A computer can predict what you’re dreaming about (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this fascinating show) based on your brain wave activity with an fMRI machine.
On Fox News, Tia Ghose quotes neuroscientist Masako Tamaki as saying, "Using this method, we might be able to know more about the function of dreaming."
WHY we dream is still a mystery. Sigmund Freud thought dreams were about secret desires and wish fulfillment, but modern researchers think that they are irrelevant "trash" that the brain throws out. Another theory is that dreams allow our minds to keep working on problems while we’re asleep.
By measuring people’s brain activity while they were awake and thinking about specific things, neuroscientists could compare these brain braves to those produced when the person was asleep, thus identifying exactly what they were dreaming about–to some extent, anyway. Ghose quotes Tamaki as saying, "We were amazed."
But we don’t just dream about people or objects–our dreams often have a weird logic to them, as well as containing what might be called surrealistic plots. On BBC News, Ed Young quotes neuroscientist Moran Cerf as saying, "When you dream, it’s not just image by image. Let’s say I scanned your brain while you were dreaming, and I see you thinking of Marilyn Monroe, or love, or Barack Obama. I see pictures. You see you and Marilyn Monroe, whom you’re in love with, going to see Barack Obama giving a speech. The narrative is the key thing we’re going to miss."
Some people’s dreams are no crazier than their LIVES–especially if they’ve come face-to-face with the Visitors (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to these provocative interviews) or someone who experienced a stranger who busted into his hotel room and started predicting the future.
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