Lucid dreamers may be able to talk to the outside world

DREAMS AREREMREMREM clearly important. All humans have them, as do animals from cats to elephants. Neuroscientists believe they are involved in the processing of memories. Yet studying them is limited by the fact that dreamers themselves cannot talk to anyone while they are asleep. Researchers must rely on the unreliable recollections of people who have woken up. Now, though, a team of scientists led by Ken Paller, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, think they may have found a way around that problem.Dr Paller's starting point was the fact that lucid dreams—in which sleepers are aware they are dreaming—seem to be associated with only one kind of sleep, known as "rapid eye movement" () sleep. During sleep, brain activity looks similar to that seen during waking hours. Past research has shown that it is possible for people to be influenced by events taking place in the outside world during sleep. So Dr Paller speculated that it might be possible to reach out to people in such states, and to get answers back.