Dreams have been widely studied, and experts are still trying to understand why we have them, how dream scenarios are created and whether dream is beneficial for brain function.
However, remembered dreams are often full of forgotten details and distortions, so experts from Northwestern University wanted to talk to people while dreaming in real time, to learn more about why dreams happen and how they can be useful for spiritual functions. .
Scientists have tried to talk to people during lucid dreams. While dreaming clearly, people report that they are aware that they are dreaming, and often say that they are able to direct or manipulate the content of the dream to some degree.
In separate experiments in the US, France, Germany and the Netherlands, scientists studied 36 people with diverse experiences of lucid dreams, who established two-way communication between subjects and asked questions using sensory stimulation, including touch, beeps, and flashing lights.
“We posed questions to individuals in the midst of lucid dreams, and they were able to answer with eye movements or muscle contractions,” said Karen Konkoly, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern and one of the authors of the article, told CNN in an email.
Researchers found that dreamers could follow instructions to make simple mathematical comparisons, answer ‘yes-no’ questions and distinguish between visually tangible and auditory sensory stimuli.
“It shows that it is possible to observe external stimuli correctly and perform the operations required to respond while you are asleep,” Konkoly added.
Teams found evidence of two-way communication between researchers and patients belonging to all categories of participants, including experienced lucid dreamers, healthy people trained to lucid dreaming with minimal experience, and patients with narcolepsy.
“Our paper showed specific results from several examples from the 29 different times when we received a correct answer to a dreamer’s question,” Ken Paller, director of Northwestern’s Cognitive Neuroscience Program, told CNN, adding that there were also many cases where attempts at communication were not successful. Of 158 attempts at two-way communication during REM sleep, 18.4% provided correct answers, Paller told CNN.
REM, which stands for rapid eye movement, is the stage of sleep in which our dreams and information and experiences are consolidated and stored in memory.
“We only needed findings from a handful of people to convincingly demonstrate that two-way communication is possible, which was our primary conclusion. We showed that it can happen even to individuals with minimal experience with lucid dreaming,” he said in ‘ said an email. .
“Our results showed that dreamers could understand questions correctly, keep information in working memory and manipulate information (as in mathematical calculations) and express their answers coherently.
“We have therefore gained knowledge about the cognitive abilities that can be applied during a dream. In this way, further research in this regard will hopefully reveal more about dream-conscious experiences and how they may differ from awake-conscious experiences,” he said.
Researchers say their methods could be used for further research on memory, nightmare therapy, mental development and problem solving.
The research was published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.