“[THE RESEARCH IS] AKIN TO FINDING A WAY TO TALK WITH AN ASTRONAUT WHO IS ON ANOTHER WORLD”

By now the researchers had broken exciting new ground, successfully achieving two-way communication with participants while they were dreaming.

- DR CHRISTIAN JARRETT

They had succeeded at their goal, which as they put it in their paper, was “akin to finding a way to talk with an astronaut who is on another world, but in this case the world is entirely fabricated on the basis of memories stored in the brain.”

SLEEP TALKING

The study by Konkoly, Paller and their colleagues was focused on establishing a two-way communication between a dreamer and the outside world. It was a proof-of-concept study that promises to pave the way for many new and exciting projects, both to uncover more about the nature of the dreaming brain and for practical interventions to enhance learning and creativity, for instance. However, even without the capability of two-way communication, other researchers have already tested the potential of lucid dreaming in various ways.

For example, there is such as thing as lucid dreaming therapy, which involves teaching lucid dreaming techniques to sufferers of nightmares, so that they can choose to wake up from a nightmare or even change the narrative so that its content is less distressing.