“We show in our research that these dreamers can hear and understand questions and are also able to provide answers to those questions,” said study leader Ken Paller of Northwestern University in the United States. People from the Radboudumc and Donders Institute also participated in the study.
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Why we dream is still a mystery. There is no good scientific explanation for it. Because most of them don’t remember what they dreamed, the research group chose a specific type of dreamers. The scientists tried to communicate with people who dream ‘lucid’. In a lucid dream, the dreamer is aware of the fact that he is dreaming.
Answering questions
The subjects were exposed to light or sound signals or were touched. They could respond to this with eye movements or certain facial muscles. For example, they had to perform simple assignments and math or answer yes / no questions.
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Ultimately, six dreaming people were able to communicate with the researchers at different times. With the results, which appear today in the journal Current Biology, the researchers want to further study the link between sleep and memory processing.
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