In the Hollywood blockbuster "Inception" (2010), a dedicated team of "dream extractors" is hired to alter a CEO's decision-making by manipulating his dreams. In the movie, this feat involves a private jet and liters of sedative gas — but a new study suggests they could have achieved a similar effect with only some steel-drum jingles and a comfy bed in a research lab.
The new work shows that audio cues played to sleeping volunteers during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep, the stage of sleep when most dreaming occurs, can manipulate dream content.
