“Zapping” the brain of a person while asleep can help them control the journey of their dreams, says a new study.
Scientists have found that a gentle, targeted electrical current applied to the brain can send the sleeper into a state of lucid dreaming, where they are actively aware they are dreaming and can even affect the path the dream takes.
The researchers led by Ursula Voss of J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt, studied 27 young volunteers, stimulating their brains with various frequencies using non-invasive transcranial alternating current. The subjects’ brain activity was monitored on an Electroencephalogram (EEG) to determine when they were in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and then their brains were stimulated with frequencies ranging from two to 100 hertz for two minutes.
The subjects were woken after the application of the current and asked to rate their dream consciousness, with subjects receiving a 40Hz frequency stimulation, which is the frequency of gamma rays, describing the most conscious dreams.
The researchers hope that offering the ability for people to find a state of lucid dreaming could aid in therapy for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other types of mental illness.
The study is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
