When we dream of something, the same activity is observed in the brain as if the events of the dream were happening in reality. Whatever we do in a dream: dance, jump, fly, etc. - our brain perceives it in the same way as if we were doing it in reality.
This conclusion was reached by researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich (Germany), having studied the brain activity of sleeping people. The task turned out to be not as simple and obvious as it seems at first glance: in order to obtain reliable results, it was necessary to find volunteers who were tempted in controlled dreams.
Researching the neurophysiology of dreams is not easy. First, we do not always remember what exactly we dreamed about. Second, how do you correlate brain activity with what was happening in your sleep? For this it is necessary that the person simultaneously sleeps and informs the experimenter what he is doing in his sleep. The task would be insoluble if it were not for the phenomenon of controlled sleep. Such dreams are not uncommon, half of humanity sees them. The main feature of the phenomenon is that a person during a dream understands that he is dreaming, and can, to some extent, consciously control his actions in a dream. This does not happen regularly, but exercise can help you gain more control over your dreams.
The researchers asked six guided dream practitioners to participate in an experiment. They should have dreamed that they were squeezing their left or right hand. If the volunteers fell into controlled sleep, they should have signaled with an eye movement. They had to sleep, of course, in an fMRI scanner, with which the scientists were going to monitor brain activity.
As the researchers write in the journal Current Biology, only two out of six actually managed to see controlled sleep in the experimental setting. Nevertheless, with the help of a couple of other participants, it was possible to show that the activity of the motor cortex, which is responsible for the right or left hands, during the dreamed movement was the same as if the person was awake and squeezed his hand not in a dream, but in reality. A dream is not a movie: the whole brain is involved in the perception of sleep, and not just the visual analyzer.
But why then don't we really jump and run when we see the corresponding dream? Researchers say that the area of the brain that is responsible for making decisions - for example, the decision to squeeze a hand, is silent during sleep. And, most likely, this is why the activity of the motor cortex, which is responsible for the movement itself, is not realized. And because of this, those who have a guided dream become aware that they are in a dream. Therefore, it is possible to say that the brain does not distinguish between sleep and reality, only to a certain extent.
In the near future, the authors of the study want to attract more guided dream dreamers to analyze brain activity during complex movements: for example, it would be interesting to know what the brain does when we fly in a dream.
Kirill Stasevich
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