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Electric Stimulation Could Help You Control Your Dreams

Posted by samzenpus on from the lets-get-lucid dept.

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "A new study suggests that mild current applied to the scalp while sleeping can help people become aware of, and even control, their dreams—a phenomenon called lucid dreaming. Researchers recruited 27 men and women to spend several nights in a German sleep lab. After the volunteers had plunged into REM sleep, a state in which people are unable to move and the most vividly recalled dreams occur, researchers applied electrical current to their skulls near the forehead and temples. This boosted neural activity in the frontotemporal cortex, a brain region associated with conscious self-awareness, which normally gets tamped down during REM. Researchers then woke the participants and asked them to detail any dreams they could remember. People who had received 40 Hz of current were lucid in more than 70% of their reported dreams. The researchers suggest that the technique could potentially be used to help people who suffer from chronic nightmares."

23 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. insert PKD joke here by waddgodd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Torn between "Do androids dream of electric sheep" joke and a "we'll remember it for you wholesale" one.

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
    1. Re:insert PKD joke here by mjwx · · Score: 2

      I was going to go with "Electric Dreams". I've been on a bit of an 80's music binge lately.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    2. Re: insert PKD joke here by torsmo · · Score: 2

      are you experiencing deja vi

      He was trying out the experience over a 300 baud modem.

  2. Used to be able to dream lucidly when ... by quax · · Score: 2

    ... I was a teenager. Was really pretty cool. Especially being able to fly everywhere.

    1. Re:Used to be able to dream lucidly when ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sometimes in my dreams there is a vague opportunity for sex with hot girls. Most of the time a dream like this occurs, I know it is a dream and want to take control over it to take advantage of the situation. However the more I try to control it, the more I wake up, until I'm finally totally awake before I could actually steer the dream in any direction. So it has often occurred to me that the act of dreaming is not compatible with consciously controlling a dream.

      I wonder if there is a way to individually try out this experiment on oneself. Nothing wrong with some self-controlled dream sex. ;)

    2. Re:Used to be able to dream lucidly when ... by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      Someone once told me that if you dream of flying it really means sex.

      I asked her what it meant if you dreamed of sex.

      It would appear to mean you aren't getting any, and aren't going to - at least from her.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re:Used to be able to dream lucidly when ... by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I worked hard to develop my lucidity. How did you lose it? For me, it never left, and never needed to work to keep it.

      For me, it started with being able to "change channels". When I didn't like a dream, I'd pick a new one. I could also wake myself up. Working on that for a while, I got to where I could "tweak" dreams. add in things, take them away, play with them.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    4. Re:Used to be able to dream lucidly when ... by fabioalcor · · Score: 2

      I still do, at 30 years old. Especially when I sleep at evenings, it's almost certain that I will have a lucid dream, sometimes I incorpore the sounds around me in my dream, even whole conversations.
      And yes, is's totally cool when I am able to fly in my dreams, even when sometimes I can't control my flight.

    5. Re:Used to be able to dream lucidly when ... by dcw3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      By anecdotal evidence, I can verify at least one person can do basic math in her sleep...

      When I was a teen, my mom would frequently fall asleep on the couch. She would also talk in her sleep. I was able to get her to respond to simple questions, and even do basic math, but nothing more than multiplication. I suspect that since those answers were already memorized, it would be different when asking for an answer that required more than a canned reply.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
  3. 40 hz of current? by radaos · · Score: 2

    40 hz of current? Looks like the editor is the one asleep.

    1. Re:40 hz of current? by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 4, Funny

      Makes as much sense as megabytes of keyboards.

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    2. Re:40 hz of current? by sillybilly · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The brain exhibits electric waves in the extremely low frequency region 5-10-15 Hz, and there have been experiments where submitting someone to such stimuli interferes with normal thought, even such simple things as motor vibration sounds inside a factory, which are inaudible, but create pressure sensations on the skin or chest hairs and other body hairs, or even creating a "beat frequency" between 2 audible sounds, such a 300 and 310 Hz, which will create a 10 Hz beat, and affect the brain. It is strange that these researchers would find 40 Hz affecting the brain, because that seems high. The brain seems like a low 6-10 Hz frequency massively parallel CPU, with much more processing power than a 2 GHz (or 2 billion Hz) regular CPU. By the way back in 2001-2005 I had a bed where there was constant hum from a nearby hospital-like building, and kind of a resonance zone, and unless I moved my head into an unnaturally edge position, I could feel my skull vibrate from the hums, and I was unable to fall asleep at all. I was aware of the ELF(extremely low frequency) stimulus effect on the brain (my high school physics professor taught me about it), but it didn't bother me that much, as the rent was really cheap, and all you had to do was to physically move your head away from the low frequency noise. Especially the russians put a lot of effort into mind control experiments through ELF, but it didn't seem to work or even have any effect back in 2005, other than just plain nuisance from your head vibrating. I can't say that anymore, in 2014, whatever way they figured out telepathy, it does not seem to have anything to do with ELF.

