A person in the middle of a vivid dream can engage in real-time communication

Dreams take us to something that feels like a different reality. They also happen while we are fast asleep. So, you might not expect someone in the middle of a vivid dream to be able to see and answer questions. But a new study was reported in the journal Conventional biology on February 18 shows that they can, of course.

We found that individuals in REM sleep can interact with a tester and engage in real-time communication. We also showed that dreamers are able to understand questions, engage in working memory activity, and elicit answers. Most people might predict that this would not be possible – that people would either wake up when asked or not answer, and certainly not understand a question without to abuse it. “

Ken Paller, Senior Research Fellow, Northwestern University

Although dreams are a common experience, scientists have not yet interpreted them enough. Relying on a person’s narration of dreams is also full of distortions and forgotten details. So Paller and colleagues decided to try to communicate with people during ragged dreams.

“Our experimental goal is like finding a way to talk to an astronaut who is on another world, but in this case the world is designed entirely on the basis of memories stored in the brain, “The researchers write. They realized that finding a way to communicate could open the door in future studies to learn more about dreams, memory, and how memory storage depends on sleep, the researchers say.

The researchers studied 36 people who were aiming for a ragged dream, in which a person is aware that they are dreaming. The paper is unusual in that it consists of four independently conducted experiments using different methods to achieve the same goal. In addition to the group at Northwestern University in the USA, one group conducted studies at the Sorbonne University in France, one at Osnabru University? Ck in Germany, and one at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

“We put the results together because we felt that the combination of results from four laboratories using different approaches certainly testifies to the reality of this phenomenon of two-way communication,” he said. Karen Konkoly, a PhD student at Northwestern University and the first author of the paper. “In this way, we see that different methods can be used for communication. “

One of the successful recipients of two-way communication was narcolepsy and lukewarm dreams. Among others, some had experience in ragged dreaming and others did not. Overall, the researchers found that while dreaming, people were able to follow instructions, do simple maths, answer yes-no-no questions, or tell the difference between different. sensory stimuli. They could respond using eye movements or by contracting facial muscles. The researchers refer to it as an “interactive dream.”

Konkoly argues that future studies of dreaming could use these same methods to assess mental abilities at the time of dreaming against awakening. They could also help verify the accuracy of dream reports after waking up. Outside of the laboratory, the methods could be used to help people in different ways, such as solving problems during sleep or offering new ways to sufferers. with nightmares deal with them.

Follow-up experiments run by members of the four research teams aim to learn more about the links between sleep and memory processing, and about how dreams can shed light on this memory process.