Inception: fiction or reality?

• April 19, 2024

Can we really influence the dreams of others? The movie "Inception" It seems to go a little beyond reality, to raise the idea that through lucid dreams we can influence the ideas of another person.

Although this ability is still fiction for the scientific world, lucid dreams are real and verifiable through laboratory experiments, although they rarely occur. The best description that defines a lucid dream is Be aware that you dream during a dream. A recent publication of the magazine Scientific American It covers the subject with the collaboration of Deidre Barret, professor at the School of Psychiatry at Harvard University.

Through a brief interview, the specialist and author of specialized books on the subject, mentions that it is possible to control what we dream and be aware during the dream. Even influence can be exerted on nightmares, especially during those that have their origin in past traumas, where it is possible to stop them or even Change your outcome.

"Lucid dreams are rare, less than 1% of the dreams that have been studied, but they definitely happen if you observe dream collections of a Universe that involve many people"

The specialist mentions that there are techniques in which it is possible to induce a lucid dream or at least, increase the likelihood of it happening, some of these actions range from keeping a dream journal, or if you have not dreamed of flying for a long time, place a photograph of a man flying next to your bed to be the last thing you remember before going to bed and increasing the chances that the dream will deal with it.

Solution to sleep problems

In general terms, there are many areas of the brain that stay more active during sleep than when we are awake. The areas that are commonly most active are the parts of the visual cortex Which may be the reason why dreams feel so vivid.

During certain phases of the sleep cycle, other areas of the brain are less active, these are the prefrontal areas, which have to do with the points that handle logical and rational thinking, related to where the censorship resides and the rules of what we believe socially appropriate or not. It is because of that the brain can solve problems in a much less linear way and with greater creative intelligence when we are asleep. Studies where Dr. Barret participated, kept students who tried to find solutions to real-life problems during sleep.

The experiment caused the students to dream of a specific problem for a week and a half, where a quarter of them managed to dream of the solution, and that dream became much more lucid if they exposed themselves to the techniques to create it. In the studies carried out to try to transform the nightmares, the rate was much higher and the time to achieve it was much faster.

The control techniques, or at least to influence our dreams have been shown as possible in dream experiments. They have achieved through certain strategies, the power to dream of a particular subject, solve a real-life problem or dissolve a recurring nightmare, thus managing to solve post-traumatic problems in some cases andput an end to long nights of insomnia, without the need for medication. There are still many studies to be done, but in short it is a goal that undoubtedly implies effort and perseverance on the part of the individual who wishes to do so.

Video Medicine: L’inception, science-fiction ou réalité ? | Karim Benchenane | TEDxParis (April 2024).