To kickstart season 3 of the Sleep Science Podcast, we have the lab behind the podcast, NaPS Lab, to answer some great sleep-related questions from our listeners. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions!

1. What is lucid dreaming? - Answered by Mo Abdellahi

• Lucid dreaming - Stephen LaBerge, 2009
• Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity 
• Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep 

2. Do dreams do anything for us? - Answered by Kyrillos Meshreky

• The brain as a dream state generator: an activation-synthesis hypothesis of the dream process 
• Converging theories on dreaming
• Predictive coding under the free-energy principle

3. What types of memory does sleep help you consolidate? - Answered by Yan Wang

• The whats and whens of sleep-dependent memory consolidation
• The role of Sleep in declarative memory consolidation - direct evidence by intracranial EEG
• Sleep, Memory, and Plasticity

4. How does sleep change as you age? - Answered by Megan Wadon

• Sleep across the lifespan
• The architecture of early childhood sleep 
• Normal sleep in children and adolescence

5. Why do adolescences sleep longer? - Answered by Martha Nguyen

• National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations
• Sleep in Children and Adolescents with Behavioral and Emotional Disorders
• Sleep quality and adolescent default mode network connectivity 

6. Does the menstrual cycle affect our sleep? - Answered by Marta Wawrzuta

• Changes in sleeping energy metabolism and thermoregulation during menstrual cycle

7. How do the seasons affect our sleep? - Answered by Sophie Smith 

• Circadian entrainment to the Natural Light-Dark cycle across seasons and the weekend
• Seasonality of human sleep: polysomnographic data of a neuropsychiatric sleep clinic

Check out our NaPS website to find out more about the podcast, our research and events.

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