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Sleep selectively and durably enhances memory for the sequence of real-world experiences

Nature Human Behaviour volume 9, pages 746–757 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Sleep is thought to play a critical role in the retention of memory for past experiences (episodic memory), reducing the rate of forgetting compared with wakefulness. Yet it remains unclear whether and how sleep actively transforms the way we remember multidimensional real-world experiences, and how such memory transformation unfolds over the days, months and years that follow. In an exception to the law of forgetting, we show that sleep actively and selectively improves the accuracy of memory for a one-time, real-world experience (an art tour)—specifically boosting memory for the order of tour items (sequential associations) versus perceptual details from the tour (featural associations). This above-baseline boost in sequence memory was not evident after a matched period of wakefulness. Moreover, the preferential retention of sequence relative to featural memory observed after a night’s sleep grew over time up to 1 year post-encoding. Finally, overnight polysomnography showed that sleep-related memory enhancement was associated with the duration and neurophysiological hallmarks of slow-wave sleep previously linked to sequential neural replay, particularly spindle–slow wave coupling. These results suggest that sleep serves a crucial and selective role in enhancing sequential organization in our memory for past events at the expense of perceptual details, linking sleep-related neural mechanisms to the days-to-years-long transformation of memory for complex real-life experiences.

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Fig. 1: Overview of study design.
Fig. 2: Transformation of sequence versus featural memory over time.
Fig. 3: Long-term transformation of sequence versus featural memory.
Fig. 4: Relationship between spindle–slow wave coupling and overnight memory change.

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Data availability

Behavioural (including behaviour–electrophysiological relationship) data are openly available in our OSF repository at https://osf.io/bxm5w/. Raw electrophysiological data are available upon request.

Code availability

Analysis code is openly available in our OSF repository at https://osf.io/bxm5w/. Analysis code for the heretofore unpublished refined spindle–SO coupling method (Supplementary Results, p. 15) is available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Levy, L. Levesque, A. Papadopoulos, Y. Wang, C. Le and K. Machlab for technical assistance with designing Baycrest Tour 2.0 and for developing the memory tests; D. Jewell, L. Lu and A. Panopio for their technical assistance with overnight sleep testing; M. Binns for statistical assistance; and L. Ray for support and guidance with the PSG analysis. This project was funded by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-148940, awarded to B.L.) and the NSERC Discovery program (RGPIN-2017-04328, awarded to S.F.). N.B.D. was supported by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship. S.S. was supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postgraduate Scholarship—Doctoral (PGS-D) and an Early Professionals and Inspired Careers in AgeTech Fellowship. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: N. B. Diamond, S. Simpson.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    N. B. Diamond, S. Simpson & B. Levine

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    N. B. Diamond, S. Simpson & B. Levine

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    N. B. Diamond

  4. School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    D. Baena & S. Fogel

  5. Sleep Research Unit, The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    D. Baena & S. Fogel

  6. Department of Medicine (Neurology), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    B. Murray & B. Levine

  7. Division of Neurology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    B. Murray

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Contributions

N.B.D. and S.S. made equal contributions to study conception and design along with the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data, and writing of the manuscript. D.B. contributed to the analysis of PSG data and manuscript revision. B.M. contributed to study design, data acquisition and interpretation, and manuscript revision. S.F. contributed to data analysis and interpretation and manuscript revision. B.L. contributed to study conception and design, the acquisition and interpretation of data, and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to B. Levine.

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Diamond, N.B., Simpson, S., Baena, D. et al. Sleep selectively and durably enhances memory for the sequence of real-world experiences. Nat Hum Behav 9, 746–757 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02117-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02117-5

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