Critical brain characteristics to consider in developing dream and memory theories

Dreaming in sleep must depend on the activity of the brain as does cognition and memory in wakefulness. Yet our understanding of the physiological subtleties of state differences may still be too primitive to guide theories adequately in these areas. One can state nonetheless unequivocally that the brain in REM is poorly equipped to practice for eventualities of wakefulness through dreaming, or for consolidating into memory the complex experiences of that state.[Hobson et al., Nielsen, Solms, Vertes & Eastman, Revonsuo]