Today's machine learning technology has been shown to visualise our dreams. But what if we wished to go further and actually share our dreams?
At present, while we can interpret brain signals and roughly figure out imagined scenes and high-level thoughts, we have no way to transfer these into another brain. Perhaps that's a good thing: many of us might be a little uneasy at the idea of computers pushing ideas directly into our brains during sleep.
Our only current option is to use our senses. Words spoken into our ears while sleeping might be a way of transferring information from one sleeper to another. But how does a sleeping person talk or listen? It's more difficult than it sounds.
Those who do speak during sleep (called somniloquists) tend to do so because of stress. The strange mumblings and burbles aren’t under conscious control. And listening to sounds is also not something we’re good at while asleep: noises heard during sleep most commonly result in disturbed sleep and stress for the dreamer.
But there’s one kind of dreaming that helps: lucid dreaming. This is a rare kind of dreaming where the dreamer is aware yet still asleep. It can be induced with a bit of practice using various techniques.
Perhaps while in this state, two dreamers could actually communicate?
A company called REMSpace not only claims that it's possible, but also that they've done it.
They used external stimuli to help one sleeper enter a lucid dream state. They then communicated a word to that sleeper via earbuds. The lucid dreamer then repeated the word in their sleep, which was stored on a computer.
Eight minutes later, the message was played to a second lucid dreamer who was able to confirm the word when they woke up. It may be of little use in its current state, but it was communication in dreams.
There's another kind of shared thought that may be a bit more helpful, however.
Researchers are now showing that people who work closely together start to synchronise brain waves. It’s been likened to the effect when musicians feel perfectly in sync with each other, or when people in a social group feel strongly bonded together.
Inter-brain neural synchronisation, as it’s known, has been observed through detailed ‘hyperscans’ using electroencephalogram (EEG) scanners that measure brainwaves. These might be theta waves (emitted when we’re very relaxed), alpha waves (emitted when we’re calm) or beta waves (when we’re alert and active).
When these brainwaves – typically driven by beta waves – synchronise between two or more people, they cooperate better, empathise more and are even less sensitive to pain. Teams that are more in sync at a neural level perform better overall.
The best part is that there’s no need for artificial intelligence or brain scanners.
To induce neural synchronisation between people you just need to share experiences with others: you could listen to music together, dance or perform together, solve problems together or simply talk to each other. We get this kind of mental sharing for free – and we benefit strongly from it.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Idris Wise, via email) 'Can we communicate in dreams?'
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