Current biology : CB
April 12, 2021
Karen R Konkoly, Kristoffer Appel, Emma Chabani et al.
126 citations
People who are asleep and having a lucid dream—aware that they are dreaming—can perceive questions from an experimenter and answer them in real time using eye movements and facial muscle contractions. In a study of 36 individuals during REM sleep, including frequent lucid dreamers, a novice, and a patient with narcolepsy, participants performed perceptual analysis of new information, held information in working memory, computed simple answers, and gave volitional replies. Correct answers occurred on 29 occasions across 6 individuals, documented by four independent laboratories. This two-way communication channel allows real-time interrogation of dream cognition and characteristics.
Brain : a journal of neurology
July 1, 2019
Célia Lacaux, Charlotte Izabelle, Giulio Santantonio et al.
47 citations
People with narcolepsy, who enter REM sleep abnormally quickly and often experience lucid dreaming, show higher creativity than healthy controls. In a study of 185 narcolepsy patients and 126 controls, those with narcolepsy scored higher on the Test of Creative Profile (58.9 vs. 55.1) and the Creativity Achievement Questionnaire (10.4 vs. 6.4). Objective tests of creative performance in 30 patients and 30 controls also favored the narcolepsy group (4.3 vs. 3.7). Most narcolepsy symptoms—sleepiness, hypnagogic hallucinations, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and REM sleep behavior disorder—were linked to higher creativity scores, suggesting that lifelong heightened REM sleep access may enhance creative potential.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
December 1, 2023
Thomas Andrillon, Delphine Oudiette
44 citations
Local sleep significantly influences behavior and cognition, highlighting its importance in both wakefulness and different sleep stages. Evidence from studies involving over 500 participants indicates that local sleep can occur independently of global NREM and REM states, affecting attention and consciousness. This phenomenon is linked to dreaming, inattention, and mind wandering. Understanding local sleep may unravel complex interactions within the brain's neurophysiology, offering insights into how sleep impacts metabolism and plasticity, while also addressing various pathological conditions related to sleep disturbances.
May 16, 2023
William Wong, Kátia C. Andrade, Thomas Andrillon et al.
21 citations
preprint
A new open-access database, DREAM, combines sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with standardized dream reports to enable large-scale neurocognitive research on dreaming. The initial release includes 20 datasets from 561 participants and 2649 awakenings, each with at least 20 seconds of high-frequency M/EEG data and a classification of the subject's experience. Analyses demonstrate that features extracted from EEG can predict whether a person reports having had a conscious experience during both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome the limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, allowing new questions to be addressed at a scale unattainable by individual labs.
Nature Communications
August 13, 2025
William Wong, Rubén Herzog, Kátia Cristine Andrade et al.
10 citations
A new open database, the DREAM database, combines standardized sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with dream reports from 505 participants across 20 datasets, totaling 2,643 awakenings. Each awakening includes at least 20 seconds of high-resolution sleep EEG (≥100 Hz, ≥2 electrodes) and a classification of the sleeper's reported experience. Analyses showed that reports of conscious experiences during sleep can be predicted from objective EEG features in both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, enabling larger-scale investigations of the neurocognitive basis of dreaming.
Sleep
February 10, 2025
Yannis Idir, Régis Lopez, Amélie Barbier et al.
5 citations
Disorders of arousal (DoA) episodes, such as sleepwalking, are not a uniform state but involve varying levels of consciousness and responsiveness. In a retrospective questionnaire, 81% of 61 adult patients reported occasional conversations during episodes. Auditory stimulation during N3 sleep triggered episodes in only 7 of 157 trials, and only one patient indirectly responded to verbal prompts. Analysis of 364 home video-recorded episodes from 19 patients found 37 instances of discussion with a bed partner. Patients' ongoing mental content influenced their responses and perception of the outside world. These findings highlight limitations in current diagnostic criteria for DoA.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
September 30, 2025
Karen R Konkoly, Saba Al-Youssef, Christopher Y Mazurek et al.
3 citations
Alpha oscillations, a hallmark of waking visual perception when eyes close, do not reliably increase during lucid dreams when dreamers signal that their dream-eyes are closed. In 150 signals from 11 lucid dreamers, dream-eye closure was associated with fading visual content only about half the time. In three participants where visual content presence versus absence could be compared, increased alpha power accompanied momentary lack of visual content. Real-time reporting via sniffing patterns enables dynamic investigation of dream perception.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
September 1, 2025
Jean-Baptiste Maranci, Pierre Champetier, Delphine Oudiette et al.
preprint
Dreams during REM sleep are emotionally fluid and fast-changing, with positive and negative emotions alternating frequently. In a study of 24 lucid dreamers with narcolepsy who reported emotional valence in real-time using facial codes during daytime naps monitored with polysomnography, 62 of 126 naps contained at least one emotional code during REM sleep, yielding 191 codes total. Positive and negative codes were evenly balanced per nap, and over half of naps with at least two codes showed opposite valences. The average duration of a given emotional valence was about one minute, with positive emotions emerging earlier than negative ones. These findings suggest that the emotional dynamics of REM sleep dreams may contribute to understanding how dreams help regulate emotions.
