A passage way is opening into the world of dreams

Researchers have long pondered the liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming. A new study out of Northwestern University about lucid dreaming has captured the attention of The Boston Globe. Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon in which a person is aware of being in a dream, but does not wake. Instead, lucid dreamers can, to some extent, control their surroundings and the narrative of their dreams, the Globe reports. But communicating with lucid dreamers has its challenges, says Furman University’s Erin Wamsley, who offered her thoughts on a technique used for questioning dreamers in real time versus post-dream.

Erin Wamsley, Furman Department of Psychology

Wamsley, a neuroscientist who studies dreams and memory, said, “There is potential to use that method in new studies to test the function of dreaming. However, the method will always be really difficult and impractical, in the sense that you have to test dozens of participants before getting one instance of really convincing, successful communication.”

Read more in The Boston Globe (a subscription may be required).