Researchers from the Higher Normal School of Paris have proved that the human brain hears and understands the meaning of what is said even in a dream, writes The Journal of Neuroscience.
Scientists conducted an experiment in which 23 volunteers took part. All of them slept only in the laboratory during the experiment. The processes that take place in their brains during sleep were monitored using special equipment.
It turned out that both men and women react to certain external stimuli in their sleep. Scientists managed to establish that in the phase of slow sleep, the human brain perceives the words that the person hears at that moment. But he reacts and remembers only words pronounced in a language understandable to a person. Since the phrases in a foreign language, with which the volunteers were unfamiliar, the brain did not perceive.
The brain does not respond to words in deep slow wave sleep. This is due to the fact, the authors of the study note, that in this phase the neurons that “work” in the REM sleep phase are “turned off”.
