Current biology : CB
April 12, 2021
Karen R Konkoly, Kristoffer Appel, Emma Chabani et al.
126 citations
People who are asleep and having a lucid dream—aware that they are dreaming—can perceive questions from an experimenter and answer them in real time using eye movements and facial muscle contractions. In a study of 36 individuals during REM sleep, including frequent lucid dreamers, a novice, and a patient with narcolepsy, participants performed perceptual analysis of new information, held information in working memory, computed simple answers, and gave volitional replies. Correct answers occurred on 29 occasions across 6 individuals, documented by four independent laboratories. This two-way communication channel allows real-time interrogation of dream cognition and characteristics.
Brain : a journal of neurology
July 1, 2019
Célia Lacaux, Charlotte Izabelle, Giulio Santantonio et al.
47 citations
People with narcolepsy, who enter REM sleep abnormally quickly and often experience lucid dreaming, show higher creativity than healthy controls. In a study of 185 narcolepsy patients and 126 controls, those with narcolepsy scored higher on the Test of Creative Profile (58.9 vs. 55.1) and the Creativity Achievement Questionnaire (10.4 vs. 6.4). Objective tests of creative performance in 30 patients and 30 controls also favored the narcolepsy group (4.3 vs. 3.7). Most narcolepsy symptoms—sleepiness, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and REM sleep behavior disorder—were linked to higher creativity scores, suggesting that lifelong heightened REM sleep access may enhance creative potential.
Nature communications
August 13, 2025
William Wong, Rubén Herzog, Kátia Cristine Andrade et al.
10 citations
A new open database, the DREAM database, combines standardized sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with dream reports from 505 participants across 20 datasets, totaling 2,643 awakenings. Each awakening includes at least 20 seconds of high-resolution sleep EEG (≥100 Hz, ≥2 electrodes) and a classification of the sleeper's reported experience. Analyses showed that reports of conscious experiences during sleep can be predicted from objective EEG features in both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, enabling larger-scale investigations of the neurocognitive basis of dreaming.
Sleep
February 10, 2025
Yannis Idir, Régis Lopez, Amélie Barbier et al.
5 citations
Disorders of arousal (DoA) episodes, such as sleepwalking, are not a uniform state but involve varying levels of consciousness and responsiveness. In a retrospective questionnaire, 81% of 61 adult patients reported occasional conversations during episodes. Auditory stimulation during N3 sleep triggered episodes in only 7 of 157 trials, and only one patient indirectly responded to verbal prompts. Analysis of 364 home video-recorded episodes from 19 patients found 37 instances of discussion with a bed partner. Patients' ongoing mental content influenced their responses and perception of the outside world. These findings highlight limitations in current diagnostic criteria for DoA.
Cell reports
April 7, 2026
Nicolas Decat, Arthur Le Coz, Jade Sénéchal et al.
Mental experiences during wakefulness and sleep are not as distinct as commonly thought. Analyzing electroencephalography (EEG) from 92 participants during daytime rest, researchers collected 375 reports of mental content scored on bizarreness, fluidity, spontaneity, and wake perception. Clustering these reports revealed four distinct types of mental states. Crucially, all four types occurred across wakefulness, N1 sleep, and N2 sleep. EEG measures of spectral power, complexity, and connectivity differentiated these mental states independently of whether participants were awake or asleep. The findings indicate that the waking and sleeping brain can produce the same mental state, and that fine-grained brain dynamics shape the content of mental experiences.