Research, interviews, and real stories from the frontier of sleep science.
Understand your sleep. Transform your nights.
Almost everyone has nightmares. For a few percent of adults they come often enough, and weigh heavily enough, to become a condition of their own.
Occasional nightmares are a normal part of sleep. When they return week after week and start to shape your days, they can meet the definition of nightmare disorder. Here is where the line is, who is most affected, and how it shows up in the rest of your sleep.
SleepSafe now runs on Android phones and Wear OS watches. The first version is in a closed test on Google Play, and we are looking for testers.
SleepSafe for Android phones and Wear OS watches is in a closed test on Google Play. Here is what it does, what you need, and how to join the test.
What it's like to love someone who has nightmares.
Most writing about nightmares focuses on the person having them. But there is almost always someone else in the room: a partner, a parent, a sibling. This is for them.
Everyone's sleep has its own rhythm. After a few nights, SleepSafe can tune its detection to yours, on your own iPhone.
No two sleepers look the same to a heart-rate sensor. After about five nights and a few confirmed events, SleepSafe can build a personal setup from your own nights, trained on your iPhone, and it only switches when the new setup does better.
Why we taught SleepSafe to wake you up on purpose, gently, before the terror arrives.
Night terrors run on a clock. A person who has them, child or adult, tends to have them at roughly the same time after falling asleep, night after night. SleepSafe's new scheduled wake-ups use that, quietly tapping the sleeper on the shoulder just before the clock strikes.
A calm, practical walk-through: what to do before bed, what happens while you sleep, and how to read the morning.
Setting up SleepSafe takes a few minutes. Here is how to get a good first night: what you need, how to start monitoring, what your iPhone and Apple Watch do overnight, and how to read and answer the morning report.
For trauma survivors, nighttime can be the hardest part of the day. Here's what's happening in the brain, and what can help.
The hardest part of the day for many trauma survivors isn't waking life. It's falling asleep. Research now shows why PTSD nightmares are so persistent, and what can actually be done about them.
Three ways of listening to a sleeping body, a warm-up that keeps early alarms quiet, and why the questions in the morning matter.
SleepSafe watches for a nightmare in three ways at once: a machine-learning model reading heart rate and movement, a check for sudden heart-rate spikes, and optional sound recognition on your iPhone. Here is how each one works, and where the limits are.
Privacy isn't a feature. It's a promise.
Sleep is one of the most personal things there is. Here is how SleepSafe handles your data, and why you never have to think about it.
The best-studied approach to recurring nightmares happens in daylight, with a pen.
Imagery rehearsal therapy asks you to change a recurring nightmare while you are awake, then rehearse the new version every day. It is the approach the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for nightmare disorder. Here is how it works and what the research shows.
A gentle vibration on your wrist could be the difference between terror and peace
For millions worldwide, bedtime isn't peaceful - it's a nightly confrontation with terror. Now, a small team believes they've found a way to help: an app that watches while you sleep.
They sound alike and both happen in the dark. But they come from different stages of sleep, and they need different kinds of help.
Nightmares and night terrors are often confused, but they come from different stages of sleep, happen at different times of night, and call for different responses. Here is how to tell which one you are dealing with.
The scream, the open eyes, the child who does not seem to know you are there. What actually helps in those minutes, and what helps the nights after.
A night terror can look like someone wide awake and terrified, but the person having it is still asleep. Here is what to do while it happens, what to avoid, and the one technique with real evidence for making night terrors stop.
Expert insights on sleep science, nightmare research, and wellness delivered to your inbox.
Join the community. Unsubscribe anytime. No spam, ever.
We're always looking for stories from people whose lives have been changed by better sleep. Your experience could help others.
Share your story