Where are the images and ideas from dreams located in the brain, and is there any way to capture them?
—Derek Meier, Chicago
Mark A. W. Andrews, director and professor of physiology at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pa., replies:
The answer to the latter part of your question is simply, “No.” Although we have technology that can measure general brain activity, we have no method for assessing or capturing our individual thoughts and dreams.
To evaluate our future potential to do so, it is important to understand which areas of the brain are associated with dreaming. Most dreams occur during the stage of sleep when slumberers start making rapid eye movements, called REM sleep. The imagery a sleeping brain concocts appears to originate in the reticular formation (RF), a diffuse, intricate collection of more than 100 networks of neurons arranged throughout the brain. The RF helps to regulate essential processes, including waking and sleeping cycles and cardiac function. The RF’s neural networks link up with the cerebral cortex, which regulates how we think and remember. But the widespread connections between the RF and the rest of the brain make dreams difficult to study.
In addition to the RF, dreaming involves the limbic system, often referred to as the emotional brain. Areas of the visual cortex responsible for recognizing complex visual scenes as well as the anterior cingulate gyrus, which governs attention and motivation, are also active during REM sleep. Interestingly, regions of the frontal cortex involved in thought and judgment while we are awake remain relatively calm throughout REM sleep, possibly accounting for the bizarre and illogical content of some dreams.
Currently scientists are able to probe human brain activity in several ways. We can record brain waves using EEG. With PET scans and functional MRI, we can observe fluctuations in brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow and levels of nutrients.
These established techniques are not powerful enough to document dreams, but a newer method may enable a breakthrough. Recently neuroscientists have implanted single electrodes in the cortex to record the activity of single neurons believed to be associated with a single thought or image. One day such implanted electrodes might let us log and play back our thoughts and dreams.
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4 Comments
Add Comment"The *imagery* a sleeping brain concocts appears to *originate* in the *reticular formation* (RF), a diffuse, intricate collection of more than 100 networks of neurons arranged throughout the brain"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this~Imagery appears to originate in RF~ Really? On what research is this based?
"These established techniques are not powerful enough to document dreams, but a newer method may enable a breakthrough"
Fair enough. Lots of things could happen.
"Recently neuroscientists have implanted single electrodes in the cortex to record the activity of single neurons believed to be associated with a single thought or image ..."
Yes, for all we can tell, sometimes certain neurons fire and it only appears to happen when certain images are presented. But thoughts? But how do you present a thought, or how do we know when it occurs in a brain, and can we define thought reasonably, let alone isolate one?
"... One day such implanted electrodes might let us log and play back our thoughts and dreams"
Of course dreams (or thoughts) may be loged, recorded, or played back in the future but I don't think that follows, in any way, from what you have said previously or from the results of any research to this day.
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Marc is right. We are not there yet; we will not be there anytime soon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeanwhile, first things first: it would be easier and more expedient to implant / instruct iconic memories of thought (memories of an emblematic consciousness) than to extract features of access consciousness and its preconscious affectors in real time. We can do that now, to some extent. Think mindwriting as opposed to mindreading. What is education but that?
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-09/mind-reading-tech-reconstructs-videos-brain-images
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's not 20/20, but it's getting there. It's known that the eyes send 12 crude images to the brain over 12 separate circuits and the brain hallucinates what we perceive as reality from these. There's an SA article on that in April of 2004 or 2005, as I recall. Reconstructing imagery may not be impossible.
"Reconstructing imagery may not be impossible"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm in agreement. Especially reconstructing "input" images --and the closer to the eye the easier.
In my first comment I may have reacted strongly to the leaps of logic in this article but I feel the article induces, on purpose or not, a wrong impression in the reader by giving unsubstantiated speculation –the recording of dreams and especially the recording of ideas or thoughts-- an aura of plausibility not warranted by the facts.
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