Comment by 8note
2 days ago
"communicate" seems like the really interesting part of this, but gets a one-off mention only.
like, how does this communication work? how does one sleeping person communicate skills to another sleeping person?
have we found the mechanism? was it awake poeple communicating to sleeping people? the reverse?
Stephen LaBerge's book explains, in detail, how they would communicate with lucid dreamers during their research. I don't remember how the researchers signaled the subjects, but if I remember correctly, the subjects would communicate with researchers primarily through eye movements. I can't say if the methods are related at all, but the book is worth a read.
You ever talk with a person who was sleep walking? It's hilarious
It's just a few paragraphs in. The researchers asked yes or no questions and gave some math puzzles to people sleeping. A few remembered. A few were able to answer but didn't remember. It's probably important to remember your entire brain doesn't just stop working and signals still go in and out even though the attentional part we usually think of as ourselves are not aware of it (assuming it's not a lucid dream).
On other hand, I used to have a long-distance girlfriend 25 years ago and we'd talk on the phone before falling asleep and attempt to induce ourselves into having the same dream and seeing each other in it, a la Wheel of Time, which sometimes worked, but of course that kind of communication between two sleepers isn't real, just a testament to the power of suggestion, especially while hypnogogic.
My thought too. The title appears to assume there's nothing special about the 'communicating' but there is about the 'practicing'. Should it not be 'New research suggests people can practice skills and even communicate while dreaming'. I would like to know more.