Scientists in Kyoto, Japan have found a way to use something called ‘magnetic resonance imaging’ to decode night visions of the unconscious mind. In other words, you better not be dreaming about anything rude, because they can see it all. Almost.
The scientists figured out a breakthrough way of using MRI scanners to understand what their test-subjects were dreaming of by locating the exact part of the brain that was active during the first part of a person’s sleep cycles, which is the bit when we dream.
So if the part of the brain that was being stimulated was the creative side, you can bet that it wasn’t a hot dream about calculus. It gets even more detailed than that. During the tests, scientists woke up the dreamers to ask about the images they had seen, comparing their answers with their dream-catching brain maps. And did they get it right? You bet they did. 60% pass rate yolo!
Yukiyasu Kamitani, a senior researcher boasted: “We have concluded that we successfully decoded some kinds of dreams with a distinctively high success rate. I believe it was a key step towards reading dreams more precisely.”
But what exactly is the point of reading each other’s dreams, when the beauty of dreams is that they’re, well, private? The researchers say that the results and use of the MRI scanner could lead to a better understanding of how brains react during sleep, which could help understand unusual brain states experienced by coma patients.
Well that’s OK then. As long as that is why we’re trying to read each other’s dreams, and it’s not some long-winded way of telling the world about that reoccurring dream about you know what with you know who.
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Image by evershade.
Filed under: Mind, Technology
