Oneirology

An artist's imaginary depiction of a dream

In the field of psychology, the subfield of oneirology (/ɒnɪˈrɒləi/; from Ancient Greek ὄνειρον, oneiron, "dream"; and -λογία, -logia, "the study of") is the scientific study of dreams. Research seeks correlations between dreaming and knowledge about the functions of the brain, as well as an understanding of how the brain works during dreaming as pertains to memory formation and mental disorders. The study of oneirology can be distinguished from dream interpretation in that the aim is to quantitatively study the process of dreams instead of analyzing the meaning behind them.