Sleep, learning, and dreams: Off-line memory reprocessing

Converging evidence and new research methodologies from across the neurosci ences permit the neuroscientific study of the role of steep in off-line mem ory reprocessing, as well as the nature and function of dreaming. Evidence supports a rote for sleep in the consolidation of an array of learning and memory tasks. In addition, new methodologies allow the experimental manipul ation of dream content at steep onset, permitting an objective and scientif ic study of this dream formation and a renewed search for the possible func tions of dreaming and the biological processes subserving it.