Mind, features and articles | Educational Science

Nov 4, 2016

Why the Body in Your Dreams May Not Match the Real You

The you that stars in your dreams is a stripped-down version of your waking self, new research suggests. Researchers found that a person's dream self is like a mini-me that doesn't change based on what's going on with the body in the real world, according to the findings, which were...

Apr 11, 2017

Scientists Can Now Tell If Someone Is Dreaming from Their Brain Waves

People who are in a deep slumber may not be able to say whether they're dreaming, but their brain waves might. In a new study, scientists say they can predict whether people are dreaming by looking at the brain activity in a region at the back of the brain, which...

May 30, 2017

Dreams and Brain Disease: REM Sleep Cells Linked to Disorders

Where do dreams come from? Researchers now say they know: A specific group of cells in the brain stem is responsible for controlling dreaming sleep, also called Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, a new study says. The study also showed that damage to those cells could lead to a sleeping...

Oct 24, 2017

Scientists Want to Help You Have Lucid Dreams

In the 2010 film Inception, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) describes his wife Mal's trick for discerning reality from the fantastic dreamscape in which most of the film takes place: He uses what he calls a totem, a spinning top that will never fall over while he's dreaming. But a totem, known...

Oct 25, 2017

Do You Daydream? You May Be Smarter and More Creative Than Your Peers

Ever get in trouble for daydreaming in class or during a meeting at work? Try telling your teacher or boss this: Daydreaming may be a sign of intelligence and creativity, a new study finds. In the study, a team of researchers examined how the tendency to let the mind wanderin...

Dec 6, 2017

Yes, Your Daily Stress Can Haunt Your Dreams

After a stressful day, you may hope to find some solace in sleep. But a new study from the United Kingdom suggests that stressful experiences from your day can make their way into your dreams. The findings, published Nov. 30 in the journal Motivation and Emotion, suggest that, even in...

Mar 2, 2018

Tripping on LSD Really Is Like Lucid Dreaming

Life is but a dream – if you're on LSD. Taking hallucinogenic drugs really does put people into dream-like states, according to new research that statistically compared the way people talk about dreams to the way people talk about the effects of drugs, including LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), magic mushrooms...

Aug 7, 2005

Why Great Minds Can't Grasp Consciousness

At a One of He In a Gross Beyond Roger Penrose It No In many Our Nowadays, Almost Just Chalmers The easy Those The hard You According Those Instead Not 'Not It's You Greenfield's Important You Like According But For Mind and Part of If ...

Jan 9, 2007

Quick Decisions Might be the Best

A snap decision can be better than mulling things over when facing quick quizzes, according to a new study that gives insight into the brain’s higher-level processing. Study participants were asked to identify an oddly rotated symbol on a screen of more than 650 identical symbols. Those who made quick,...

Apr 12, 2007

Subliminal Rewards Trigger Harder Work, Research Shows

Like an invisible brass ring or dangling piece of bacon, subliminal rewards can drive people to work harder without them even knowing it. Most of us consciously work for the paycheck, along with other material and emotional benefits, but new research points to this type of unconscious motivation, in which...

Aug 23, 2007

Out-of-Body Experiences Simulated

New virtual reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into believing it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange claims of some patients and shedding light on how the brain might generate its self image. “We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not very much...

Jan 11, 2008

New Techniques Probe Consciousness During a Coma

Two years after the death of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who languished in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years until her feeding tube was removed, the debate continues over how to diagnose severe brain damage. Several scientific papers published in March and April in Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, and...

May 2, 2008

What We Know (and Hate) About Consciousness

I know who I am and I know that I know who I am. In the language of psychology, this means I am a conscious being, someone who thinks rather than reacts. Someone who takes in her surroundings and processes that information, milling it over in the mind, thinking about...

Sep 11, 2008

Near-Death Experiences: What Really Happens?

Many reports of near-death experiences sound the same: a welcoming white light and a replay of memories. But now scientists aim to study what really happens to the brain and consciousness when someone is on the verge of dying. In a new study called AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), doctors will...

Nov 6, 2008

How Anesthesia Knocks You Out

During surgery, anesthesia immobilizes a person while putting them in a sleep-like state where there is no awareness and no pain. But after more than a century of going under, we still do not fully understand how anesthesia works, said Anthony Hudetz in the Department of Anesthesiology at the Medical...