6 Aug 2025 ● Human Givens College
Free Online Course: Dreaming, daydreaming and creativity
Ivan Tyrrell's fascinating talk from the HG Diploma throws new light on our evolution as he explains the crucial role of the REM state and much more…
Excellent and very informative , I can't wait to move onto the next course now, so glad I was recommended this site.
— Emma
Very interesting and thought provoking ideas.
— Julia
Subjects covered include:
- The nature of consciousness
- Cave art
- Creativity
- Psychosis and autism
- The origin of civilisations
- The 12,000 year old Gobekli Tepe stone temples
- The importance of REM state research
- How the unconscious mind really works
- Metaphorical pattern- matching
- How dreaming helps us stay effective
- Dreaming and depression
- False memory syndrome
- Why hypnosis can now be viewed as ‘any artificial way of accessing the REM state’
- How to improve psychotherapy outcomes in the modern world
- and much more…
About the course
Once humans started daydreaming they could creatively solve problems in their imagination, ask abstract questions and generate complex language with a past, present and future tense. This had profound implications, not least for our mental health.
This fascinating talk about what followed on from the ‘brain’s big bang’ 40,000 years ago – when our ancestors learned how to consciously access the internal reality theatre of the dreaming brain and ‘daydream’ consciously – was filmed with students on the Human Givens Diploma course.
