Scientists have found a way to communicate in real time with people who are sleeping and in a REM cycle by seeing dreams. A new study published on February 18 shows that it is possible to communicate with people through their dreams, while they are able to understand questions and give “convincing” answers. Specifically, in many cases, people were able to answer questions that required a yes or no answer, and even solve simple mathematical problems with facial and eye movements
Most people thought that this communication would not be possible. They believed that people would either wake up when asked a question or would not answer or understand a question.
The scientists tried to communicate with 36 volunteers who were dreaming, in the US, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Some participants were "experienced dreamers", while others had never done it before.
During the deepest part of sleep, the scientists interacted with the volunteers through sound, lights and touch, asking them to count how many touches they felt or lights they saw, and they could also answer simple yes or no questions, such as whether they spoke Spanish. The answers were given through eye movements or facial muscles and were agreed upon from the start.
Ken Paller, a renowned neuroscientist and lead author of the study, and his colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago have been studying the relationship between sleep and memory for years. It is commonly believed that sleep is crucial for storing memories that are created throughout the day. However, little is still understood about this process, and how dreams may play a role. According to scientists, one reason why it is difficult to understand dreams is that most people have difficulty remembering what they dreamed.
Previous research has shown that people can be influenced by sounds from the outside world while they sleep, and other research has shown that people who claim to control their dreams may be sending signals to outside observers through their eye movements.
Paller's team suggests that two-way communication between dreamers and observers may be possible, and that when they wake up, they will be able to remember their conversations with them. Of the 158 questions, dreamers answered correctly 18.6 percent of the time, according to the report published in Current Biology. The way these questions were phrased varied for each person.
When the volunteers were asked about their experiences, some reported being able to recall the instructions they had received before the dream and tried to carry them out. Some also reported hearing the questions asked during the dream, although not always in the same ways. For example, one reported hearing math questions on a car radio, while another reported hearing the researcher interrupt the dream by asking if he spoke Spanish.
Karen Konkoly, a doctoral student at Northwestern University, said of the study, “We brought together the results because we thought that combining results from four different labs using different approaches would provide compelling evidence for the reality of this two-way communication phenomenon.” Konkoly added that future studies of dreams could use these methods to analyze brain activity while someone was asleep compared to when they were awake. This could help verify post-dream reports, such as machines that can encourage sleepers to have specific dreams.
Benjamin Baird, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, said this study challenges fundamental definitions of sleep. He also noted that the fact that different labs used all these different ways to demonstrate that it's possible to have this kind of two-way communication makes the findings of this study even more powerful.
The research is useful for future studies of dreams, memory, and how important sleep is for establishing memories in our long-term memory. For everyday people, these methods could also be used to help those who have difficulty sleeping or suffer from nightmares.
