Medical hypotheses
November 1, 2020
Michael Raduga, Oleg Kuyava, Natalia Sevcenko
31 citations
During REM sleep, people normally dream, but some also experience lucid dreaming (being conscious during a dream), false awakening (dreaming that one has woken up), sleep paralysis (temporary muscle atonia upon waking or falling asleep), and out-of-body experiences (the sensation of leaving the physical body). A survey of 974 people on the streets of Moscow found that 88% had experienced at least one of these phenomena, and 43% experienced one often. These phenomena were closely correlated with each other, and their recurrence correlated with sleep duration and dream recall frequency. The results suggest these REM sleep dissociative phenomena are interconnected.
Sleep science (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
January 1, 2022
Michael Raduga
8 citations
During lucid dreams, people can intentionally produce facial muscle activity that corresponds to specific spoken words. Four experienced lucid dreamers, in a laboratory, said the phrase "I love you" while awake and again while lucid dreaming. Electromyographic (EMG) recordings from facial and neck muscles showed that the "I" sound triggered distinctive activity in the submentalis area, while "you" did so in the orbicularis oris, both during wakefulness and during the dream. The patterns were observed in most cases, suggesting that only highly distinctive, EMG-signature phrases can be detected from dream vocalizations. This indicates the possibility of creating an artificial EMG language for real-time decoding during lucid dreams.
Sleep medicine
December 1, 2021
Michael Raduga
5 citations
People can intentionally signal from within a lucid dream by moving their chin muscles, even though the body is otherwise paralyzed during REM sleep. In a laboratory study, four out of five volunteers who achieved a lucid dream successfully opened their jaws three times as pre-arranged. These chin movements were detectable via a single electromyography sensor, suggesting that muscle atonia does not block voluntary signals from the submentalis area. This finding points toward a simpler, cheaper, and potentially wearable lucid-dream verification protocol that could accelerate research and enable new applications in psychology, motor training, and human-computer interaction.
Sleep science (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
December 1, 2023
Michael Raduga, Andrey Shashkov
1 citation
Lucid dreaming occurs when metacognition arises during REM sleep. Standard verification requires multiple sensors. Researchers hypothesized that preagreed frontalis movements (PAFMs)—raising the eyebrows three times—could be seen on a single EEG sensor. Five volunteers induced lucid dreams and signaled using both standard eye movements and PAFMs. All participants sent signals from eight lucid dreams. PAFMs were equally distinctive on most EEGs but depended on accurate instruction, exhibited two EEG patterns, and caused immediate awakening when the dream was unstable. PAFMs are less consistent than eye movements but can verify lucid dreaming with only one EEG sensor when polysomnography is unavailable.