A Big First: Communication Through Dreams

A California-based sleep research startup believes the next groundbreaking advancement for humanity will be in accomplishing real-life tasks while asleep. And as it works toward that goal, REMspace is heralding a remarkable achievement: the first communication between two dreaming people, per Interesting Engineering. On Sept. 24, researchers observed two sleeping participants using "a specially developed apparatus," according to a release. "When the server detected that the first participant entered a lucid dream," it sent a random word of "a dream language detectable through sensitive sensors" to the participant via earbuds. The server then detected the participant repeating the word in dream.

"Eight minutes later, the next participant entered a lucid dream. She received the stored message from the first participant and confirmed it upon awakening," per the release. "Additionally, two other people were able to communicate with the server through their dreams." REMspace now says it believes it can accomplish real-time communication in lucid dreams "within a few months." In previous experiments, the company showed participants in a lucid dream could use muscle contractions to control a virtual car, relay commands to a smart device, and communicate musical rhythms, the Guardian reports.

This suggests "people could accomplish stuff related to their work or personal lives before waking up" within the next decade or two, REMspace founder and CEO Michael Raduga says, per the Guardian. Only about half of people have experienced a lucid dream, while only a fifth do so on a monthly basis. However, research suggests lucid dreaming can become more frequent through training. There are not only tasks to be accomplished through dreams, says Raduga. "A lot of studies have looked at how different aspects of dreaming can help creativity through generating more original ideas or problem solving, and that can be applied across the board, from the arts, to science, to business," says Swansea University's Laura Roklicer. (More lucid dreaming stories.)