Final answer:
Robert Stickgold's research suggests dreaming is instrumental in memory consolidation, establishing connections between information in memory, and problem-solving. Studies provide evidence that dreaming is an active memory processing time, which has a significant positive impact on cognitive functions and emotional processing.
Step-by-step explanation:
Based on his studies, researcher Robert Stickgold believes that dreaming plays a critical role in memory processing. Specifically, dreaming seems to be involved in testing and establishing relationships between various pieces of information stored within our memory.
The idea is that during REM sleep, the brain is actively organizing and integrating new experiences with established memories, which not only helps in memory consolidation but may also aid in creative problem-solving and emotional processing.
One notable example is the relationship between dream content and daily experiences, such as the work of Rosalind Cartwright, which found that the more women going through a divorce thought about their former spouses during the day, the more those spouses appeared in their dreams.
Moreover, sleep, including periods of dreaming, has been associated with numerous cognitive benefits like enhanced creative thinking, improved language learning, and the ability to make inferential judgments.
Laboratory research, including neuroimaging studies, have started to uncover the neural underpinnings of these processes, offering potential new treatment avenues for disorders such as post-traumatic stress syndrome where maladaptive memory processing is a key issue.