no healthy thought or bad thought. I mean, there, you know, we're, we have a lot of things going on when we're awake. We have a lot of things going on when we're dreaming. So when you wake people up, uh, in the fifth, sixth, seventh hour, they tend to have a little bit more positive emotional skewing and regulation.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So is that what dreams are doing? Maybe. At the same time, dreams with flashbacks and PTSD can keep your trauma alive. So it's, there's no simple answer for that. Um, and PTSD can bring back nightmares, and then it's just as fascinating, and part, one of the treatments of nightmares is to rescript the story with a journal before you go to bed. Think about how powerful that is. The power of suggestion is so powerful, and this is, I'm a neuros- I mean, I use knives and drills and chisels. I'm a physical, practical person, that the power of suggestion, the greatest example is that a nightmare, nightmare disorder, y- the, the treatment, uh, people can look it up, imagery rehearsal therapy, IRT.
- MRMel Robbins
What does that mean?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
It, it means before you go to bed, you write a happier, a better, a more kind ending to the nightmare that's torturing you, the recurrent nightmare that's torturing you, is to journal the night before. And then in your nightmares, uh, the ending tends of not being so macabre and dangerous and difficult.
- MRMel Robbins
Why do you think that it works?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Our, uh, greatest evolutionary adaptation is that we're storytellers. The tuft of neurons that are the newest, not the reptilian brain behind our throat or the limbic structures, the emotional brain, which are essential, you can't have thought without emotion, but the, I think the newest part of our brain is this area that if we injure it in surgery, not an oops moment, but like a risk of the, the surgery built in, or a tumor's there, or an injury's there-
- MRMel Robbins
Yep
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... people have a hard time creating a, a narrative about their life. And they have a hard time finding meaning because they can't sort of frame it the right way. So I think imagery rehearsal therapy works on nightmares because when people are going through a difficult time, they have to really tell themselves a different story about-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... their own life. That's my opinion, and I think there's some pieces that are suggestive of that.
- MRMel Robbins
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- 29:32 – 33:07
Are Dreams Random or Is Your Brain Trying to Tell You Something?
- MRMel Robbins
I'd love to have you talk about the piece that dreams are random or not.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
So are your dreams random, or are they on purpose?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
The dreams are not completely random, because you can go to the bathroom and wake up, and you, you can slip back into your dream. You can have recurrent nightmares. You can electrically stimulate the surface of the brain and have, uh, an old nightmare pop up in the operating room. But, but more, just, just, m- like when I was talking to my sons, I was like, "Almost everybody had nightmares a couple of thousand years ago. Almost everybody had erotic dreams a couple of thousand years ago. About two-thirds of people are falling or flying. About one-third have teeth falling out." N- not right now, but before TVs, before the horse and buggy [laughs] be, like before fire, our ancestors. So there's a similar pattern of dreaming that's built in, despite how much our world has changed.
- MRMel Robbins
Huh.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
That's the simplest way for me to say that that design is built in. Um, and so dreams are happening to us, but we're also feeding the content of the dreams. That's not unlike our waking brain. We're navigating life. We're outward. And we're, we have our imagination and we have what's happening outside of us. When you fall asleep, it's the memories you've stored and the imagination you have, plus some ancestral patterns of dreaming that we're inheriting, much like you could inherit mental health issues or somebody's better at math. We're inheriting, 'cause there's no other way that surveys from Europe would still be... They're still talking about falling and dreaming, about two-thirds of the people, like hundreds of years ago, as we are now with electric cars. There are some rules and boundaries to dreaming, no matter how wild it feels for us individually.
- MRMel Robbins
Dr. Jandial, what are the rules and boundaries?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Well, the one that I can tell you for sure is we rarely do math. Like, if you go back four, five, six, seven-
- MRMel Robbins
Wait, do math?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Math. Like, math d- Now, somebody's gonna write in, and I, I'm not saying 100%, but calculation is not really done. So all the scientists that had creative ideas, they're visual, like the snake eating its tail or the chemistry chart. So now, just stay with me, this is very important. Calculation and math is very rare in dreams, and the, the, the part of the brain that is dampened when we dream, the executive network, is the exact area that's done for raw processing power and calculation. And that was the thing that made me go, even if that's the only thing I can say, that neuroscience can explain why we, why most people, not everybody, why, why in the dream reports math is very, very, very rarely-
- MRMel Robbins
Huh
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... is, is very rarely done, and that fits the heat map where the executive network, it's a specific area called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. But more importantly, if you have a nail gun injury in that area, people struggle with math, and that, that gets cooler in sleeping and dreaming, and that fits why very few people, over thousands and thousands of dream reports, uh, don't really talk about math. So even if it's that one example, it's the beginning of connecting science and dreaming and leaving people more, more interested in it, not less.
