Scientists Found a Way to Communicate With People Who Are Asleep And Dreaming

[Judi Lynn]

DAVID NIELD19 FEBRUARY 2021

Scientists have identified a new phenomenon they describe as "interactive dreaming", where people experiencing deep sleep and lucid dreams are able to follow instructions, answer simple yes-or-no questions, and even solve basic mathematics problems.

As well as adding a whole new level of understanding to what happens to our brains when we're dreaming, the new study could eventually teach us how to train our dreams – to help us towards a particular goal, for example, or to treat a particular mental health problem.

There's plenty about the psychology of sleep that remains a mystery, including the rapid eye movement (REM) stage where dreams usually occur. Being able to get responses from sleepers in real time, rather than relying on reports afterwards, could be hugely useful.

"We found that individuals in REM sleep can interact with an experimenter and engage in real-time communication," says psychologist Ken Paller from Northwestern University. "We also showed that dreamers are capable of comprehending questions, engaging in working-memory operations, and producing answers.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/people-can-answer-questions-and-even-do-math-problems-when-asleep-study-shows

[PSPS]

1. "When you poop in your dreams..."

[Judi Lynn]

2. Scientists establish freaky two-way communications with lucid dreamers

By Loz Blain
February 18, 2021



One of the researchers watching brain signals from a sleeping participant in the lab. Researchers are working to expand and refine two-way communications with sleeping people so more complex conversations may one day be possible.
K. Koncoly
VIEW 5 IMAGES

Four independent experiments across the globe have found that it's possible to establish two-way communications with people in the weird, hallucinatory state of lucid dreaming, opening up a new field of real-time "interactive dreaming" research.

This is a big deal for scientists trying to work out what the heck is going on as we sleep, because typically they've had to rely on the fragmented, fading scraps of memory people have once they've woken up. "Our experimental goal is akin to finding a way to talk with an astronaut who is on another world," reads the introduction of a combined study between four separate groups in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA.

Each group set out to test its own techniques on how to "interview" people without waking them up, using the bizarre phenomenon of lucid dreaming as a doorway into the dream world. During regular dreams, we typically have no idea that we're dreaming, simply accepting the strange situations we're placed in without critical judgement. Lucid dreaming, a "notoriously rare phenomenon," is a state where the sleeper is aware that they're dreaming, and sometimes capable of steering their experience.

The researchers took one group of experienced lucid dreamers, another of regular folk that they had trained in the art of lucid dreaming, and one patient with narcolepsy who frequently drifted in and out of lucid dream states – and found they were able to have two-way exchanges with members of all three groups.

In all the tests, the scientists verified that each subject was in a state of REM sleep, using "standard polysomnographic methods." Facial and eye movements were chosen as the means by which the dreamers could "talk back" to the researchers from the dream world, and the subjects were trained in specific ways of communicating. Some, for example, were trained to move their eyes left to right three times (LRLRLR) in response to an audio cue if they wanted to communicate that they were in the lucid dream state. None were trained with the specific questions they'd be asked when they were asleep.

More:
https://newatlas.com/science/lucid-dream-communication/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=most-viewed

[pnwmom]

3. I understand this in theory, and I've had lucid dreams, however

if I heard someone talking to me, even in REM sleep, that would instantly wake me up.

I've spent too many years as a mother, I think, to not wake up to the sound of a human voice.

[AwakeAtLast]

6. Absolutely!

I agree!

[tanyev]

4. Ooh, reminds me of Star Trek Next Generation episode Night Terrors.

The Enterprise is searching a binary star system in an effort to find the USS Brattain, a Federation science vessel which went missing a month earlier. The crew locates the ship but the Brattain is derelict, and all the crew are dead save one: the ship's Betazoid science adviser, Andrus Hagan, who is discovered hiding in a room just off the bridge. Hagan has somehow survived, but he has been shaken by the experience and is in a profound catatonic state. Counselor Deanna Troi tries to use her telepathy to contact Hagan. Meanwhile, Geordi La Forge and Data set to work repairing the Brattain but discover that although everything is in working order, the ship still fails to move. Dr. Beverly Crusher determines that all of the Brattain's crew died at each other's hands. That night onward, Troi has trouble sleeping, encountering the same dream in which she levitates and drifts in the direction of a mysterious voice repeating, "Eyes in the dark, one moon circles". Troi starts to believe Hagan was influenced by the same dream.

Four days later, with the investigation stalled, Captain Picard decides that the time has come to move on, but the crew find the ship also stalled like the Brattain. Data discovers that both ships are trapped in a spatial phenomenon known as a "Tyken's Rift", and they can only escape through the force of a tremendous explosion. However, as they work at determining how to create this explosion, the crew starts becoming irritable and experiences hallucinations. Dr. Crusher realizes that everyone but Troi has failed to achieve R.E.M. sleep since entering the rift, leading to their current state. As violence begins to erupt around the ship, Picard assigns Data, who does not sleep or dream and is therefore unaffected, as acting Captain.

