What Lucid Dreams Look Like
Eye tracking reveals the answer
By Susana Martinez-Conde on September 7, 2018
Scientific American
(This post was last modified: 2018-09-14, 12:15 AM by Ninshub.)
Eye tracking reveals the answer
By Susana Martinez-Conde on September 7, 2018
Scientific American
Quote:The experience felt as real as life, and my oculomotor system probably opined the same. A new study on lucid dreaming, published in Nature Communications last month, has found that we make certain kinds of eye movements when we dream that also occur when we view actual objects, but not when we imagine them.
The eye movements in question are called “smooth pursuit,” and as their name indicates, we use them to track objects in motion: a ball rolling on a playground, a boat sailing against the horizon, or a flock of birds flying in formation. One fascinating aspect of smooth pursuit eye movements is that you can’t fake them. You can use smooth pursuit to track an actual moving object, but not an imagined one. You can convince yourself with a little experiment, which you can perform on your own or with the assistance of a partner, as follows: