Scientists May Have Found a Way of Recording Dreams
An American researcher says he has developed a method to record a person’s dreams. With it scientists could read people’s thoughts and find out what they want to do.
For thousands of years people have been dreaming. Ancient Egyptians thought dreams were messages from the gods. Today dreaming is still one of the great mysteries of our times.
For decades psychologists have tried to analyze the mind and what they call the subconscious. But the only way to do this is to ask people what they have dreamed. Researchers now claim they can monitor brain activity and help people remember their dreams and when they created them.
Researchers have found out that when a certain brain cell or neuron is active it is connected with an object, a person or maybe even an event. For example, when a neuron is active you might be thinking of your mother. These associations can be stored in a database. When doctors show people images of certain people a different brain cell shows activity.
Such a database could be expanded, for example, by monitoring a patient he watches a TV show, reads a book or listens to music.
However it will take a long time to turn such observations into a real dream recording device. But it might be possible in the future.
There are some difficulties that are connected with such research. Patients have to have electrons implanted in their brains for such recorder to work. In the research work they carried out scientists conducted experiments on patients who were suffering from brain seizures and had implants in their brain.
If we could monitor brain waves and brain activity without placing sensors deep into the brain this could really be a revolutionary breakthrough. Doctors could communicate with people who are in a coma. Or you could have a word processor write an email on a computer by just putting it together in your mind. Up to now scientists have tried to use a person’s thoughts to give machines instructions or to control the way a person .
Related Topics
- Dreams and How Dreaming Works
- Are There Hidden Truths in Dreams?
- People Spend Half the Day Daydreaming
- Experiments Suggest Two-Phase Sleep is Natural
Words
- ancient = old
- association = connection, link
- brain = the organ inside your head that controls how you think, move and feel
- breakthrough = a step forward
- carry out = do
- certain = special
- claim = say, declare
- coma = someone who has been unconscious for a long time
- communicate = talk
- conduct = do, perform
- connect = link
- create = make
- database = a large amount of data that is stored in a certain way and which you can easily find
- decade = a period of ten years
- develop = to create or make something new
- expand = grow
- image = picture
- implant = to put deep into
- message = note, letter
- mind = your thoughts and what you feel
- monitor = watch, observe
- neuron = brain cell
- observation = watching, examination
- patient = someone who is ill in a hospital
- place = put
- psychologist = a person who studies the mind and how it affects the way we behave
- record = to save information to a machine
- recording device = machine that saves information
- researcher = a person who does work in order to find out more about a subject or topic
- revolutionary = new, sensational
- scientist = a person who is trained in science and works in a laboratory
- seizure = when you suddenly cannot control what you are doing
- sensor = metal or feeler
- store = save, put
- subconscious = the part of your mind that has thoughts and feelings you do not know about
- suffer = to have pain
- word processor = computer program with which you can write texts and letters