CNLM Fellow Dr. Sara Mednick Featured in The Washington Post
FEBRUARY 8, 2025
We are excited to share that CNLM Fellow Dr. Sara Mednick and her research on the role of dreams in emotional processing were featured in The Washington Post. The article highlights how dreams may serve as a “safe space” for working through difficult emotions, with Dr. Mednick explaining that dreaming about a challenging experience can help reduce its emotional intensity over time. Her work continues to shed light on the critical connection between sleep, memory, and emotional well-being.
Read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2025/02/08/dreams-sleep-brain-cognition-anxiety/
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Dr. Sara Mednick is a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine and a Faculty Fellow of the UC Irvine Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. She directs the Sleep and Cognition Lab which investigates how memories are formed, processed, and retained, with the goal of improving cognitive function and understanding impairments due to aging or disease. Her team utilizes electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity during sleep and wake, as well as pharmacology, brain stimulation, and computational modeling to advance sleep and memory research.