The journal
Dreams, sleep, and what happens at night
Why we dream, how to remember your nights, what nightmares say, what really helps you sleep.
20 articles · All categories
How to sleep better naturally
Light, temperature, bedtime: the most solid levers for sleep are also the simplest. Here's how to implement them at home.
How many hours of sleep do we really need?
Seven, eight, nine hours? The right number depends on age and the individual. What we know about real needs, sleep debt, and the age when we sleep the least.
Why do we wake up at night?
No one sleeps through the night: the brain returns to wakefulness about ten times a night. What's normal, what's not, and what to do at 3 AM.
The Evening Ritual: Preparing Your Body for the Night
A series of simple gestures, repeated every evening, prepares you for sleep much better than willpower. Here is the ritual we follow on the farm, and why it works.
Why Teenagers Go to Bed So Late
It's not laziness: during adolescence, the biological clock shifts, delaying sleep onset. What parents can do about it, without a fight.
Sleep Cycles Simply Explained
Four to six cycles of about 90 minutes, four stages that follow one another: understanding the architecture of a night, and why dreams happen in the early morning.
Poor Sleep: Understand Before Acting
Before seeking a solution, you need to understand what keeps you awake: hypervigilance, cortisol, fear of not sleeping. What helps, and when to consult a professional.
Dreaming of falling: what does it mean?
The ground gives way, your stomach lurches, you wake up. It's one of the most common dreams in the world, and the body explains a good part of it.
Dreaming of losing your teeth
Seven out of ten people have experienced it. No, this dream does not foretell death, and the most interesting lead goes back to the age of milk teeth.
Dreaming of being chased
A shadow behind you, a never-ending flight. What research suggests to explain this universal scenario, and what changes when you turn around.
How to remember your dreams
Everyone dreams, even those who swear they don't. What varies is the memory, and memory can be trained. Here's the method, step by step.
How to have a lucid dream
Knowing you're dreaming while you're dreaming: a phenomenon verified in the lab since the 1970s-80s. The techniques that work, and the rule that trumps all.
Recurring Nightmares: Understand and Act
A nightmare is a distressing dream that causes awakening. One in twenty people suffer from them to the point where their night is degraded, and approaches exist that almost no one knows about.
Sleep Paralysis Explained
Awake, conscious, unable to move, sometimes with a presence in the room. About three out of ten people experience it, and knowing what it is changes everything.
Choosing Your Evening Herbal Tea
Chamomile, linden, lemon balm, mugwort, or California poppy: what distinguishes evening plants, and how to give them their rightful place in your evening routine.
Plants and Dreams: What Tradition Says
Mugwort, lavender: what traditions attribute to them in dreams, what science truly establishes, and the only lever that makes a difference.
Brewing the Perfect Infusion
Water, temperature, contact time, lid, storage: simple steps that separate a bland infusion from a truly successful one.
Growing plants under the moon in Périgord Vert
A small organic farm in Dordogne: the lunar calendar, seasonal harvesting, drying in the bakehouse, and hand-processing.
Children's bedtime ritual
Regularity, light, cool room: the markers that establish night-time for children, and what truly separates a night terror from a nightmare.
Screens at night: what really happens
Blue light delays melatonin, that's true. But content that maintains cognitive arousal weighs at least as much, and no one ever talks about it.