Schedule of Events | Search Abstracts | Invited Symposia | Symposia | Poster Sessions | Data Blitz

Sketchpad Series 

Task incorporation into dreams and memory consolidation

Poster Session D - Monday, March 9, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom
Also presenting in Data Blitz Session 3 - Saturday, March 7, 2026, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm PST, Salon E.

Sarah F Schoch¹ (), Somayeh Ataei^2,3, Jialin Zhao⁴, Leila C Salvesen⁵, Michael Schredl⁶, Giulio Bernardi⁵, Nikolai Axmacher³, Björn Rasch⁷, Jennifer Windt⁸, Martin Dresler²; ¹University Children's Hospital Zurich, Switzerland, ²Donders Institute, Nijmegen, Netherlands, ³Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, ⁴LMU, Munich, Germany, ⁵IMT Lucca, Italy, ⁶ZI Mannheim, Germany, ⁷University of Fribourg, Switzerland, ⁸Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Sleep supports episodic memory consolidation, but the role of dreaming in this process remains underexplored. This study examines whether dream incorporation reflects consolidation processes and whether targeted memory reactivation (TMR) modulates such incorporation. A total of 105 healthy young adults (M = 23.79 ± 3.02 years) completed a within-subject sleep study, including one adaptation and two experimental nights and four weeks of dream diaries while wearing a Fitbit. Participants learned 100 (neutral) word–(emotional/neutral) picture pairs in the evening. Memory recall was tested before and after sleep, and again four days later. Sleep was recorded using polysomnography, including a 64-channel EEG. Sleep staging was performed using U-Sleep and verified by a human scorer. During each experimental night, dream reports were collected via up to eight awakenings (four NREM, four REM), and during morning reports. During one of the experimental nights (counterbalanced), TMR was applied by replaying word cues for 15 minutes prior to each awakening. A total of 1,085 lab-based dream reports were collected, along with 2,071 morning and home diary reports. Dream content was rated for task and experiment incorporation by trained raters (all Cohen’s κ > 0.4), supplemented by dictionary-based text analyses. Preliminary findings show that lab-collected dreams exhibit significantly more experiment-related content than home dreams, with similar incorporation rates across NREM and REM awakenings. This Registered Report collected one of the largest datasets to date on dream content and memory, enabling a robust investigation of how dream incorporation relates to targeted and spontaneous memory consolidation.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic