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Deirdre Barrett is an American author and psychologist known for her research on , hypnosis and imagery, and has written on evolutionary psychology. Barrett is a teacher at Harvard Medical School, and a past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) and of the American Psychological Association's Div. 30, the Society for Psychological Hypnosis. She is editor-in-chief of the journal Dreaming: The Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams and a consulting editor for Imagination, Cognition, and Personality and The International Journal for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.
She has written five books for the general public: The Pregnant Man and Other Cases From a Hypnotherapist's Couch (1998), The Committee of Sleep (2001), Waistland (2007), Supernormal Stimuli (2010), and Pandemic Dreams (2020). She is the editor of four academic books: Trauma and Dreams (1996), The New Science of Dreaming (2007), Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy (2010), and The Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams (2012).
Barrett has also conducted research on lucid dreams Deirdre. Barrett, Deirdre. Just how lucid are lucid dreams: an empirical study of their cognitive characteristics. Dreaming: The Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, 1992, Vol 2., No. 4, pp. 221-228. Barrett, Deirdre. An Empirical Study of The Relationship of Lucidity and Flying Dreams. Dreaming: the Journal of the Association for the Study of Dreams, 1991, Vol 1, No. 2, p. 129, 133. and on helping people suffering from PTSD to incubate mastery dreams to change their nightmares, Barrett, Deirdre. (Ed.) Trauma and Dreams. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.Beck, Melinda 'Health Matters' column in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Feb. 20, 2010.Conklin, Mike A Plague of nightmares descends on Elm Street, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, October 2, 2001http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/health/27night.html?hp and published studies tracking the progression of dreams during bereavement.Barrett, Deirdre L. Dreams of Death. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying, 1988, Vol. 19, p. 95, 102.Barrett, Deirdre. Through a glass darkly: the dead appear in dreams. OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying, 1991, Vol. 24, pp. 97-108. Cathcart, Rebecca Winding Through 'Big Dreams' Are the Threads of Our Lives, THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 3, 2007 She has studied characteristics of dreams in various disorders including depressionBarrett, Deirdre and Loeffler, Michael. The effect of depression on the manifest content of the dreams of college students. Psychological Reports, 1992, 70, pp. 403-406. and dissociative disorders. Barrett, Deirdre. Dreams in Dissociative Disorders. Dreaming: J. of the Assoc. for the Study of Dreams, 1994, Vol 4, No. 3, pp. 165-177.Barrett, Deirdre. The Dream Character as a Prototype for the Multiple Personality "Alter". Dissociation, Vol. 8, March 1995, p. 61, 68. During the summer 2010 publicity about the dream-themed film Inception, Barrett was interviewed by media including ABC, NBC Today,Weekend Today 7/24 interview with Lester Holt CNN, CNN interview with Barrett about Inception The Wall Street Journal, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Therapies Teach Sleepers to Alter the Ending of Their Dreams--or Even Take Flight The New York Times, THE NEW YORK TIMES Guiding Your Sleep While You're Awake and USA Today, USA Today 7/16 2010 With 'Inception,' Chris Nolan's head games continue pointing out that some aspects of the film, like lucid dreaming, control of one's own dreams, and dreams-within-dreams were highly realistic while the control of others' dreams, time slowing in dreams, and absolute impossibility of dreaming that you die were all fictional premises in the service of the thriller plot.
Barrett's studies of hypnosis have focused on different types of high hypnotizables, finding two subgroups, which she terms fantasizers and dissociaters. Fantasizers have vivid imaginations, find it easy to block out real-world stimuli, spend much time daydreaming, report imaginary companions as a child, and grow up with parents who encourage imaginary play. Dissociaters usually had a history of Child abuse or other significant trauma, had learned to escape into numbness, and to forget unpleasant events. Their association with "daydreaming" was often going blank rather than vividly recalled fantasies. Both score equally high on formal scales of hypnotic susceptibility.Barrett, Deirdre. Deep Trance Subjects: A Schema of Two Distinct Subgroups. Chpt in R. Kunzendorf (Ed.) Imagery: Recent Developments, NY: Plenum Press, 1991, p. 101, 112.Barrett, Deirdre. Fantasizers and Dissociaters: An Empirically based schema of two types of deep trance subjects. Psychological Reports, 1992, 71, pp. 1011-1014.Barrett, Deirdre. Fantasizers and Dissociaters: Two types of High Hypnotizables, Two Imagery Styles. in R. Kuzendorf, N. Spanos, & B. Wallace (Eds.) Hypnosis and Imagination, NY: Baywood, 1996.
Other research by Barrett focused on the similarities and differences between daydreams and nocturnal dreaming Barrett, Deirdre. The Hypnotic Dream: Its Content in Comparison to Nocturnal Dreams and Waking Fantasy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1979, Vol. 88, p. 584, 591. and on the significance of earliest memories as reflecting a microcosm of an individual's worldview.Barrett, Deirdre. The First Memory as a Predictor of Personality Traits. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1980, Vol. 36, pp. 136-149.Barrett, Deirdre. Early Recollections as Predictors of Self Disclosure and Interpersonal Style. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1983, Vol. 39, pp. 92-98. Barrett is interested in film and has written on techniques which films use to represent dreams Barrett, Deirdre 'The Dream Videophile' Regular column in Dream Time magazine and posted online at ASD. and on the negative stereotypes of hypnosis in film.Barrett, Deirdre. Hypnosis in Film and Television American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, Vol. 49, No. 1, July 2006, pp. 13-30.
Most recently, Barrett has written on evolutionary psychology, especially the concept of supernormal stimuli—the idea that technology can create an artificial object that pulls an instinct more strongly than that for which it evolved. The phrase "supernormal stimuli" was coined by Dutch scientist Nikolaas Tinbergen in the 1930s. Barrett's book Waistland (2007) explores the weight and fitness crisis in terms of supernormal stimuli for food and rest. Rimas, Andrew 'Meet the Minds' feature about Deirdre Barrett, PhD, Science Section, The Boston Globe, October 22, 2007. Her latest book, "Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose" (2010) Barrett, Deirdre. Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose. NY NY: W.W. Norton, 2010 examines the impact of supernormal stimuli on the diversion of impulses for nurturing, sexuality, romance, territoriality, war, and the entertainment industry's hijacking of our social instincts. Wall Street Journal review of Deirdre Barrett's Supernormal Stimuli, Feb. 25, 2010.
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