[ad_1]
Scientists have managed to “talk” to a sleeping person in real time by invading their dreams, according to a new study. Researchers say it’s like trying to communicate with an astronaut on another world.
Dreamers can follow directions, solve simple math problems and answer yes-no questions without ever waking up, according to the results of four experiments described in the journal Thursday, Feb. 18 Current biology.
The researchers communicated directly with the sleeping participants by asking them questions and asking them to respond with eye or face movements during lucid dreams – when people are at least aware they are dreaming. (Some lucid dreamers can control what happens in their dreams.)
“You might expect that if you tried to communicate with a sleeping person, they just wouldn’t respond,” study lead author Karen Konkoly, cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University, told Live Science. in Illinois. Although Konkoly was hoping real-time communication would work, she said she “couldn’t believe it” when someone first answered her questions from their dream.
Related: 7 mind-boggling facts about dreams
People dream every night, but scientists don’t fully understand why we dream. Dream study is difficult because people often forget or distort details after they wake up. This is partly because the brain doesn’t train a lot of new memories during sleep and has a limited ability to accurately store information after the dream has ended, according to the study.
To overcome this limitation, researchers attempted to communicate with people while they were still dreaming. Because the study participants had lucid dreams, it meant they could make a conscious effort to respond to signals from the outside world, the researchers hypothesized.
The researchers placed electrodes on the participants’ heads to measure their brain waves; next to their eyes, to follow eye movements; and on their chin, to measure muscle activity. They used this data to determine when participants entered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage, when lucid dreams are most likely to occur, Konkoly explained.
Four groups of independent laboratories in the United States, Germany, France and the Netherlands conducted four separate experiments. Researchers used several techniques during the experiments to communicate with dreamers during REM sleep, including asking them oral questions and giving them coded messages in flashing lights, beeps, and physical tapping, which the dreamers did. had been trained to decipher. If the dreamers received and understood the question or message during lucid dreaming, then they responded with a series of distinctive eye or facial movements that were interpreted by the electrodes.
“Such two-way communication – from the outside to the inside of the dream and back again – is something that may seem to belong to the realm of science fiction,” Pilleriin Sikka, lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at the Swedish University of Skövde and postdoctoral researcher at The Finnish University of Turku, told Live Science in an email. “Given how difficult it is to induce lucid dreams in the lab and the study was conducted by four independent lab groups, the effort of the researchers is remarkable,” she said.
Sikka notes, however, that it was very difficult for the experiments to achieve this communication successfully – it was only achieved by six out of 36 participants across many attempts – which raises questions about the extent to which the results can be generalized and reproduced.
About 23% of people lucid dreaming once a month or more, according to a 2016 research article published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition. Konkoly helped induce lucid dreams in his experiences by training participants to associate a sound with a lucid state of mind and re-presenting that sound, or signal, to them during sleep. (Those who want to try living lucid dreams on their own can download an app called Lucid, developed by students at the Northwestern University lab, Konkoly said.)
The researchers suggest that the method used in the experiments could be adapted to potentially help tailor a person’s dream to a specific need, such as learning or dealing with emotional trauma, according to the study.
Robert Stickgold, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said the study’s results were “groundbreaking,” in an email to Live Science.
“The retrospective nature of dream reporting presents a challenge for the study of dreams. Real-time two-way communication between researchers and lucid dreamers immersed in REM sleep provides an exciting new window into the study of dreams and dreams, ”said Stickgold. Yet, it is not clear “how easily these initial findings can be extended to real-world applications or to answer more complex questions about the nature and function of dreams.”
Some footage of the lucid dreaming experiences was captured for an online NOVA, PBS documentary titled “Dream Hackers: a bridge to your hidden brain“, which will be available on YouTube from February 18.
Originally posted on Live Science.
[ad_2]
Source link