Michio Kaku on the Science of Dreams | Big Think
Michio Kaku on the Science of Dreams
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Michio Kaku describes how our prefrontal cortex disengages as we dream, thus suppressing the fact-checking component of our consciousness.
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MICHIO KAKU:
Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).
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TRANSCRIPT:
Michio Kaku: There’s a whole lore about dreaming. In fact, Sigmund Freud wrote a book called The Interpretation of Dreams which many people think is the foundation of psychoanalysis. Well scientists now have looked at Freudian psychology and the brain using all these modern techniques. And first of all we realize that perhaps Sigmund Freud wasn’t totally wrong. There are many textbooks which simply dismiss Freudian psychology calling it nuts. That is nothing but the sexual fantasies of a repressed Venetian scientist of the last century. But now we realize there’s more to it. First of all the unconscious mind. We can actually see the brain in motion and we realize that much of the activity is totally unconscious. Just like what Freud predicted.
And Freud also said there is the ego, the id and the superego, that we are in a constant battle with our desires and our conscious. And we see that now with brain scans. The ego is basically your prefrontal cortex. That is who you are. When you wonder where am I anyway. Well, you’re right there. You are sitting right behind your forehead. And then your desires. We see the pleasure center right there at the center of the brain. That is the libido. We see where the pleasure center is located. And then your conscience is right behind your eyes. The orbital frontal cortex right behind your eyes is where your conscience is. And so we actually see that in motion.
If you were to see a chocolate cake you would see these three parts of the brain going zippity back and forth like a ping pong ball because you’re constantly debating the pleasure of eating a chocolate cake versus how fat you’re gonna become and all the sugar and the calories that you don’t really need. So we see the beginnings of Freudian psychology coming out of brain scans. And now dreams. Freud had a whole collection of interpretation of dreams. Scientists have looked at and said, “Nonsense.” Now we understand the physiology of the dreaming process. And we realize that it comes at the back of the brain, the very primitive part of the brain and that certain parts of the brain are shut off when you dream. First of all your prefrontal cortex is basically shut off, it’s quiet. Your orbital frontal cortex that is your conscience is also shut off. But that part of the brain is your fact checker. The part of the brain that said, “Hmmm, that’s not right. Something’s wrong” is right behind your eyes. That’s shut off.
What is active when you dream is your amygdala. Now what does your amygdala govern? Fear and emotions. And so right then you know that when you dream the active part of the brain is not the fact checker, not the rational brain – it’s the emotional brain, the fearful brain that is active when you dream. And then there’s some superstition called lucid dreaming where you can actually control the direction of the dream. Well that superstition last year became science fact. At the Max Planck Institute in Germany they were able to show once and for all that lucid dreaming is testable, reproducible – it is real. And here’s how they did it. They took a person who was about to go to sleep and told them that when you dream clench your right fist and then clench your left fist. Now when you dream you are paralyzed. You cannot move when you dream.
Otherwise we’d be able to carry out all sorts of horrible things and destroy ourselves. So we are paralyzed when we dream. But when this person went into a dream state you can clearly see that the brain initiated orders to clench your right fist and your left fist. In other words, …
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@bigthink
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
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@SillyBliss-t5p
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
some good info here, but science has disproved the idea that conscience is located in the orbital frontal cortex but rather distributed overall a couple networks
@cjr1881
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
No, we can't do any of that.
@justdev8965
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I've never gotten fat because of eating cake. I can't get fat even I wanted to, no matter how much or what I eat. Should I be studied? 😂
@kenowens9021
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Since our thinking processes are resting while we sleep, I can only think that it is our spirit that travels in the spirit world that we call dreaming. So, it is not scientific or psychological. It is spirit world. I'm still trying to figure out who is directing the kinds of dreams I get.
@abishekyadav7514
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I really wanna research in drama and know it's psychological.imagine if some could control their dreams ,then that can see all the good thing that they wanted to in reality .it would be like a real experience
@MichaelRamírez-s4y
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I was alive for 105 years in my dreams . F that. Too real . I knew it was a dream but god that was frightening for years
@vic826orrerob
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
What’s the purpose of lucid dreaming for scientific purposes?
@maiapicco2929
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
nunca habría pensado en la psicología freudiana asi
@kate_and_tarot
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Many times in my dreams I jumped up and flew away from danger. I initiated this action as if I was sure that I can fly in my dreams.
@ggsoamedia
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Can anyone explain why what we dream sometimes happened in real life? For example, incubus and succubus dream is common among so many
@prestonmack320
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
He's by far my favorite scientist
@markwrede8878
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Viennese, not Venetian. A world of difference. Also, recommend Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge.
@malabuha
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I often experience that i fall asleep and dreams begin, images and events but I am still awake…. I am watching, i am there, and the clarity of my perception is perfect. It feels more real than wakeful state of everyday life. It's a very pleasant experience. Eventually I lose that awareness. And it's spontaneous, i only have to be interested in the pictures and it happens
@ElboxD
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
While Michio Kaku's statements contain elements of established science, particularly regarding the neuroscience of dreaming and lucid dreaming, his direct mapping of Freudian concepts onto specific brain regions and the idea of recording dreams are oversimplified or speculative. Neuroscience has advanced our understanding of the brain and its relation to concepts like the unconscious, but it does not directly validate all of Freud's theories.
@WSOJ3
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Oh yeah I can definitely relate to this. When ever I had a nightmare where I cannot win, I always think that’s unfair and tell my brain to give me some superpowers to override the nightmare scenario that I was in. So basically I can activate my control how the nightmare plays out. This didn’t once or twice, but virtually every single time I’m dreaming a nightmare..
