From: TIME Magazine
Can Dreams Help You Solve Problems?
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As well, in recent years, researchers have found ways to influence dreams by communicating with people while they are in a lucid state. In 2021, Ken Paller and Karen Konkoly of Northwestern University and their colleagues reported that they had established two-way communication with lucid dreamers, tapping their hands in a specific pattern and having them signal back with eye movements. The sleeping subjects received math questions and dreamed about the solutions, relaying them to the experimenter. This work opened the door to someday, perhaps, asking people in real time what they are dreaming about.
It is still unclear however, whether dreams might have some benefit for us, such as helping us work through issues we encounter during the day. It certainly feels that way—but proving it is far more difficult.
“How do dreams contribute to our creativity and problem solving abilities in the waking state?” asks Paller. “You could ask that by giving people problems before they go to sleep, and see if they come up with the answers when they wake up. But then, you’ll never know if it was because of what they were thinking about before they went to sleep, or as they were going to sleep, or any other time period–not their dreams.”
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Comments
One methodological problems need resolution BEFORE , the resolution of the issue of the efficacy of lucid dreams in human problem solving is resolved..
First we need RELIABLE method of INCREASING the magnitude of lucid dreams,at least in a very promising subset (Patricia Bowers 1978??,Joe Dane 1984,Peters et al 2023) of the human population.
Hypnotic Susceptibility can be screened with the Harvard Group test but must be measured with the gold standard Stanford form c.Peter’s etal 2023 did not SPECIFY what Form of the Stanford behavioral test they used.
Ian Wickramasekera PhD
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