Researchers have discovered that lucid dreaming is more than just a vivid sleep state, it's actually a whole other state of consciousness. Lucid dreaming occurs when a person becomes aware they are dreaming, often gaining the ability to control the dream's events. For instance, they might fly, walk through walls, or confront fears, taking advantage of the limitless possibilities. Previously, scientists believed lucid dreams were simply more vivid or intense versions of the typical dreams that occur during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is a normal phase of the sleep cycle characterized by increased brain activity. But this new study shows that brain activity patterns during a lucid dream are entirely different from those that occur during regular dreams and wakefulness.

Scientists have brought science fiction one step closer to reality by achieving the first two-way communication between individuals during lucid dreaming. In an experiment that sounds like a scene out of the movie'Inception,' REMspace - a California-based startup that designs technology to enhance sleep and lucid dreaming - reportedly exchanged a message between two people who were asleep. The company used'specially designed equipment' which included a'server,' an'apparatus,' 'Wifi' and'sensors,' but did not specify the exact technology they used. The study participants were asleep in separate homes when REMspace researchers beamed a word created through a unique language between them. REMspace CEO and founder Michael Raduga said: 'Yesterday, communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction.

The idea of controlling your dreams might sound like the plot of the latest science fiction blockbuster. But this mysterious gift is a reality for around 20 per cent of people, who are able to go on exciting trips in impossible worlds. Depicted in films such as'Inception', lucid dreaming could provide a useful link between the real world and the dream world. Scientists are trying to tap into the potential of lucid dreaming, helping people complete tasks like turning on lights or even driving virtual cars while asleep. Here are three tricks that could allow you to try it for yourself.

An AI tech startup wants you to trade in regular dreams for a headband that lets you control your nighttime wanderings in a lucid dreamlike state. Prophetic is releasing the 2,000 Halo AI headband in 2025, which will give wearers unparalleled control over their dreams that could help users grapple with existing problems they're facing in their waking lives. The headband uses electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which measures brain activity by measuring the blood flow. However, experts aren't yet sure what the long-term effects could be and warn that using high-frequency sounds to zap your brain, could hinder our cognitive ability to process short-term memories. 'We are very rarely lucid in our dreams.

Eric Wollberg's interest in facilitating lucid dreams emerged while living in Jerusalem, reading lots of theology. "Abraham, Muhammad, Buddha, all those prophets received their prophetic wisdom in their dreams," the startup and tech investment alum told me recently. During some periods of his life, Wollberg too regularly experienced the sorts of dreams where he knew he was awake. He wondered whether there was a way to use emerging technology to have them on demand. Last February a hint came from, of all people, Grimes.

Dreaming is a fundamental but not fully understood part of human experience that can shed light on our thought patterns. Traditional dream analysis practices, while popular and aided by over 130 unique scales and rating systems, have limitations. Mostly based on retrospective surveys or lab studies, they struggle to be applied on a large scale or to show the importance and connections between different dream themes. To overcome these issues, we developed a new, data-driven mixed-method approach for identifying topics in free-form dream reports through natural language processing. We tested this method on 44,213 dream reports from Reddit's r/Dreams subreddit, where we found 217 topics, grouped into 22 larger themes: the most extensive collection of dream topics to date. We validated our topics by comparing it to the widely-used Hall and van de Castle scale. Going beyond traditional scales, our method can find unique patterns in different dream types (like nightmares or recurring dreams), understand topic importance and connections, and observe changes in collective dream experiences over time and around major events, like the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent Russo-Ukrainian war. We envision that the applications of our method will provide valuable insights into the intricate nature of dreaming.

"You can make the argument that REM sleep is kind of a neglected resource," says Benjamin Baird, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies human cognition. "What if we could use this state for when people can actually have control over their thoughts and actions and decide what they want to do? The state could potentially be used for entertainment and creative problem--solving, and learning about how memory works, and all kinds of different [neuroscience]." Baird thinks one especially intriguing application for lucid dreaming might be in art. "One technique from the visual artists I've met is that they find an'art gallery' in their lucid dream and look at the painting hanging in the gallery," he says.

It's a bit of a bummer that dreams are as fascinating as they are hard and expensive to study. Famed psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung may have made big names for themselves mining the meaning and significance of our dreams, but even today, with powerful brain-monitoring technology, it's tough to get a handle on what, exactly, is going on. Researchers, if they wait to wake up their subjects from sleep in the morning, have to contend with "rapid forgetting." A better method is to wake people up while they're dreaming, but this requires running a sleep lab, which doesn't offer that much of an advantage. The dreamers are groggy and still forgetful.