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Why Your Sleeping Brain Replays New Rewarding Experiences

It turned out that, yes, the participants’ brains revealed they were doing a kind of “neural replay” of the game they had been manipulated to win.Illustration by Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

During this Olympics, I’ve been rooting for Kelleigh Ryan, who is on the women’s foil team. She’s from Ottawa, where I live. Whenever she scored a point, she’d emit a victory scream, probably feeling a rush of pleasure. Watching her on television, I did, too.

Getting better at something involves emotion. When we do well, we have good feelings—pride, pleasure, excitement—and these emotions help

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