Flying in a dream is both a pleasure and an unforgettable experience. Such dreams, as a rule, are rare and few people can repeat them consciously. However, a team of scientists from the Department of Neuroscience, University of Montreal, Canada, led by Claudia Picard-Deland, are claiming that VR technology can help us to solve this problem. In a study published in August 2020 in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, the scientists managed stimulated dream-flight using virtual reality.
The 137 participants in the experiment were asked to virtually fly around vast landscapes for 15 minutes, creating a certain motion trajectory. After completing the task, the participants went to sleep for two hours. Their reports showed a fourfold increase in the frequency of flight dreams during laboratory sleep and in the 10 days following the experiment.
The quality of flight in the dreams was also affected by the exposure to virtual reality. Participants noted a higher level of control and a more emotional experience. However, the most interesting fact was that those participants who reported having lucid dreams prior to the experiment, were more likely to experience dream flight following the VR priming, in some cases during lucid dreaming.
Researchers attribute the result to the “illusion of self-movement” phenomenon, wherein our body feels like it is moving without any signs of external motion. It is a common feeling we get when looking at objects moving near us (for example, a train outside the window or cars in a traffic jam). Through the use of VR technology, the feeling of flight was produced precisely via the visible motion of the virtual landscape. Our vestibular apparatus remembers this motion and interprets it as the ability to fly without any external equipment, repeating it in a dream.