Cell Reports
April 7, 2026
Nicolas Decat, Arthur Le Coz, Jade Sénéchal et al.
Mental experiences during wakefulness and sleep are not as distinct as commonly thought. Analyzing electroencephalography (EEG) from 92 participants during daytime rest, researchers collected 375 reports of mental content scored on bizarreness, fluidity, spontaneity, and wake perception. Clustering these reports revealed four distinct types of mental states. Crucially, all four types occurred across wakefulness, N1 sleep, and N2 sleep. EEG measures of spectral power, complexity, and connectivity differentiated these mental states independently of whether participants were awake or asleep. The findings indicate that the waking and sleeping brain can produce the same mental state, and that fine-grained brain dynamics shape the content of mental experiences.
PLoS Computational Biology
February 1, 2026
Tao Xia, Chuan-Peng Hu, Başak Türker et al.
Sleep is often seen as a state of mental disconnection, but new research shows that decision-making abilities can persist during certain sleep stages. Using facial muscle measurements and computational modeling, the study found that people could make lexical decisions (distinguishing real words from pseudowords) during N1 sleep and lucid REM sleep, though through different brain processes. During N1 sleep, both enhanced sensory-motor processing and increased evidence accumulation supported decisions about words, while pseudowords were selectively impaired, suggesting cognitive resources prioritize meaningful stimuli. In lucid REM sleep, decisions relied solely on evidence accumulation, and participants raised their decision thresholds, requiring more evidence before responding to maintain accuracy despite reduced efficiency. Sleep involves dynamic, state-specific reconfiguration of decision-making mechanisms rather than passive cognitive decline.
Trends in Neurosciences
April 1, 2024
Célia Lacaux, Mélanie Strauss, Tristan A Bekinschtein et al.
The sleep-onset period (SOP), the transition from wakefulness to sleep, has been largely overlooked despite its potential importance. This review synthesizes current knowledge about the SOP in humans, examining its definition and limits, the dynamic electrophysiological changes that accompany falling asleep, and the interplay between internal and external processing during this transition. The authors propose that the SOP may offer cognitive benefits and identify novel directions for better diagnosing sleep-onset disorders. The review highlights recent findings that have reignited interest in this transitional period, shedding light on its neural mechanisms, cognitive dynamics, and clinical implications.
Scientific Reports
February 8, 2018
Delphine Oudiette, Pauline Dodet, Nahema Ledard et al.
Breathing is irregular during REM sleep but stable during non-REM sleep; the reason has been unknown. This study tested whether irregular breathing during REM sleep originates in the cortex and reflects dream content. Twenty-one patients with narcolepsy, who can lucid dream and signal awareness with eye movements, were monitored during naps. Participants were instructed to modify their dream to involve vocalizations or apnea. Most (86%) signaled lucidity in at least one nap. In 50% of lucid naps, dream reports (e.g., diving underwater) matched observed respiratory behavior (e.g., central apnea), sometimes with a preparatory breath. The findings suggest that cortical-subcortical networks controlling voluntary breathing remain active during REM sleep and that breathing irregularities reflect dream content.
Consciousness and Cognition
September 1, 2012
Delphine Oudiette, Marie-José Dealberto, Ginevra Uguccioni et al.
Suppressing REM sleep with the antidepressant clomipramine (50 mg) in 11 healthy young men did not substantially affect dream recall, including report length, complexity, bizarreness, pleasantness, or self-perception of dream or thought-like mentation. REM sleep was suppressed by a marked 81% (range 39-98%). The persistence of long, complex, and bizarre dreams even after partial or total REM suppression suggests that the generation of mental activity during sleep is independent of sleep stage.
Brain : a journal of neurology
June 1, 2010
Laurène Leclair-Visonneau, Delphine Oudiette, Bertrand Gaymard et al.
During REM sleep, rapid eye movements often align with the direction of dream-enacting behaviors in patients with REM sleep behavior disorder, supporting the idea that eyes scan dream scenes. In 56 patients and 17 controls, behaviors occurred 2.1 times more frequently during REM sleep with rapid eye movements than without. When goal-oriented actions like grabbing or climbing occurred, 82% of accompanying rapid eye movements were directed toward the action, rising to 90% for determinant movements. However, 38-42% of behaviors lacked rapid eye movements. The similarity of eye movements between patients and controls suggests this scanning also occurs in normal REM sleep.