Data eventually attempts to use a pulse from the deflector aimed at the center of the rift to create the explosion, but this fails to produce any effect. As Data looks for other solutions with Troi, Troi gets an idea that her dreams of "eyes in the dark, one moon circling" is a description of a hydrogen atom. Data and Troi work out that there must be another ship from a psychic race trapped on the other side of the rift who is aware of their presence but looking for hydrogen to create an explosion. Troi goes to sleep to contact the other species through the dream, while Data vents hydrogen into the rift. An explosion soon occurs, and both the Enterprise and the alien ship are freed. As the crew recovers, Data returns the ship to Picard, but not before ordering everyone to get some sleep.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Terrors_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

[AllaN01Bear]

25. last act officaly as captain i hearby order you to bed . good nite data.

plesant dreams sir.

[Harker]

5. To me, the idea of directing or interfering with my dreams

is unappealing.

The exchange between my dream self and conscious self is too valuable to meddle with.

If I want to communicate with another person, I'll do so when awake.

[Duppers]

8. I agree.

TY.

Caveat: Unless it is possible to alter the unconscious of violent criminals. That's a big IF & somewhat dangerous, I would think.

[Harker]

11. Oddly enough...

An unfettered, natural dream I had regarding my situation at a romantic crossroads clarified matters for me in a manner that prevented me from being related by marriage to Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., noted expert in the field of lucid dreaming.

I'd never put it together in quite that way until just now.

[Duppers]

13. Wow!

[Oldem]

22. I agree with Harker, and I think

that any practical use of this procedure, even on criminals, will only be a step toward broader use. Unfortunately, it will happen, anyway. Science has made it possible, so we won't be able to resist it. Take the A-bomb as an example.

[OldBaldy1701E]

28. Yep.

Maybe it is the cynic in me (hell, that is exactly what it is), but this kind of thing has dangers and uses that we are not even aware of yet. I know I read way too much science fiction in my life, but still...

[Oldem]

29. It's the fact that we forge ahead when we don't fully understand

the implications that worries me. And we do it all the time. "Science says" and we jump.

[OldBaldy1701E]

30. Science has no use for human society

and therefore never figures it into their equation when it comes to potential damage... that trend has always been an issue with progress. I want progress, but when it comes like a boulder rolling down Mt. Everest, we may need to slow down a bit and ponder all implications, no matter how wild they may appear at first.

[LudwigPastorius]

7. I'm pretty sure Stephen LaBerge was doing stuff like this 35 years ago.

[40RatRod]

9. This is nothing new. My wife has been able to do it for years

When I dream I am in a fight, I kick the covers wildly trying to get up. She just yells in my ear, "Fred, You are dreaming!!!!"

[twodogsbarking]

18. Is your name Fred?

That is important.

[skydive forever]

24. Ok, now that made me lol

[DENVERPOPS]

33. Cool

My ex wife used to talk in her sleep. (A lot) She would be having a conversation with someone, so I just started talking to her back and forth, as if I was the person she was conversing with. I was able to keep the conversation going, sometimes for over five minutes.

At some point, she would wake up and she would get superbly pissed that I was doing that with her.

One night I figured out that the person she was conversing with was a guy with whom she was having an affair, based on her sleep talking. I also figured out, from the conversation, who the person was that she was screwing....

And that is why she's my ex.........along with one of MY best friends......

[burrowowl]

10. Interesting

[myccrider]

12. My sister used to sleep-walk.

it faded out by her mid to late teens. We used to have hilarious conversations and arguments with her while she was "under the influence". Wonder if that was part of this phenomenon?

[Wicked Blue]

14. If I could solve math problems while sleeping

OR awake, it would truly be a miracle.

[paleotn]

15. Saw that in a DiCaprio movie once...

It didn't work out too well.

[twodogsbarking]

16. The sound of a cat or dog throwing up

will get you out of bed in a nanosecond.

[twodogsbarking]

17. Ever had a night terror?

If you have you know why they are called that.

[LakeArenal]

19. Get out of my dreams..and into my car..

Or just get out of my dreams.

[RainCaster]

20. I've been in many meetings where I swear this was being done.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

21. "I wasn't talking to you!" Response from the talking in their sleep next to me when...

.. I asked 'what did you just say?"

[Martin68]

23. Fascinating! I have often experienced an in-between state between dreaming and being awake.

Occasionally I have realized I was dreaming during a dream. I'm a very light sleeper in general, and remember dreams every night. My wife, who is a deep sleeper, almost never remembers her dreams.

[getagrip_already]

26. Shoot, teachers have been doing this for a long time....

They are the guardians of the galaxy after all....

[ShepKat]

27. hmmm

What could go wrong ?

[cstanleytech]

31. So, they can maybe communicate with the average Republican voter?

[TomVilmer]

32. I sleepwalk a lot ...

People can talk to me, and I will respond quite normal - though from inside my own dreamscape. I enjoy having this ability - except when I sleep at hotels and such!

[petronius]

34. Great, sounds like another way for our employers to keep us on the job

Bad enough that texts and emails are effectively 24-7... In preemptive self-defensive, I'm going to significantly increase my on-the-clock sleeping, starting now!