About this episode

Katherine Bell interviews Karen Van Kampen about the significance of dreams and their impact on mental health and waking life.

Why do dreams matter, and how can we use them to support waking life? In this episode of The Dream Journal, host Katherine Bell speaks with Canadian author and health journalist Karen Van Kampen about her book The Brain Never Sleeps: Why We Dream and What It Means for Our Health. Together they explore dream science, memory, mental health, dream sharing, nightmare rescripting, dream engineering, lucid dreaming research, and the emerging study of anesthesia dreams as potentially healing experiences. Karen shares how childhood experiences in her father’s sleep lab shaped her fascination with dreaming, why dreams may act like a “highlight reel” of waking concerns, and how practices such as dream journaling, dream salons, and imagery rehearsal therapy can help us engage dreams with curiosity and care. The conversation also looks at cutting-edge research on guiding dreams, communicating with lucid dreamers, and the possibility that anesthesia dreams may help people revisit difficult memories in a calm, transformative state. Why dreams are connected to memory, mental health and waking life How dream sharing builds empathy and new perspectives Imagery rehearsal therapy and practical ways…

People in this episode

Host: Katherine Bell

Guest: Karen Van Kampen

Topics covered

• dream science
• mental health
• nightmares
• lucid dreaming
• anesthesia dreams
• dream journaling

Keywords

• dreams
• nightmares
• mental health
• lucid dreaming
• dream journaling
• anesthesia dreams
• memory

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Brain Never Sleeps: Why We Dream and What It Means for Our Health

More episodes of The Dream Journal

• Is This Yours to Carry? with Linda Schiller · July 20, 2026
• Dreams Helped her Escape a Spiritual Cult with Priya Hutner · July 13, 2026
• Indigenous Dreaming Traditions: Mayan, Huichol, and Toltec Dream Wisdom with Alejandra Perez Regura · July 6, 2026
• Dreams After Coercive Control: Reclaiming Self-Trust with Gerette Buglion · June 29, 2026
• Gayle Delaney on Dream Interviewing, IASD Origins, and Why Sleep Shapes a Better Life · June 15, 2026

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