REM sleep serves as a natural therapeutic process that helps to uncouple intense emotions from traumatic experiences.

“And so we're starting to see an organizational logic, which is that a certain component of our sleeping life is acting like therapy. And that's really what REM sleep is about.”

Unprocessed trauma acts as an emotional abscess that must be brought into consciousness and processed to prevent it from damaging one's mental state.

“trauma is so common, and we shove trauma underneath the surface because of the guilt and shame that it generates, and then it stays in us like an abscess and spins off. Symptoms, they could be symptoms of diffidence, they could be symptoms of overusing a substance. They could be symptoms of avoiding”