ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, CARLAMC
Lucid dreams, the kind in which dreamers become aware that they’re dreaming, often allow control of the dreams’ narratives. Unshackled from space and time that govern waking life, lucid slumberers can explore endless possibilities of the dreaming world. Lucid dreaming could also help researchers peer inside the dream state in new ways. In a study published today (February 18) in Current Biology, scientists show that lucid dreamers can process and exchange complex messages with the waking world.
In other lucid dreaming studies, sleepers have signaled lucidity with eye movements, allowing researchers to distinguish brain activity during these episodes. But to learn the content of these dreams, researchers still rely on sleepers’ recollection upon waking. “Of course, this relies on the memories of the participant, and this might be distorted,” says Kristoffer Appel, a sleep and dream researcher at Osnabrück University and the Institute of Sleep and ...
