Understanding our dreams and the function of dreaming has been task which researchers have preformed numerous studies on. It has been discovered that dreaming involves some of the same higher level visual brain areas that are also involved in visual imagery. A team of researchers led by Yukiyasu Kamitani of the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, measured three different individuals brain activity using EEG before, during, and after they slept. The individuals were woken up when patterns of brain waves were detected while they were asleep. They were then asked about their dream and told to go back to sleep. It was reported that the individuals were each having six to seven dreams every hour. Also the dreams were of common everyday experiences and occasionally of something exotic or strange. Researchers also recorded that the most common key terms that were recurrent in many dreams for the participants were car, male, female, and computer. These categories as well as a few others, were then shown as pictures to each of the participants while their brain activity was measured. It was then compared to the brain activity right before the patients were awoken. V1, V2, V3 are the areas of the brain involved in the earliest stages of visual processing and encoding basic features of visual scenes, which were found to have an arousal in activity. Due to this research, it showed that analyzing brain activity nine seconds before the participants were woken up could predict whether or not they were in a current dream state, with an accuracy of 75%-80%. Not only was this research able to predict whether participants were dreaming or not, but it was also stated by Jack Gallant at the University of California, Berkeley, who was provided with this research, that it seems that our ability to recall our dreams is based on short term memory. He was able to assume this through the research presented to him that showed that dream encoding was most accurate within a number of seconds right before the individual is woken up. This research provided helps us to understand the dream world better. We are able to tell whether or not someone is dreaming, as well as see that similar brain areas which are involved in visual imagery are also found in dreaming.
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ReplyDeleteI found this post quite fascinating it tells you whether the participant is dreaming or not. I personally believe that dreams are a part of who we are and that sometimes we talk in our sleep when something is bothering us. So I know through experience.My mother once told me that I was yelling in my sleep but I could not recall that happening.
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