Abstract
Dreams are a fascinating world that reflect our cognition and emotions during sleep, but this mental theater is difficult to study, as dream reports obtained upon awakening are often biased by amnesia and reconstruction. We have taken advantage of hybrid states between wakefulness and sleep, including sleep talking, REM sleep behavior disorder, lucid dreaming and hypnagogia, to directly observe mental content during sleep, as a window into the ongoing process, and how it contributes to sleep cognitive functions, including memory consolidation, emotional regulation, threat simulation and creativity.
