Scientists in California have made a sci-fi concept a reality, as a company called REMspace has successfully established two-way communication between two people while they were both asleep and lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming occurs when a person becomes aware they are dreaming and can sometimes control elements of the dream. This typically happens during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep, when our dreams are most vivid. The participants in this experiment were experienced lucid dreamers, skilled at recognizing when they were in a dream state.
According to the Daily Mail, the experiment took place on September 24. Before drifting off, the participants were connected to specialized equipment that monitored their brain activity and sleep patterns in real-time. This data was transmitted to a central system that tracked their dream states as they occurred.
Once the first participant entered a lucid dream, the system detected this change in brain activity and transmitted a random word in a specially created language called "Remmyo." The word, "Zhilak," was delivered to the dreamer through earbuds while they remained asleep. In the dream, the participant heard the word and repeated it out loud, with sensors capturing and sending the spoken word back to the system.
Shortly afterwards, the second participant also reached a lucid dream state. The system identified the brain activity linked to this state and sent the same word, "Zhilak," to her through earbuds. She too heard the word in her dream and repeated it aloud. Upon waking, she confirmed that the word she heard in her dream was indeed "Zhilak," marking the first successful communication between two people in their dream states.
This breakthrough holds significant potential for advancing sleep science. REMspace believes that this technology could eventually be used in mental health treatment, skill development, and various other applications. However, the technology and findings will need to be validated and replicated by other researchers to confirm their reliability and effectiveness.
"Yesterday, communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction. Tomorrow, it will be so common we won't be able to imagine our lives without this technology," REMspace CEO and founder Michael Raduga reportedly said. "This opens the door to countless commercial applications, reshaping how we think about communication and interaction in the dream world."
