People who have watched the Hollywood blockbuster “Inception of Dreams” are all fascinated by the technology that can shuttle in the dreams of others and “implant” ideas in the movie. A few days ago, a new discovery may enable this scenario to be realized in reality.
What is lucid dreaming
In one experiment, the researchers tested a total of 36 participants, their goal is to make a lucid dream, that is a person aware of their dreaming.
Before understanding lucid dreaming, one also needs to understand a related concept: rapid eye movement (REM). REM is a stage in which humans fall into sleep. Studies have found that lucid dreams mainly occur in this stage. The main manifestation is that the eyeballs move quickly, and the activity of brain neurons is the same as when they are awake. Most people can recall vividly after waking up. Dreamland.
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36 participants who can do math problems in their sleep were divided into those with lucid dreaming experience, those who had been trained to do lucid dreams, and those with narcolepsy. The researchers tried 57 two-way communications during REM. In 26% of the experiments, participants successfully signaled that they were dreaming lucidly.
In the experiment, one participant fell asleep during the day. After that, the researchers asked a math question: What is 8 minus 6? Within 3 seconds, the participant did two left and right eye movements to indicate that the correct answer is 2. This math problem was repeated, and he gave the correct answer again. The other participant took a nap and answered two math questions correctly. When she woke up, she could recall the dream clearly.
Interestingly, in 379 experiments, researchers tried two-way communication without lucid dream signals during sleep. Among them, there are 1 correct response, 1 wrong response, 11 fuzzy responses and 366 no response.
The researchers thus proved that participants can communicate with the outside world in the case of lucid dreams. At present, researchers are working to expand and improve the two-way communication with people who are sleeping, and more complex conversations may be held in the future.
Can “learn” in a dream
The above experimental results have opened a new door for scientific exploration of dreams. Psychologist Karen Concoli said that related research can be used to evaluate cognitive ability during dreaming and waking and to cure mental illness.
A research report published in the British “New Scientist” magazine pointed out that those who have lucid dreams can control the relevant areas in the brain to achieve the purpose of “learning” and thus achieve “dreams come true.”
Previous studies have shown that for the same task, people will perform better in reality after training in dreams. A study led by Daniel Elacher of the University of Bern in Switzerland confirmed that if people who have lucid dreams are trained to toss coins in their dreams, they will be able to throw coins into cups more accurately when they wake up.
Researchers at Yale University in the United States have found that people who have lucid dreams perform well in a game task, which is designed to test the function of the brain that controls emotional decision-making and social interaction. Research team member Peter Morgan said that he hopes to improve people’s social control and decision-making abilities by training this area. Currently, they are trying to “train” people who dream lucid dreams by controlling their dreams.
In addition, dreams can also be used to promote creativity, and artists and writers can also get inspiration from dreams. In the future, dreams can also be planned according to personal goals, and can also be used to solve basic problems related to consciousness.
