德科學家實現用大腦掃描儀“讀夢”

Most of us remember only a tiny fraction of our dreams - but that could soon change.

Scientists predict that we could soon use computers to “see” what we have dreamed about - and perhaps even record dreams to watch the next day.

Psychiatrists at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany think have already demonstrated that brain scanners can see into the dreams of “lucid dreamers” - people who can control their dreams.

It means that recent breakthroughs in “reading” the thoughts of waking subjects using brain monitors could apply to dreamers too.

The Planck institute scientists proved that scans of “lucid dreamers” dreams looked the same as scans of their brain when they do the same thing while conscious.

The research, published in Current Biology, could be used with recently demonstrated “reconstruction” technology to create moving images of people's dreams.

The lucid dreamers agreed to move their eyes and hands from side to side to show the researchers the moments they “controlled” their dreams to dream about clutching a hand.

The scientists monitored the dreamers with both magnetic resonance imaging and near-infrared spectroscopy to see patterns of heat in their subject's heads, which gives a picture of brain activity.

The dreamers did not clench their hands while they dreamt - but the scans of their brains showed identical brain activity when they clenched a real hand, and when they clenched a dream hand.

The discovery paves the way to use “reconstruction” technology to build images of people's dreams.

So far, the Planck institute scientists have reconstructed just two dreams. The number of scanners, and the difficulty of controlling dreams, has meant that the experiment was extremely difficult.據英國《每日郵報》10月28日報道，我們大部分人只能記得自己所做夢的一些片段，但這種狀況有望改變。

科學家預測，我們可能很快將通過計算機看到自己的夢，說不定還能把前一天的夢錄下來供第二天觀看。

德國慕尼黑馬普研究所的精神病專家們認爲大腦掃描儀已經被證實可以觀察到“清醒夢”——指能夠控制自己夢境的人所做的夢。

這意味着利用大腦監視器讀取清醒思想的方法也適用於讀取夢境。

普朗克研究所的科學家證實了受試者“清醒夢”的掃描圖像與他們在進行有意識行爲時的大腦掃描圖像是一樣的。

該研究發表在當代生物學上，它能利用最新的“重組”技術創建人類夢境的動態圖像。

“清醒夢”受試者在夢到自己握着一隻手的時候，會以眼球左右移動和雙手來回擺動的方式告知研究人員。

科學家們同時利用功能性核磁共振成像和近紅外光譜技術來監測受試者，觀察他們大腦的升溫模式，以此獲得大腦的活動圖像。

受試者在做夢的同時並未握拳，但是大腦掃描圖像顯示出他們在清醒時握拳與夢到握拳時的大腦活動完全相同。

該發現爲使用 “重建”技術來創建人類的夢境圖像鋪平了道路。

到目前爲止，普朗克研究所的科學家們已經重建了兩組夢境。需要掃描儀的數量以及夢境控制的難度都使得實施該實驗相當困難。