    3. Re:40 hz of current? by GrpA · · Score: 2

      if 40Hz of current can elicit lucidity, imagine what 40 MHz of current would do !

      Or better yet, 2.4 GHz,,,, You'd dream you were the Internet -

      Well, I'm tired today so I might go get a few amps of sleep...

      GrpA

      --
      Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
  4. 70% dreamt they were Ted Bundy by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

    Researchers then woke the participants and asked them to detail any dreams they could remember. People who had received 40 Hz of current

    Of which 70% dreamt they were Ted Bundy at his execution. Another 10% thought they were they were Horace Pinker from Shocker. , and 5% thought they were Michael Clark Duncan in the Green Mile

  5. This sounds technically easy, maybe fun! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's trivially easy to give 40 small shocks per second to the temples. Really, I'm tempted to try this for fun. But a small device that could both detect REM and then deliver the 40Hz stimulation would probably not need to cost more than $10. The theory seems sound, and it really could be awesome! I'd love to see a homebrew version.

    1. Re:This sounds technically easy, maybe fun! by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2

      NMES units are more fun. They really work: you can tone your existing muscles some, and provide a smooth cool-down and better strengthening when combined with typical exercise. Of course you need no more than a thin layer of fat over said muscles; and NMES delivers one hell of a jolt. Try not to cry.

      So much for getting fit the easy way.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
  6. Rekall by ArcadeMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Choose your ego trip:
    - Millionaire Playboy
    - Sports Hero
    - Industrial Tycoon
    - Secret Agent

    --
    Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
  7. prior experimental failures by schmidt349 · · Score: 2

    We applied the cortical electrodes, but were unable to get a neural response from either patient.

  8. Unfortunately... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Funny

    The researchers suggest that the technique could potentially be used to help people who suffer from chronic nightmares.

    ... my recurring nightmare is that people attach electrodes to my head and zap me while I sleep.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  9. better strategy by slashmydots · · Score: 2

    There was an article on slashdot a while ago about how frequent gamers tend to not have nightmares because they're so used to staying calm and winning in frightening situations. I can personally say that that is extremely true. That seems safer and more long-term than this treatment.

    1. Re:better strategy by slashmydots · · Score: 2

      That isn't completely true. Dreams are agreed on by psychologists to be simulations of things your brain perceives to be dangerous so that you feel less nervous and make a smarter decision if they happen in real life. Children are still determining from what they see and hear what is real and what is not. Adults have a pretty firm grasp on it. They simply wouldn't dream about monsters under their bed if their brain found the idea laughable and sincerely unrealistic. But if you want 6 hours of serial killer movies in a row and go to bed, your brain marked that is real and percentage-wise, it now thinks your life circumstances significantly include serial killers. So you will dream about it because it is a real thing and your subconscious is concerned. If you went camping in Africa and saw lions all day, you would dream about a lion attack and hopefully do better in real life if a lion attacked. That's just how it works.

      I've been attacked by every animal imaginable in every game you could imagine and in every case, I killed it. So the only difference between me and a non-gamer is that my dream would always end with me winning because that's the only way I've ever seen it play out.

      By the way, I hold a record high score in animal dream kills inside my own head and got an achievement for it, lol.

  10. Wait, what? by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Funny

    "40 hz of current"

    Is that like four cc's of amplification? 18 db of sugar? 16 mph of cotton?

    Someone help me here, I'm drowning.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  11. TDCs by h5inz · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is called tDCS and it has already formed an amateur community, search in Reddit for example, many have bought their devices and many of them have made them themselves. If you are going to try this, then do your research and try to be safe. There are safety guidelines made by some guy here for example:
    http://speakwisdom.wordpress.c...
    Also there was a study on rats which found that :"Brain lesions occurred at a current density of 142.9 A/m2 for durations greater than 10 minutes."
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19403329
    Exceeding recommended current will probably give you skin burns long before you reach anything brain damaging. Don't get me wrong though, I don't recommend you anything and I am not a doctor either.