For the first time, scientists from Northwestern University and various European institutions could communicate with sleeping volunteers who were in the middle of a lucid dream.
The scientists opened a two-way, real-time communication line with the lucid dreamers. This allowed the researchers to chat with them and ask them questions, receiving answers in real-time in the form of particular eye movements. The development could shed light on the content and structure of sleep and open up new possibilities for the technology, entertainment, and commercialization of dreams.
Lucid dreaming is when an individual becomes conscious while asleep (similar to the characters in “The Matrix”). It is a psychological peculiarity that’s long stimulated scientists’ interests. An estimated 55% of people have experienced one or more lucid dreams in their lifetime, while 23% of individuals have lucid dreams once a month or more.
Northwestern researcher Karen Konkoly, the study’s lead author, said:
There are studies of lucid dreamers communicating out of dreams and also remembering to do tasks. But, there’s a fairly limited amount of research on the stimuli going into lucid dreams.
According to the study published in the journal Current Biology, experienced lucid dreamers communicated with scientists by moving their real-world eyes right and left. The dreamers responded to questions and even solved math problems in real-time.
Konkoly added:
It’s amazing to sit in the lab and ask a bunch of questions, and then somebody might actually answer one. It’s such an immediately rewarding type of experiment to do. You don’t have to wait to analyze your data or anything like that. You can see it right there while they’re still sleeping.
The dreamers described hearing the scientists’ voices as an intangible narrator coming from outside their dream. Overall, the researchers were able to communicate with the dreamers about 18% of the time accurately. In comparison, another 20% saw incoherent or incorrect responses, suggesting that there was still some communication going on. Regardless, the scientists are ecstatic just to have established some form of communication with dreamers.
Last year, a team of MIT Media Lab Fluid Interfaces Group and Dream Lab researchers developed a wearable glove-like device called Dormio, which helps the user track and interact with their dreams, ultimately even giving them control over their dreams. It does so with the help of a host of sensors that detect which state of sleep the wearer is in. When the wearer is in hypnagogia, the glove plays a pre-recorded audio cue.
