Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep [2/18/21] [Lucid Dreams]

Konkoly, K. R., Appel, K., Chabani, E., Mangiaruga, A., Gott, J., Mallett, R., Caughran, B., Witkowski, S., Whitmore, N. W., Mazurek, C. Y., Berent, J. B., Weber, F. D., Türker, B., Leu-Semenescu, S., Maranci, J., Pipa, G., Arnulf, I., Oudiette, D., Dresler, M., & Paller, K. A. (2021). Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology, 31(7), 1417-1427.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33607035/

Abstract
Dreams take us to a different reality, a hallucinatory world that feels as real as any waking experience. These often-bizarre episodes are emblematic of human sleep but have yet to be adequately explained. Retrospective dream reports are subject to distortion and forgetting, presenting a fundamental challenge for neuroscientific studies of dreaming. Here we show that individuals who are asleep and in the midst of a lucid dream (aware of the fact that they are currently dreaming) can perceive questions from an experimenter and provide answers using electrophysiological signals. We implemented our procedures for two-way communication during polysomnographically verified rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep in 36 individuals. Some had minimal prior experience with lucid dreaming, others were frequent lucid dreamers, and one was a patient with narcolepsy who had frequent lucid dreams. During REM sleep, these individuals exhibited various capabilities, including performing veridical perceptual analysis of novel information, maintaining information in working memory, computing simple answers, and expressing volitional replies. Their responses included distinctive eye movements and selective facial muscle contractions, constituting correctly answered questions on 29 occasions across 6 of the individuals tested. These repeated observations of interactive dreaming, documented by four independent laboratory groups, demonstrate that phenomenological and cognitive characteristics of dreaming can be interrogated in real time. This relatively unexplored communication channel can enable a variety of practical applications and a new strategy for the empirical exploration of dreams.


View full-text article in PMC
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 May 28.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Biol. 2021 Feb 18;31(7):1417–1427.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026

Table 1.

Summary of data collection from each team

Team Participants Lucid dreaming method Tasks Output signals Sessions with TWC attempts Sessions with REM sleep Sessions with SVLD Trials with TWC attempts
USA people who remembered ≥1 dream/week (n = 22) targeted lucidity reactivation spoken math questions eye movements 16 12 6 31
Germany experienced lucid dreamers with ≥35 lucid dreams total (n = 10) wake-back-to-bed method math questions indicated by tones and lights eye movements 60 40 5 54
France an experienced lucid dreamer with narcolepsy (n = 1) spontaneous lucid dreaming spoken yes/no questions; discrimination of tactile, speech, and light stimuli facial muscle contractions 2 2 2 65
the Netherlands people who remembered ≥3 dreams/week with ≥1 lucid dream (n = 3) targeted lucidity reactivation spoken math questions eye movements 4 3 2 8
Totals N = 36 82 57/82 15/57 158

TWC, two-way communication; SVLD, signal-verified lucid dreaming. Targeted lucidity reactivation entails training with sensory stimulation prior to sleep, followed by sensory stimulation during sleep. The wake-back-to-bed method entails arousal from sleep for 15–60 min followed by the intention to lucid dream upon returning to sleep. A trial corresponds to a single two-way communication attempt, as in delivering a math question. Our analysis was restricted to trials that occurred during REM sleep with SVLD.