Communicating During Dreams

 This semester we got to hear Dr. Torres talk about how they were able to communicate with lucid dreamers while they slept. This was significant because normally, it is very difficult for scientists to study dreams, since people can have unreliable memories of their dreams after awakening. Therefore, by getting rid of the barrier of waking people up in the middle of the night to recall what they dreamt about, scientists could overcome this drawback. They asked the dreamers questions and got answers in real time while the dream was occurring, which also challenged the idea that sleepers are disconnected from the outside world. 

Dr. Torres, from Northwestern, talked about the study from 2021 called “Real-Time Dialogue Between Experimenters and Dreamers During REM Sleep”. They trained lucid dreamers and tested if they would be able to hear and understand questions during their sleep. Some labs used lights, while others used sounds or taps. They also used EEGs and EOGs to monitor sleep stages. Many participants were able to answer questions using eye movements which they were trained on beforehand. Some were even able to solve simple math problems. Everything was done while they were still asleep. This showed that people are able to communicate during REM sleep and created an entirely new way to conduct dream studies. Additionally, thanks to these findings, the biases from relying on people’s memories of their dreams after awakening was eliminated. 

A recent news article called “Two Individuals Achieve First-Ever Communication Through Lucid Dreams While Sleeping at Separate Locations” used the previous findings and added an unusual breakthrough. Similarly, in this experiment, the researchers were focusing on lucid dream communication. However, in this case, they had the dreamers sleep at different locations to send simple messages to each other during dreaming. This was one of the first findings about dream communication and showed that dreamers are able to communicate with other dreamers in addition to communicating with researchers in the same room. They used a technological device by REMspace, where one dreamer would receive a coded word in their dream and repeat it. Then, the second dreamer would receive the message when they entered REM sleep. This showed the vast possibilities of dream research and dream technology. 

Both the study and the news article connect to what we have talked about in class. I found it fascinating that dream research is becoming more creative and advanced every single day. Communicating through REM sleep gives so many new opportunities to help us understand the brain. The findings of both the study and news article raise questions about consciousness during sleep and how this technology can be utilized in the future. Some people believe that these discoveries will eventually help with treating things like nightmares, emotional regulation, and practicing skills during sleep. Overall, these huge developments within dream neuroscience show that we can interact with people that may be dreaming which changes how we think about sleep and awareness. By finding new ways to study the brain scientists are able to understand more about things that have remained mysterious in the past about dream science.

References 

Konkoly, K. R., Appel, K., Chabani, E., Mangiaruga, A., Gott, J., Mallett, R., … Paller, K. A. (2021). Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology, 31(7), 1417–1427.

Dunn, M. (2023). Two individuals achieve first-ever communication through lucid dreams while sleeping at separate locations. The Science Times.