The Human Brain’s Perception of Dreams and Reality

Hello, everyone! This is Stalilingus. It’s been a while since I last shared something with you, hasn’t it? I can say I’m back from… vacation and ready to continue enlightening you about the mysteries of NLP and manipulation. Today, let’s talk about how the human brain perceives dreams and reality.

Dreams and Reality: What’s the Difference for the Brain?

When a person dreams, their brain shows the same activity as if those events were happening in real life. No matter what you’re doing in a dream—jumping, running, dancing—your brain processes it as if you were actually doing those things while awake.

This conclusion was reached by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. They studied the brain activity of people who were dreaming. The task wasn’t easy—getting accurate results required finding volunteers who could control their dreams.

The Neurophysiology of Dreaming

Studying the neurophysiology of dreams is no simple task. First, we often forget what we dreamed about. Second, how do you accurately match brain activity to what’s happening in the dream? For this, the volunteer needs to be in a deep sleep and also able to communicate what’s happening in their dream to the experimenters. The phenomenon of lucid dreaming helps solve this problem. Its main feature is that the dreamer realizes they are dreaming and can consciously control their actions to some extent. Only long and persistent training allows people to gain control over their dreams.

The Experiment: Controlling Dreams

The researchers invited six volunteers who practiced lucid dreaming to participate in the experiment. They were asked to dream about squeezing either their right or left hand. If the volunteers entered a lucid dream, they were to signal this by moving their eyes in a specific way. Of course, special equipment was used to scan the brain activity of the dreamers.

In this experiment, only two volunteers managed to have controlled lucid dreams. Nevertheless, thanks to another pair of participants, the researchers confirmed that the activity in the motor cortex (the part of the brain responsible for the right or left hand) during the dreamed movement was exactly the same as if the action were happening in real life. This proves that a dream is not just a movie in your head. It’s not only the visual analyzer that’s involved in perceiving a dream, but the entire brain.

Why Don’t We Move in Our Sleep?

So why don’t we actually jump, run, or squeeze our hand during these dreams? Researchers say that during dreaming, the area of the brain responsible for decision-making is inactive. That’s why the motor cortex activity doesn’t translate into real movement. As a result, lucid dreamers clearly understand that they are dreaming. So, to say that the human brain doesn’t distinguish between dreams and reality is only true to a certain extent.

What’s Next in Dream Research?

The authors of this research didn’t stop there. In the near future, they plan to analyze brain activity during more complex movements in dreams—like running or flying. For this, they’ll involve a larger group of people who can control their dreams.

Note from Pavluu

If you’re interested in lucid dreaming and how to control your dreams, I recommend the following book:

• M. Raduga – “The Phase”

This is a practical manual with no theory, just a ton of exercises for controlling your dreams and having out-of-body experiences. Anyone interested in this topic will love it—this is not an ad. All the best!