Scientists have identified a new phenomenon described as “interactive dreaming,” which helps people who experience deep sleep and lucid dreams to follow instructions, answer questions…
In addition to adding a whole new level of understanding about what happens to our brains while we’re dreaming, new research could teach us how to train our dreams – helping us work towards a goal. specific goals, for example, or to treat a specific mental health problem.
There’s a lot about the psychology of sleep that remains a mystery, including the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, where dreams often occur. Being able to get feedback from sleeping people in real time, rather than relying on reports later, can be very helpful.
Individuals in REM sleep can interact with the tester in real time.
“We discovered that individuals in REM sleep were able to interact with the experimenter and engage in real-time communication. Dreamers were capable of understanding questions, engaging in memory activities. work and come up with answers ,” says psychologist Ken Paller from Northwestern University.
The researchers worked with 36 individuals in experiments at four different laboratories. A volunteer with narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder, and frequently experiences lucid dreams, while others vary in their experiences with lucid dreaming.
During the deepest stages of sleep, tracked by electroencephalogram (EEG) devices, the scientists interacted with study participants through spoken sounds, flashing lights and body touch. body. The sleepers were asked to answer simple math questions, to count light flashes or body touches, and to answer basic yes or no questions (like ” can you speak spanish? ” No?” ).
Responses were given through pre-agreed eye movements or facial muscle movements. During 57 sleep sessions, at least one correct answer to a query was observed in 47% of sessions where lucid dreaming was confirmed by participants.
“We combined the results together because we felt that the combination of results from four different labs used different methods,” said neuroscientist Karen Konkoly from Northwestern University. Different approaches attest most convincingly to the reality of this two-way communication phenomenon. We have found that different means can be used to communicate.”
Individuals who participate in research are often awakened after a successful response to ask them to report their dreams. In some cases, external inputs are remembered as being external or overlaid in the dream. In others, they come across something inside the dream.
In the published study, researchers compared trying to communicate with lucid dreamers to trying to communicate with an astronaut in space, and it’s the immediate response that makes this approach possible. This new approach becomes interesting.
The study could be helpful in studying dreams, future memory, and the importance of sleep for memory fixation in place. It may also be helpful in treating sleep disorders. Going further, it may even provide us with a way to train what we see in our dreams.
“Repeated observations of interactive dreams, recorded by four independent laboratory groups, demonstrate that the phenomenological and cognitive features of dreams can be interrogated in real time. This relatively unexplored channel of information may enable a variety of practical applications and a novel strategy for the experimental discovery of dreams,” the researchers said.