(Image via REMspace)
Staff Writer: Brian Galindo
Email: bgalindo@umassd.edu
Have you ever wanted to share dreams with someone? As a frequent sleeper myself, I certainly have. Now, a tech startup might be on the way to making it happen.
REMspace is a tech company located in Redwood City, California that is dedicated to the study of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep and lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming is a type of dreaming in which one is fully aware that one is dreaming. They can use this knowledge to control their dreams and do things they couldn’t do in the real world.
Just this past week, the company held a press release about their most insane breakthrough yet: communication between two sleeping individuals in a state of REM sleep. This revolutionary breakthrough could change the way we view sleep as we know it.
Many people already know about lucid dreaming, but dream communication would make it possible for you to influence other people’s dreams and maybe even be in them.
The company has posted a YouTube video as a proof-of-concept for the experiment.
The method in which dream communication works, according to the video, is connecting both dreamers to various brain monitors, such as electroencephalograms (EEGs) and electrooculograms (EOGs).
The EEGs can be used to monitor brain activity in sleep, while the EOGs can be used to watch the unconscious movements of the eyes below the eyelids, essential for tracking the rapid eye movement that gives REM sleep its name.
These monitors are often used in sleep studies to track sleep cycles and diagnose various sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy and hypersomnia.
The experiment seems to require some sort of spaced sleep schedule, as the two dreamers are never in REM sleep simultaneously. People without conditions that affect REM will typically enter REM at the same rate, usually at about the 90-minute mark.
REM sleep is notable for being the primary type of sleep in which one dreams. Without knowing when one will enter REM, the experiment is likely undoable.
When one dreamer is in REM sleep, they enter a lucid dream and send a message to the other dreamer; when the other dreamer enters REM sleep, they also enter a lucid dream and receive the message, sending a new one to the other.
The video doesn’t seem clear on the exact science, what can be communicated, or the limitations, which has caused a lot of disbelief in the comments.
Being in disbelief is fair because the concept of shared dreams has been a staple in science fiction media for decades.
If this has been being worked on for so long, many wonder how a simple two-minute video is the only “proof” available. The actual study people are waiting for is currently being peer-reviewed, so we likely won’t see it for quite some time.
Though this seems simplistic, it’s likely because it’s just an early study. Once it’s reviewed, perhaps we could all live our Inception dreams. Or nightmares.
REMspace has mostly focused on the study of lucid dreaming thus far. While lucid dreaming is paramount to this experiment, it will be interesting to see how this study will change their focus or if it will remain the same.
The CEO of REMspace, Michael Raduga (sometimes listed as Mikhail Raduga), is a published author on many subjects related to sleep, lucid dreaming, and the like. He also has a number of peer-reviewed studies on the topic.
If any person or group of people discovers the sci-fi dream-entering loop, this does seem like the one to do it. Still, we can only watch them with great interest and hope for the future.