Scientists at Northwestern University are doing a dream job— they coached people in a lucid dream (a state where people are aware that they are currently dreaming) and then questioned people who were deep in dream-filled rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. The crazy part? Those dreamers were actually answering basic questions via eye movements.
In this study, the researchers had subjects move their eyes back and forth to count out numbers, for example, eight minus six. The subjects moved their eyes back and forth twice, according to the instructions the scientists gave them while they were awake.
The study just involved six people out of 36 who were able to both have lucid dreams and register correct answers to questions from inside. But what if these six subjects are exceptional and the findings don't reflect a larger population?
If the subjects in the study were not truly in REM sleep, it would decrease the reliability of the findings. Besides, another problem is that REM sleep must be stabilized because even the eye movements themselves can wake people up sometimes. To overcome these two potential problems, the scientists used their polysomnography(多导睡眠图) set-up which helped them get an all-sided assessment of various physiological parameters(生理参数) during sleep.
"Sleep has classically been defined as unresponsiveness to external environmental inputs ——and that feature is still typically part of the definition today," explains Benjamin Baird, a sleep researcher. "This work pushes us to rethink about some of those fundamental definitions about the nature of sleep itself, and what's possible in sleep."
The idea of learning during sleep has long been unrealistic. But the research indicates that people might really be able to study while asleep in a way that could help their waking life, like memorizing facts or visualizing high performance sports or music. "In addition, dreaming could also be used to solve problems and promote creativity," the researchers conclude. "The next moonshot ideas could be produced with a method that can combine the creative advantages of dreaming with the logical advantages of waking."
