Better mental performance may only be a nap away

Better mental performance may only be a nap away
By Casey Johnston

Naps are a popular afternoon hobby, and a new study is only going to make them more appealing. A paper published in Current Biology this week describes a study where participants who were able to take naps long enough for dreams to occur were able to perform a previously learned task more quickly than others who had had to stay awake. The dreams sometimes, but didn't always, concern the task at hand—in some cases, the dreams appeared to be an attempt to integrate the maze with older memories.

In the study, 100 participants were asked to learn to navigate a three-dimensional maze on a computer in pursuit of a particular landmark (in this case, a tree). The participants were then split into two groups, with some taking 90-minute naps and the rest staying awake. The participants were retested a few hours later, and those who had taken naps were able to navigate the maze 30 seconds faster on average, with some completing it as much as a minute and a half faster.

In verbal reports, people who napped reported dreams that involved the maze to various degrees. Some dreamed of the physical maze but added familiar landmarks, such as people or places; others didn't see the maze but dreamed of the music that played during the training; a few had tangentially related dreams, like one who navigated bat caves; some didn't remember any maze-related dreams at all.

The paper's authors note that there was no correlation between dream relevance, and that just having enough time to dream significantly improved performance. However, the length of time needed to achieve a dreaming state may be prohibitively long: while 20-minute "power naps" have become a somewhat acceptable habit, you boss may be somewhat less inclined to let you curl up under your desk for an hour and a half in the afternoon.