Can You Visit Someone In Their Dreams While Sleeping?

Blog Post by TellMeMyDream.com

Lucid dreaming is mentioned in the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle in the fourth century BC. Scientists have been observing it since the 1970s, experimenting with the rapid eye movement phase (REM) of sleep in which most dreams occur. Dr Denholm Aspy, from the University of Adelaide in Australia, says lucid dreams are mainly used to combat nightmares, as recurrent nightmares can affect a person's quality of life. Pallers lab has developed a smartphone app to make it easier for people to gain clarity and to allow anyone with a phone to immerse themselves in the world of dreams without a sleep lab.

Research shows that almost half of people at some point in their lives have had a clear dream and 11% experience one or two clear dreams every month.

It seems that some people support Freudian dream theory, namely that dreams reveal hidden emotions and desires. Other theories suggest that dreams help us solve problems, or that memory formation in dreams occurs through random brain activation.

Some people have a sleep disorder in which they live out their dreams in their sleep, known as REM behavioural disorder (RBD). In some cases, living out dreams can be dangerous for both the individual and the bed partner.

Studying dreams can be difficult because people often forget or distort details when they wake up. For example, when people describe a dream, they often refer to people who recognize them, even if their appearance in the dream is distorted. People who wish to explore their dreams with full awareness may therefore find it useful to keep a dream diary in which they record in as much detail the dream they had the night before.

This included recognizing certain sounds she was playing when she went into REM sleep, which led her to realize that her dreams had become clear. The researchers communicated with the sleeping participants by asking them questions while letting them react to eye and facial movements during clear dreams, so that people were at least aware that they were dreaming. They trained the participants to recognize their dreams, explained how clear dreaming works, and demonstrated clues (sounds, lights, and finger taps) to present to the dreamer in his sleep.

While experts in neuroscience and psychology continue to conduct experiments to find out what happens during sleep in the brain, ongoing research makes it impossible to prove any theory as to why we dream.

A dream is a series of images, stories, emotions and feelings that occur during a sleep phase. Dreams explain the sequence of sensations, emotions, ideas and images that occur in a person's mind during certain phases of sleep. Dream content, what dreams are and their impact on sleep can vary from person to person.

For the first time, researchers are discussing novel questions and mathematical problems with lucid dreamers - people who are aware that they are dreaming - who are aware. Dream study experts are trying to understand how we dream, what dream scenarios create dreams and what benefits the brain has.

Scientists can talk to a sleeping person in real time without interfering with their dreams, a new study shows. NSF-supported researchers have achieved reciprocal communication with dreaming people, created new methods of exploring the human mind, and led to innovative methods of learning and problem solving. Researchers from the Pallers Laboratory at Northwestern University in Illinois and researchers from France, Germany and the Netherlands have demonstrated this communication between people and dreams through REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement).

Scientists say it's like trying to communicate with astronauts from all over the world. Researchers say reciprocal communication is possible when people sleep or dream. But until now, few studies have attempted to communicate directly with lucid dreamers by using stimuli such as light, shock, or sound to enter their dreams.

For example, the German group reported their math problems using the Morse Code, while the French group asked participants whether the person had Narcolepsy, was an expert in clear dreams, could answer questions and had facial muscle contractions and eye movements.

Using this data, the researchers determined which study participants entered the stage of rapid eye movement (REM), in which lucid dreams are most likely, Konkoly explained. The recordings included electrophysiological signals, acoustic and visual signals, and SEM confirmations. First, the researchers asked the participants to confirm that they had lucid dreams.

In order to overcome this limited ability to store information in dreams, the researchers tried to communicate with the people in their dreams. The people in the dreams themselves could not interpret the questions, but they could hear simple questions from the researchers.

Lead author Karen Konkoly, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University, hopes that better methods of studying dreams will be used in the future to influence the way people dream, especially when dealing with trauma, anxiety or depression. She says it is even possible to do some kind of dream therapy one day and talk to people who have experienced lucid nightmares.

To study sleep with rapid eye movements, a sleep phase in which people dream, researchers recruit people to experience it and train them to make clear-sighted dreaming more likely. Ken Paller of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and his colleagues found that people can answer questions and solve math problems in lucid dreaming, a condition that occurs during rapid-eye sleep (REM), in which the dreamer is aware of the dream and can control it. Paller and his team suggest that such real-time techniques by people could be used to promote problem solving and creativity by offering a new way of processing the content of dreams.

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