The veil between dream world and reality may be thinner than we thought. In a new study Announced Thursday, scientists in four countries say they have shown that it is possible to communicate with people while dreaming clearly. At least some of the time, the dreamers were apparently able to respond to yes-or-no questions and answer simple math problems through face and eye movements; thereafter, some remembered hearing the questions during their dream.
Cognitive neuroscientist and study author Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago have been studying the link between sleep and memory for years. It is widely believed that sleep is crucial to the robust storage of memories created throughout the day. But little is still understood about this process and how dreams can play a role in it.
“We are exploring dreams to learn more about why dreams happen and how they can be helpful for mental functions during waking up,” Paller said in an email to Gizmodo. “As in our other work, we assume that events of sleep cognition can be beneficial for memory function.”
One reason why it is difficult to understand dreams is that most of us have trouble remembering our dreams completely as soon as we wake up, much less telling them to others. But Paller and his team have been trying to communicate with sleepers for years now. Their previous research has demonstrated that people can be affected by sounds from the outside world while they sleep. Other research on lucid dreamers – people who claim to have control over their dreams – have suggested that they can signal to outside observers through eye movements while dreaming (in 2018, a study suggested that these eye movements can be used to tell when someone is in a state of lucid dreaming).
Many people are familiar with one-way communication with a sleeping person, such as sleeping and sleeping talk is common fenomena. But Paller’s team reasoned that it would be possible to have two-way communication between dreamers and awake observers and that the dreamers should be able to recall it conversations. They also theorized that this communication can be induced and repeated under the right conditions in the laboratory, which would be ideal for future sleep research. As it turns out, they were not the only scientists who had this idea. At least three other research groups in France, Germany and the Netherlands pursued the same goal.
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‘The research groups did studies independently and then we discovered that we did similar studies in different countries. Then we decided to publish all our results together – rather than competitively, ”said Paller.
The study involved a total of 36 volunteers. Some were self-experts in lucid dreams, most notably a 20-year-old French participant with narcolepsy who allowed them to reach REM sleep (the stage of sleep when dreams are most common) within the first minute of a 20- minute nap. Other participants had no prior experience with lucid dreams, but Paller’s team tried to train all of their subjects to start a lucid dream when they heard a certain sound playing while they were sleeping. Some teams used spoken words or tones to communicate; others rely on flashing lights or to lightly touch the sleepers. The volunteers were also monitored through typical sleep measurements such as EEG, which recorded brain activity.
During 57 sleep sessions, participants were able to indicate that they entered a lucid dream 26% of the time through eye movement. In these successful sessions, the scientists were able to get at least one correct answer to a question through a dreamer’s eye movements or almost half of the face. the time. Overall, out of the 158 times they tried to communicate with a lucid dreamer during these sessions, they had a correct response of 18% (the most common response, about 60%, was no response).
When the volunteers were asked about their experiences, some reported that they could remember the pre-dream instructions they received and tried to carry them out. Some also reported that they heard the questions they were asked in the dream, but not always in the same ways. Some reported hearing words that clearly felt as if they were coming from outside their current reality, while others said it felt as if they were hearing it via a radio or some other form of communication in the dream. But there were times when people could not clearly remember what had happened, or that the questions they said in the dream did not match the questions they were actually asked.
The findings of the study, published in Current Biology, are based on a small sample size, so the conclusions should be viewed with extra caution. But they show that it is at least possible to have two-way communication with dreamers, Paller said. And the fact that different groups of scientists, using different parts of the world and slightly different methods, were able to record it all suggests that it is not just some isolated or wrong phenomenon, he added.
The team created the phenomenon ‘interactive dream’. And now that they feel they have shown that it is possible, they plan to improve the ability of people to enter the state.
“We are currently investigating possibilities to manage experiences in people’s own homes instead of in the sleep laboratory. There can be benefits to it, because people will not be affected by the unusual environment of a sleep laboratory or the monitoring technology we use, ‘Paller said. One way they are exploring for future research is to use a smartphone app that teaches people how to dream clearly and how to get better – an app that already available, for any curious ones out there.
The hope is that this technique will enable researchers like Paller to get a little closer to the mysteries of our dream life and how it may affect our waking hours. Over time, this research can even be applied proactively to improve people’s lives by improving their sleep and dream habits.
“The applications can be developed for problem solving, skills, mental development, nightmare therapy and strategies for other psychological benefits,” Paller said.