@SidharthBhettan
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
We cannot construct dreams..why because the illusion of me..somebody else doing it who the dark energy means the system..quantum computer is not working..nothing is working the way it seems..we are not real..when we are not real how can we construt a dream..why mr kaku says we are in a nutshell..because universe is not real..we are on a flat earth closed..from all sides..people call it matrix..or a simulation..but we are not controling that simulation..
@sarahbrownell25
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I dream every night remember all of them. I can fall asleep for 20 min nap and have a full dream. I def can lucid dream. After watching this realize I don’t smell things in dream but can taste ( which is related to smell haha) touch speak and feel. So trying to make myself smell In my dreams . Last night I had a dream walking through a path with tons of flowers. Still couldn’t smell them! Going keep trying at least got it in my head !
@zAZ7458
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Is it possible to provoke happy dreams by audio electric device that emits faint whispers of different voices and certain studied sounds like drops of water..
@stefaniac2095
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I have been remembering my dreams every day since I was a child (I am in my late 40s) and I have been writing them down since childhood. I wake up tired every day because I am in amazing adventures in my dreams. They are often imbued with the classics (being late, being chased, being confused on what to do albeit feeling great pressure to complete a goal), but also filled with creative endeavor and solutions to my artistic hobbies or work. I did a sleep study but they only checked for sleep apnea, which resulted negative. I also dream of dead people giving me messages to their loved ones, and I dreamt of the future in a few occasions. And I talk and sleepwalk. Just to complete the picture. I have never met anyone like me.
@FloridaGoon187
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
The most bad ass lucid dream I ever had was when I could dissolve into walls and interior houses at any moment that I wanted, like a ghost, I could fade under the house and still see what’s up there, I could fly and jump super high on top of trees. The only thing I didn’t like was I was confronted by some witch in the dream, I had to fight her or something, kinda weird and scary.
@brendafulmernickel1218
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Going out of one’s body in to another’s home attempting to alter Freewill is definitely unethical and as Dammed by God as you can get! The United States is Dammed for allowing these Satanists to plunder through peoples homes and do brain alterations on children, and adults, in other, THE INNOCENT! Probably even genocide, abortions, even murder for life insurance policies!!
@0011clem
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Along time ago I had a dream and after a while I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. Goin back to bed I feel asleep and my dream continued on from where it left off. after another few hours or so , I awake again and went to the bathroom , only to go back to bed and continue on with the same dream . so I actually had a long running dream in 3 parts over about 6 or 7 hours. To this day I have never been able to do that again.
@ericphantri96734
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I think the ear condition body and vision condition the inspiration aspiration or will and human discipline on top of head can create or condition our wish of personal wish or goal but food and beverage , and environmental noise or emotional feeling combination of light and sound all add on dream and reason for color or not color dream depending on the angle of eye during sleep is closed so no color but if in the room had large screen tv may be program to had pregnant or not no need men
@ericphantri96734
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Food and television
@ddvantandar-kw7kl
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Where are you from
@130675dana
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
@ZahraLowzley
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
As the creator of a model of mathematics which can be utilised when dreaming so as to analyse anamorphic differentiation. Much like the rationalisation which accompany cognitive offloading , this cartoon of the brain "lighting up" is a product of cognitive lethargy. I no longer converse with people who when asked to describe the agency articulation which prompts motor activation or medical declaration respond with "it just happens" or those who claim to "think in words" , as neither are sentient.
@magmalefilme
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
We just did it😅
@pahari75
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
My experience with dreams-especially lately after losing my father and seeing him in my dreams- is that dreams are actually a portal to parallel universes. That's why just before dreams are over and we become conscious of it being a dream, it seems like an out of body experience as our consciousness enters back to our sleeping bodies. Also, have you ever realized that people you see in your dreams from our present and past lives dont behave as if they are in a dream? So yes we enter for few seconds/minutes into that parallel dimension!
@k-ray6989
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
as a kid I could lucid dream regularly..i couldnt start the dream how i wanted..but once i was able to realize I was dreaming then I could take control and do whatever I wanted in the world i started in
@leslierivera-cruz1235
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
What do you mean that we now know this I’ve been lucid dreaming since I was a kid and I also used to sleepwalk so not all of that is true for me it’s just kind of strange because I still lucid dream at least 2 to 3 times a week And they’re just now figuring out that this is a real that’s crazy
@solomonbalogun6545
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Amygdala is what controls the dream.
The pre frontal cortex is sure down
@thomaslodger7675
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
"The conscious is right behind your eyes"
"ahem, you're wrong mate." -David Chalmers
@larisforschenguzman5357
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Love you my brother 🙏
@larisforschenguzman5357
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I hope I get my lotto ticket back
@ajhillenbrand7817
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Not sure what this lucid dreaming is but when I do have dreams I'm always able to change the course of my dreams before I wake up. Sometimes I'll try to wake up and move around but I'm stuck laying down not able to move for a minute but have forced through it a few times also. It feels really weird.
@budreeferson
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I love this man
@lainhikaru5657
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
I am no scientist but I have observed I have 3 types of dreams.
1 – Lust dreams:Mostly sexual but not necessarilly aways explicit,but which I know are the things I desire most.
2 – confort dreams:Dreams about doing things I did as a kid/teen,those range from playing the old ps1 with my cousin,going fishing with my dad or atbschool days.
3 – Nightmares: Being stabbed,insects,hunted by monsters,falling from high places,drowning… yeah there is a lot.
@ericparker163
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
"We can now confirm that the texts that have been written for 2000 years are actually valid."…….soooo um thank you modern science?
@Orokusaki1986
January 8, 2026 at 2:02 am
Also, I have woke up kicking from dreams where I was kicking someone.. sent my laptop flying, one day.
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