- MRMel Robbins
Well, it makes a lot of sense, because you gave us a fairly, a simple framework that
- 33:07 – 41:26
The Most Common Dreams and What They Really Mean
- MRMel Robbins
I can certainly grasp, and I'm sure as you're listening you can grasp, that there's a difference between the waking brain-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... where the executive network is really firing more-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... versus the imagination network and the limbic system, which overrides creativity, your sexual life, emotions.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And you've already taught us that you're just as active in your brain when you're awake as when you're asleep and dreaming.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Right. Well, that, well, that-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah, it makes perfect, and I'm sure it makes perfect sense to you that, wow, well, first of all, I didn't realize that my brain was as active-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
[laughs] Yeah
- MRMel Robbins
... when I'm sleeping as it is when I'm awake. To really understand that your mind is not randomly grabbing things, it's sorting through experiences that are sexual, emotional, creative, and that one detail about math and it not being reported in most people's dreams through the history of studying this, really, like, if you're paying attention, proves that the, the executive functioning of your brain is like, "Okay, we're a little dialed down right now." What are the most common dreams that people have?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Everybody's had a nightmare. It's a universal dream. That's, so why do we all... It's a universal dream, since recorded history, um, that, you know, you have consistently falling and flying-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... being re- in dream reports. 60, 50, 70, 2/3 of people say, "Yeah, I've had dreams about falling. Yeah, I've had dreams about flying." People who have never fallen [laughs] and peop- and before we had airplanes. Like, why, why is somebody 300 years ago dreaming about flying?
- MRMel Robbins
I don't know. Why? [laughs]
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
I don't know, but the point is, it's a consistent feature. When the same dreams are, are being experienced despite massive changes in our world, to me, it suggests that it's something driven by the brain.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
It's that we don't need to create that dream. The, the, the dreaming process is something that is an, on part autopilot, partly under our control. So nightmares and erotic dreams are essentially universal. Common dreams are falling, flying, and teeth falling out. So those are the sim- the simpler sort of categories of, of dreams.
- MRMel Robbins
Let's talk about each one of those specifically. Dr. Jandial, why do people dream about your teeth falling out? What do you think that means?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Um, there's only been one paper, like, there, you scour PubMed, you know, and there's only been one paper trying to figure out what that means. Historically, that could be a good omen or a bad omen.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
The, the study from Israel just suggested that, um, that it's linked to teeth grinding. It's completely boring analysis of it.
- MRMel Robbins
[laughs]
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
You know, but that's, that's what's out there.
- MRMel Robbins
Huh.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
And I, I don't, I... So some of these things, I have to say I don't know, and I'm not sure anybody can know, so I just wanna be forthright about, I don't know why people have... [laughs] You know, uh, there's no way to know. And the people who have looked at it, it correlates a little bit more with teeth grinders.
- MRMel Robbins
Interesting. Why do you think people dream about their teeth falling out?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
I, I don't know. What's more interesting to me is that, why were people dreaming about that, you know, few, like, 100, 200 years ago and still now? Bad dental hygiene, good dental hygiene, consistent pattern of, uh, uh, of, of, of dream reports on that.
- MRMel Robbins
Huh. And what does dreaming about being chased or falling mean?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So there are some theories, some ideas around this, that maybe being chased and falling was sort of a threat rehearsal. So somebody a while back said, "If we're good at running from a woolly mammoth or, you know, uh, in our dreams, or if we're- We realize falling is a scary thing, maybe we're less likely to approach the edge of the cliff. I like the ideas. There's no way to necessarily, um, prove that, but also again, before flight, we, people, our ancestors with torches, uh, likely were dreaming of, uh, falling and being chased because as soon as you start getting documented dream reports, it's a consistent feature over the last 500,000 years.
- 41:26 – 44:47
What Recurring Nightmares May Be Telling You
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
If you're in a bad relationship and you're cheating in your dreams, that thing, that one, that one might be something to unpack. But if you're in a healthy relationship, infidelity is just a part of the design. Um, and then-
- MRMel Robbins
Of dreaming.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah. It, at least from the reports-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... that's what's, that's what's, that's what's happening. I don't think it means anything at all.
- MRMel Robbins
Do reoccurring dreams hold more significance?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Not sure, but they speak to dreams having their own memory system of sorts-
- MRMel Robbins
Huh
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... um, that, that dreams are not random if you can have it again. Now, recurring dreams tend to be nightmares, um, and that's different than flashbacks and PTSD.
- MRMel Robbins
Now, how do you define a nightmare?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Oh, a good one. So nightmare's not a bad dream. Uh, by definition, the, globally, it's terrifying. It's, and it's gotta wake you up. It's gotta snap you out of it. So when people talk about dream recall, nightmares have 100% dream recall.
