When people experience dreams, many times these people have difficulty describing their dreams once they wake up. While dreaming it is common for individuals to have fragmented or augmented dream reports due to their transition between the sleep state and wake state. In, "Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep," Karen Konkoly et al. analyzed lucid dreaming participants and tested their ability to respond to researchers while in the dream state. Dream reports have been widely used in sleep studies to allow sleep participants to recall their dream experience but in Dr. Konkoly's research, she and her team experimented with two-way communication while participants were in the dream state. The benefits of two-way communication would allow other researchers to develop a more efficient method to get an accurate report about the experiences of individuals while they are dreaming. Dreams occur during sleep and can be expressed in many ways creating vivid and sensational experiences. During dreams, the dreamer might be experiencing movement while they are in their dream state. In the article, "Modulating dream experience: Noninvasive brain stimulation over the sensorimotor cortex reduces dream movement," by Valdas Noreika et al. they analyzed how the sensorimotor cortex affects bodily experiences and movement while dreaming. By mapping out the sensorimotor cortex, these reachers attempted to locate brain regions associated with movements that participants executed while they were dreaming. These researchers used a questionnaire for participants to recall their dreams once they were awakened. Konkoly et al. sleep study looked for effective methods to communicate with individuals while dreaming which could be beneficial for Noreika et al.'s study to allow participants to communicate in a more effective way to better express and relay the participants' dream experience.
In the study done by Konkoly and her colleagues, participants were asked to perform lucid dreams allowing participants to be aware of their dreams and be able to respond to the researcher's questions. Some participants were able to respond to these researchers with rapid eye movement cues and facial muscle contractions. Questions including yes/no questions and mathematical computations were asked to participants. Some of these participants were then able to respond to questions that were asked while they were dreaming which supports the idea that this form of communication in real-time might be beneficial to other sleep studies. In this study, Konkoly et al. used dream reports so that the participants could express how the researcher's questions were perceived in the participant's dreams. This study tests a relatively new method of communication between participants and researchers in sleep studies. This research can be further developed by looking out other ways for participants to communicate while dreaming that are less exerting and easy to maneuver. At the end of Konkoly's talk, she suggested future investigation in two-way communication with participants using sniff signals to respond. This is an innovative idea that can be studied in the future that is simple and less demanding on participants. The advancements of methods that allow participants in a sleep study to communicate in their dreams are interesting and can potentially improve sleep study research data in the future.
The article, "Modulating dream experience: Noninvasive brain stimulation over the sensorimotor cortex reduces dream movement," by Valdas Noreika et al. uses noninvasive techniques including tDCS to measure the effects that the sensorimotor complex has related to movements during REM sleep. Previous research suggested that there are high levels of activity in the motor cortex during REM sleep (Noreika 2020). During REM sleep participants endured stimulation of either tDCS or sham stimulation, as a control, in their sensorimotor complex, then was waken up by researchers and asked to complete a BED questionnaire to respond to their dreams. In Noreika et al. study choosing between a free dream report and a questionnaire-based response method for sleep study participants, proved to be problematic. Modulatory effects of tDCS in this study relating to the decrease in repetitive movements were reported in questionnaire responses but not in free dream reports; indicating the difficulty for participants to recall their dreams through the free dream report method. Noreika et al. talked about previous research and how free dream reports on emotions have been shown to be ineffective for participants to recall their dream in excessive detail and biased for participants to recall more positive emotions versus negative emotions. There are also disadvantages with questionnaires overgeneralizing due to participants rating the comprehensive traits of the dreams instead of detailing their dream sequentially through free dream reports. These researchers face difficulty in determining which methods should participants use to recall their dreams. A real-time method of communication would be beneficial to these researchers so that they could improve accuracy in dream reports. Using Konkoly et al.'s research with facial muscle contraction and rapid eye movement response during REM sleep, Noreika et al. would be able to communicate with their participants in real-time while they were dreaming even when the sensorimotor cortex is stimulated by tDCS. This method would have improved their results because it would have allowed participants to express their dream in more detail and with more reliability.
In both studies, it is apparent that improvement in participants' recollection of their dream experiences would be beneficial in data collection in sleep studies. Konkoly et al. research are useful for creating innovative ways for sleep study participants to communicate their dreams. This research can lead to an increase in methods that researchers could use to create a more efficient and effective way for people to express their dreams. Due to the hardships of remembering dreams once people wake up, this makes it difficult for researchers to get a reliable account of their participant's dreams. In the Noreika et al. study using better methods to collect participants' dream reports would increase accuracy in their participant's feedback of their bodily movements in their dream. Sleep-study research is becoming more prominent in the science community and better methods of collecting dream reports can be helpful in improving data reliability.
Works Cited
Konkoly, K., Appel, K., Chabani, E. et al. Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology. Volume 31, Issue 7 (2021). ISSN 0960-9822. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026.Noreika, V., Windt, J.M., Kern, M. et al. Modulating dream experience: Noninvasive brain stimulation over the sensorimotor cortex reduces dream movement. Sci Rep 10, 6735 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63479-6
No comments:
Post a Comment