“Scientists are figuring out how to communicate with people while they’re dreaming. What will be discovered on the other side?” V. Greenwood, The Boston Globe, July 20, 2021
ESL Voices Lesson Plan for this post with Answer Key
Illustration- Gregori Saavedra. The Guardian
Excerpt: A passageway is opening into the world of dreams, By Veronique Greenwood, The Boston Globe, July 20, 2021
“Lucid dreamers can control their surroundings and the narrative of their dreams. Near the corner of the small, dark room, there is a narrow folding bed. Every now and then, a speaker on a nearby table emits an eerie violin riff. A line of red lights near the ceiling flashes, then flashes again, bathing the room in a lurid glow. In the bed someone who is fitted with a series of scalp and face electrodes is sleeping.
Sleep Lab -Boston Medical Center
This surreal tableau is part of scientists’ effort to breach the wall between the waking world and wherever it is we are when we’re dreaming. The researchers who control the speaker and flashing lights in the lab of Ken Paller, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., have been asking questions of people who are dreaming and hoping to get answers.
The Netherlands Institut
The dreamers have talked back in a handful of cases. Or rather, signaled back, swiveling their closed eyes back and forth or making little muscle twitches to answer arithmetic problems asked by an experimenter…It’s not quite on the level of “Inception,” the 2010 movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio enters people’s dreams to steal their secrets, but it could be a way to learn more about the peculiar places we inhabit, built by our brains without our knowledge, when we lie down to sleep.
Poster from film: Inception
Researchers have found that lucid dreamers can move their closed eyes voluntarily while asleep and can signal using a prearranged rapid movement — left-right-left-right — that they’ve become lucid. The sleeper may then perform another prearranged task, like singing a song or practicing a workout in the dream and then signal again when they’ve completed it. This has allowed researchers to ask big questions. Do activities take the same amount of time in a dream as in waking life? (Yes, it appears.)”
ESL Voices Lesson Plan for this post
NOTE: Lessons can also be used with native English speakers.
Level: Intermediate – Advanced
Language Skills: Reading, writing, and speaking. Vocabulary and grammar activities are included.
Time: Approximately 60 minutes.
Materials: Student handout (from this lesson) and access to news article.
Objective: Students will read and discuss the article with a focus on improving reading comprehension and improving oral skills. At the end of the lesson students will express their personal views on the topic through group work and writing.
I. Pre-Reading Activities
Predictions: Analyzing headings and photos
Directions: Examine the titles of the post and of the actual article. Examine any photos, then create a list of words and ideas that you and your group members think might be related to this article.
II. While Reading Activities
Word Inference
Directions: Try to infer the meanings of the words in bold taken from the article. You use a dictionary, thesaurus, and Word Chart for assistance.
- Scientists are figuring out how to communicate with people while they’re dreaming.
- Lucid dreamers can control their surroundings and the narrative of their dreams.
- Every now and then, a speaker on a nearby table emits an eerie violin riff.
- In the bed someone is fitted with a series of scalp and face electrodes.
- This surreal tableau is an effort to breach the wall between the waking world and when we’re dreaming.
- Some dreamers can signal back by making little muscle twitches.
- It’s not quite on the level of “Inception,” the 2010 movie.
- Some believe that we enter an alternate life while sleeping.
- A phenomenon called lucid dreaming offers the possibility of communication in real time.
- Some experimenters spoke these questions, some used Morse code.
Grammar Focus: Structure and Usage
Directions: The following groups of sentences are from the article. One of the sentences in each group contains a grammatical error. Identify the sentence (1, 2, or 3 ) from each group that contains the grammatical error.
I
- Scientists are figuring out how to communicate with people while they’re dreaming.
- What will be discover on the other side?
- The researchers control the speaker and flashing lights in the lab.
II
- The dreamers have talked back on a handful of cases.
- Two-way communication with dreamers is possible.
- But there is a delay between a dream and when scientists can try to learn about it.
III
- Lucid dreaming offers an possibility of communication in real time.
- It is possible for some people to train themselves to dream this way.
- Researchers have found that lucid dreamers can move their closed eyes voluntarily while asleep.
Reading Comprehension
Identify The Speakers
Directions: Read the following quotes and descriptions from (and of) the speakers in the article. Then identify the speakers.
- This scientist is part of the group of researchers who control the people who are dreaming.
- “One of the main challenges of doing dream research is that you only have access to the dream experience, the dream report, after the fact.”
- This sleep researcher helped bring the subject of Lucid dreamers to the mainstream.
- He and his colleagues have found that when lucid dreamers trace a line with their eyes they move with a smoothness they don’t have when awake and imagining the same experience.
- “It is not clear why some people perceived the questions and others did not…But staying lucid is like balancing on a knife’s edge…On the one hand, you may get so excited you’ve achieved lucidity that you wake up. On the other, you can fall back into the deep, languid waters of regular dreaming, losing the ability to participate in experiments.
- “However, the method will always be really difficult and impractical, in the sense that you have to test dozens of participants before getting one instance of really convincing, successful communication.”
Discussion Questions for Comprehension /Writing
Directions: Have students discuss the following questions/statements. Afterwards, students share their thoughts as a class. To reinforce the ideas, students can write an essay on one of the topics mentioned.
- Do you dream often? Can you remember your dreams when you wake up?
- According to the article have dreamers ever spoken (or signaled) back to the scientists? How?
- What are some of the positive advantages of learning about our dreams?
- What type of experiments did the researchers ask the sleepers to perform?
- At the present, what’s the best way to get information about what we dream about?
- Explain what Lucid Dreaming means.
- What are some of the things that lucid dreamers can do?
- What are some questions researchers ask about lucid dreamers?
- In the 2010 movie ‘Inception,’ Leonardo DiCaprio enters people’s dreams to steal their secrets. In your opinion, do you believe this could actually happen with further dream research?
- Why are researchers cautious about future research in dreaming?
- In your opinion, are these experiments useful or harmful? Please provide reasons for your answers.
3-2-1-Writing
Directions: In 5 minutes to write down three new ideas you’ve learned about the topic from the reading, two things that you did not understand in the reading, and one thing you would like to know that the article did not mention. Review the responses as a class.
Extra Activities
Have each group research different institutions (in the U.S. and other countries)that have dream experimentation labs and write a report about the results. Each group will share their results with the class.
Have each member write about a dream they had and try to interpret the dream.