World Sleep Day at NaPS

Celebrating World Sleep Day with the NaPS Lab: Exploring the Science and Art of Sleep

Stalls at World Sleep Day, CUBRIC

On March 14th 2025, the NaPS (Neuroscience and Psychology of Sleep) Lab opened its doors to the public, fellow researchers, and students for a full day dedicated to sleep and mental health.

In celebration of World Sleep Day, we hosted a vibrant event packed with talks, workshops, and interactive stalls all centred around sleep health, its impact on our mental and emotional wellbeing, and the fascinating science behind what happens when we close our eyes.

Manipulating Sleep for Mental Health

Our current research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is looking to use Targeted Memory Reactivation (TMR), as a form of overnight therapy. TMR uses sounds during sleep to bias consolidation of memories learnt during wake.

NaPS PhD researchers, Megan Wadon and Marta Wawrzuta, shared insights from their current projects exploring TMR and its role in emotional memory. Their work sheds light on how certain memories can be strengthened or altered during sleep. Together, they introduced the different sleep stages, (N1, N2, N3 and REM), how we can measure them in the lab using polysomnography (PSG) and how TMR can be applied to these different stages. Linking to our current work on TMR in mental health, Megan discussed how sleep architecture in people with depression differs from typical healthy sleep. In healthy sleep, we go through cycles of sleep stages from light sleep to deep sleep to REM and we cycle through this 4-5 times a night. In people with depression, their sleep struggles to enter deep sleep and cycle in the same way . In Megan's study, TMR of happy autobiographical memories is used in deep sleep (N3) to boost mood. Conversely, linking more with PTSD-like symptoms, Marta's work focuses on reducing the negative emotional load of traumatic memories by using TMR in REM sleep. You can watch their talks here.

Hapus, Public Health Wales stall at World Sleep Day, CUBRIC

We were grateful to be joined by Amy and Nia from Hapus, a Public Health Wales initiative focused on wellbeing and emotional resilience. Their presence highlighted the growing interest in how good sleep supports better mental health outcomes, and how community initiatives can encourage better sleep habits for all.

Check out Hapus for resources on how to look after your mental wellbeing

Dreaming - not just night time entertainment

Dream painted by Julia

We were thrilled to welcome Professor Mark Blagrove from Swansea University. Mark gave a compelling talk on the evolving science around the function of dreams—posing theories on why we dream and how our dreams might be helping us process emotions and build empathy for one another.

Mark is also one-half of the creative collaboration DreamsID, along with Professor Julia Lockhart. As part of the event, they hosted a live dream workshop where an audience member described a dream in detail to Mark while Julia brought it to life through painting. The dream (see painting, right) depicts a dream of fighting people at a party whilst wearing a red dress and cage-fighting a lion.

Thank you to everyone who came along, asked questions, shared dreams, and helped make the event a success. We’re proud to be part of a growing conversation about sleep health, and we look forward to continuing to explore and share the many mysteries of the sleeping brain.

Stay tuned for more events, and in the meantime, join our ongoing studies as a participants or join the studies ongoing in CUBRIC