French scientists have proven that regardless of whether we're awake or sleeping, our brain can hear the words being spoken to us. The human brain remains active during sleep and can react to sound.
The study by the French experts is published in the magazine Sciences et Avenir. The results are definitive - the human brain remains awake even while we sleep.
During sleep, certain areas of our brain remain active and react to stimuli and sounds from the surrounding environment.
During sleep, the human brain can understand the meaning of the words and choose an appropriate reaction.
Volunteers who took part in the experiment had to show whether they heard the words being spoken to them by moving either their left or right hand.
Sid Kouider's team from the laboratory of cognitive and psycholinguistic sciences from the French National Center for Scientific Research asked volunteers to classify the names of the objects and animals that they heard every 6 to 9 seconds.
Whenever they heard the name of an animal, the participants had to raise their left hand, and when they heard the name of an object - their right hand.
Throughout the entire experiment, participants wore special electroencephalography helmets, which register brain waves.
In this way the French scientists managed to find the areas that are active when we're awake, and when the volunteers heard the words, they raised either their left or right hand, depending on the word.
A study of dreams by German scientists on the other hand managed to prove that men and women dream of quite different things.
The results revealed that men had dreams related to sex, work and aggression more often. Women more often had dreams related to family, their everyday routine and clothes.
It was more common for men to see strangers in their dreams, while women dreamed of relatives and loved ones.
The results were presented by the leader of the project Dr. Michael Schredl, who is a professor at the Institute of Mental Health in Munich.