- MRMel Robbins
I, uh, you mentioned earlier that nightmares begin in children around age five. What else can you tell us about nightmares? Like, why do we have them?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
I think we have to look at nightmares in two ways. The night- pediatric nightmares. Nightmares in children are universal. They don't lead to nightmare disorder, and they ar- they arrive around four, five, six, no matter how gentle a childhood. That's a, that's a cognitive maturation that's built in. But they don't g- really get nightmare disorders. They don't wake up the next day and say, "Oh, I can't cope with what happened like n- last night because of my nightmares." In adults, it's very different. The occasional nightmare, insignificant, but the return of nightmares or the, what, what we call progressive, new onset and progressive- Out of the blue and worse every few weeks
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
That's a, that's linked, uh, to suicide, depression, all those things. But also, it's linked to people who later on develop mental health issues. And so again, the return of nightmares when you feel like you're coping well, it may be your signal, your warning signal. Take a, take a deeper look or a different look. It's not that you're not trying hard to get it right during the day. Take a different look at what's going on in your life if you have, that aren't precipitated by trauma, nightmares return, uh, as a feature in your adult life
- MRMel Robbins
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- 44:47 – 53:57
How to Train Yourself to Remember Your Dreams
- MRMel Robbins
I really wanna talk about this term that you have been using called dream recall-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... and being able to remember your dreams. Because if we can remember 'em, then it seems like that's the portal, if you will, to deeper self-awareness, to really understanding more from your dream life that informs your awake life. Can you train yourself to remember your dreams?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Dream recall can be improved by some basic steps. One is, uh, slowing down the sudden waking up.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So that takes a lot of luxury. It takes a bed. It takes not setting an alarm. It takes not having your, your, your, your dog or your kids jump on your bed. But what you're trying to do is not abruptly have the executive network come back online-
- MRMel Robbins
Okay
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... because it will. It'll fire up adrenaline. It'll pop up much like on an alarm, or if there's a s- fire, you, you will pop out of your sleep and dreams for an alarm and the smell of smoke. So if you have a slower 5 to 10-minute arousal, if you d- try to lay flat and, and think as you're waking up rather than physically move, some yoga techniques have been talking about that for centuries.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So you wanna, you wanna cultivate your habits and techniques and rituals around sleep entry and, uh, sleep exit
- MRMel Robbins
So let's talk about sleep entry. What are the specific habits that you recommend we do for sleep entry to help build the skill of dream recall?
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Okay. Uh, one is the power of suggestion-
- MRMel Robbins
Okay
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... where you say to yourself, "I will remember. I will, I will dream, and I will remember my dreams." It's almost like a mantra.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay. I will dream, and I will remember my dreams.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Number two is to sort of influence the content of your dream by what you're looking at the last 5, 10 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I fall asleep with my laptop on with Netflix. I mean-
- MRMel Robbins
Wait
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... um-
- MRMel Robbins
Don't be saying that right now. We don't wanna hear that
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
[laughs]
- MRMel Robbins
We want, we wanna hear-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
We wanna hear how it can work
- MRMel Robbins
... that you have the best possible g- well, it's true
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Ritual
- MRMel Robbins
I've, I've watched terro- like a scary movie, and then I have a nightmare.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah
- MRMel Robbins
Wonder why. Now I know.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
It, well, and it's, it, it's not always exact. I, I don't want people to think that it's, it's linear, but that window is a time to influence the content of your dream as well as the recall
- MRMel Robbins
So that 5 to 10 minutes before you fall asleep-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
You-
- 53:57 – 1:07:29
Lucid Dreaming: How to Control Your Dreams While Sleeping
- MRMel Robbins
enough to know I just had a thought, but it's slipping away, and I'm lucid enough to say to myself, "I better write that down," but then I'm like, [snorts] and I don't write it down, and I typically don't remember it.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
And on the other end, you're, "What was that thought? Was that, oh, I'm on social media."
- MRMel Robbins
Now I'm not.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Yes. And so I-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
So you're trying to extend those windows-
- MRMel Robbins
Yes
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
... and capture those i- capture that thinking. It's the, it's the thinking that's happening around that time is, is a, is a unique perspective on the same problems, just through different lenses, different brain modes.
- MRMel Robbins
And what I love about how you've unpacked this is, before this conversation, I would have thought about remembering dreams or dream recall as being able to replay almost like a trailer in your mind about what happened. 'Cause, you know, when you have a-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... a crazy dream-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm
- MRMel Robbins
... or a nightmare that you wake up from, you're so startled by it that you're like, "Oh, my God, I had this dream last night," and you give the play-by-play of some of the details. What you're actually, are talking about is more subtle.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
Like, let's lower the bar-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... when we first start doing this because dream recall is really more staying in that state as you're exiting sleep and the imagination network is going a little down-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Mm-hmm
- MRMel Robbins
... and the executive function is, and just see what emotions or even words might-
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Correct
- MRMel Robbins
... flow into the current.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Ideas.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Exactly right.
- MRMel Robbins
Got it.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
It's not a-
- MRMel Robbins
I wouldn't have done this right if I hadn't asked this.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
That's an important clarification.
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- RJDr. Rahul Jandial
Yeah, it's an important clarification. It's not like- It's not like a nightmare where you have, you want a crisp replay of a recent dream
Episode duration: 1:07:31
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Transcript of episode GIGmGupeD_I
