Biology and Psychology: Sleep and Dreams

The module would synthesise the knowledge of several disciplines about sleep and dreams. Sleep is a multidisciplinary area, therefore, it is an excellent topic to show how the different disciplines complement each other.

Firstly, basic physiology and neuroscience would be taught, where the emphasis would be in how to synthesise information from different levels such as evidence from animal and human studies or cellular or system neuroscience. Then, we would look through the most influential theories of sleep and dreaming. Because this issue is far from being understood, it is an excellent opportunity to show how research progresses. This would require to be able to combine information from psychology and physiology and to understand the pros and cons of the different methodology used. Sleep disorders would be another subtopic, where the importance of evidence-based medicine, pros and cons of diagnostic criteria can be covered. It would create an opportunity to cover the cultural aspects of mental illnesses as well. Finally, the representation of sleep and dreams as well as their disorders in literature and art may be presented.

Course leader

Klára Horváth and Aneta Bernardová

Target group

High school students

Course aim

In the end, students should demonstrate a good understanding of sleep physiology and the most recent theories of sleep functions. They should show sensitivity to the cultural and social aspects of sleep disorders. Students should also understand the importance of evidence based medicine. The most important skills which this module would develop are critical thinking in the interpretation of research findings and the capability to synthesise information from different disciplines.