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The (gamma) power to control our dreams

Nature Neuroscience volume 17, pages 753–755 (2014)Cite this article

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Stimulating the brain in the gamma frequency range, which is the frequency band most often associated with conscious awareness in the awake state, boosts the ability to engage in lucid dreaming during REM sleep.

I have long been fascinated by dreams, both personally and scientifically. Early in graduate school, I tried to keep this interest hidden for fear of being perceived as 'far out' or lacking in scientific credibility. But what was this state of consciousness that allowed us to defy the laws of physics, to connect fragments of our experience in creative, even preposterous ways and to sometimes become aware of these experiences as they unfolded in our sleeping minds? In spite of my long-held interest in dreams, however, even I was shocked to learn that lucid dreaming—the phenomenon in which a dreamer becomes aware that he or she is dreaming and can potentially exert control over the dream—was a distinct cognitive state whose existence has quite a bit of scientific support1,2. Lucid dreaming finds its strongest support yet in a study published in this issue of Nature Neuroscience, in which Voss et al.3 demonstrate that lucid dreaming can be experimentally triggered by stimulating the brain at a frequency associated with conscious awareness.

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Figure 1: Brain stimulation in the gamma frequency range during REM sleep enhances lucid dreaming.

Debbie Maizels/Nature Publishing Group

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  1. Jessica D. Payne is in the Department of Psychology and Sleep Stress and Memory Lab, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.

    Jessica D Payne

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  1. Jessica D Payne
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Correspondence to Jessica D Payne.

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Payne, J. The (gamma) power to control our dreams. Nat Neurosci 17, 753–755 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3727

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