Scientists have found that the eyes of sleepers follow the direction of their gaze in a dream

(ORDO NEWS) — The eyeballs of sleeping people turn following the direction of the virtual gaze in a dream. An article about this was published in Science.

REM sleep is characterized by increased brain activity and continuous eye movement, which is how it got its name. It is believed that it is in this state that a person sees dreams.

With the help of experiments on mice, American scientists from the University of California at San Francisco decided to check how eye movement is related to the direction of the mental gaze in a dream.

To do this, they implanted electrodes in mice that tracked the state of the so-called head direction neurons. By analyzing the state of these neurons, one can understand where the animal’s gaze is directed.

As a result, it turned out that the direction of gaze, according to the analysis of neurons, completely coincides with the rotation of the eyeballs in sleep. Moreover, these data also coincided when the animals were awake.

The researchers concluded that sleep and wakefulness are coordinated by the same parts of the brain, supporting the theory that dreaming helps integrate the day’s information.

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