Anything could be possible, huh? Scientists have discovered that communication is possible with people who are lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a state where the person is aware that they are actually dreaming. Ph.D student Karen Konkoly and her colleagues have published a study in Current Biology that asked lucid dreamers questions to try two-way communication:
They were studying rapid-eye-movement sleep, which is the stage of sleep where people dream most vividly. In REM sleep, "every muscle in your body is completely paralyzed, except you can twitch and you can move your eyes," Konkoly tells Scott Simon on Weekend Edition. "So if you become lucid in a dream and you want to communicate, then when people are dreaming, they just look left-right, left-right, really dramatically. And then we know that they're communicating out."
Lucid dreaming is not common. So to study it, researchers recruited people who had experience with it and also trained people to try to make lucid dreaming more likely.
Before the participants went to sleep, they were also trained on how to communicate their answers. Special sensors measured people's eye movements or experts would judge their facial movements.
For example, a typical question would be to ask what is 8 minus 6. A 19-year-old American man was able to respond by moving his eyes left-right, left-right — two times — to signal "2." Researchers asked the question again, and he moved his eyes the same way two times again.
Out of the 158 trials among 36 participants, about 18% of the time, they were able to give correct answers. In another 18%, it wasn't clear whether participants were responding or not. They were wrong 3% of the time. Most often, 61%, participants didn't respond at all.
Image via NPR
Comments (2)
Still kinda cute, though :)
And it was cute...
Had two kittens (feral) that required bottle feeding. The littlest one had the most fierce "growl", if you will, when it came time to suckle up.
Funny thing is, two years later she's the more timid of the two.
Only watched a bit of it - it just seemed mean.
they can be naturally aggressive around their food bowl unless you get them out of it when they are puppies. essentially the same way as this guy is being with this kitten... except he should be telling it "no" and letting it know it's not a good behaviour.
now our dogs willingly share (tail-wagging included) with anyone who'd want a "taste". :) (makes it a lot safer for unwitting children)
still a cute kitten, tho!
Encouraging aggression in a young cat is no smarter than encouraging it in a dog.