In a globe-spanning study cited in NPR, Forbes, and BBC’s Science Focus, “Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep” by Konkoly et al. explored methods of dream communication with individuals engaged in lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a rare phenomenon that occurs during the rapid eye movement (“REM”) stage of sleep. At its simplest, it is a form of dreaming where the person sleeping is aware that they are in a dream and can control their actions and subsequent events. To communicate with these dreamers, Konkoly et al. used a set of pre-determined, Morse-coded ocular responses (for instance, three left-right movements of the eyes, or four left-right movements, and so on) and tracked the data using electrooculography (“EOG”).
Upon receiving a signal from the participants that they were, indeed, lucid dreaming, researchers would ask a series of simple math problems, like two plus two. After the participants had answered, the scientists would then wake them and ask them to recall their dreams, and, as later stated in the research article, the dreamers “typically reported that they had received [the questions].” The different research teams used varying methods and tasks, but all came to the same conclusion: they had found a way to communicate with someone who was, effectively, asleep.
Since the pandemic, reports of strange dreams and excessive nightmares en masse have sparked debates as to whether the stress of living in a lockdown has affected our collective sleep patterns. The answer? Absolutely. The article, “Why we shouldn’t be afraid of nightmares,” by BBC contributor William Park, examines the influence the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our sleep and how the occasional nightmare may be the brain’s way of processing strong emotions and the difficult events we face in our lives.
Joanne Davis, a clinical psychologist at the University of Tulsa, states that chronic nightmares, on the other hand, can occur when the brain is “stuck” and unable to “process the emotional event.” In these cases, certain therapies like exposure, relaxation, and rescription therapy (“ERRT”), where an individual writes down their nightmare and changes the ending, can be beneficial. But ERRT is not the only treatment available to sufferers of chronic nightmares. A new therapy called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (“IRT”) borrows the rescription aspect of ERRT, but within the context of lucid dreaming, allowing the participants to take control of their nightmares. In 2016, a group of French patients underwent IRT and found a decrease in the number of nightmares they were experiencing. These findings on nightmare disorders, as well as the landmark communication techniques described in the lucid dreaming research by Konkoly et al., have implications for further PTSD and nightmare disorder treatment plans. For example, the development of sleep-telecommunication devices in the future could allow treatment and communication from the comfort of one’s home while expanding the current roster of telemedicine methods. It would also enable doctors to communicate with individuals experiencing locked-in syndrome or other forms of paralysis through analysis of EOG signals--an area of study that is already being explored by several researchers.
References
Konkoly, K. R., Appel, K., Chabani, E., Oudiette, D., Dresler, M., & Paller, K. A. (2021, 2 18). Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology, 31(7), 1417-1427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026
Mindsmatter. (2021). Improving Your Sleep Course: Session 5 -- Dealing with Nightmares [PowerPoint slide created by an NHS foundation trust.]. Lancashire & South Cumbria. Retrieved 10 22, 2021, from https://www.lscft.nhs.uk/media/Publications/MindsMatter/Sleep/Session%205%20Improving%20Your%20Sleep%20Course.pdf
Park, W. (2021, April 1). Why we shouldn't be afraid of nightmares. BBC. Retrieved 10 22, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210330-why-we-shouldnt-be-afraid-of-nightmares
R. Jayadevan, Vinay Shankar Nair, N. Nandini, P. Rajeesh, and P. I. Vishnu, "EOG based smart communication system", AIP Conference Proceedings 2222, 030026 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0004198
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