Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30120229›Full record

ArticleNature communications2018

Smooth tracking of visual targets distinguishes lucid REM sleep dreaming and waking perception from imagination.

Stephen LaBerge, Benjamin Baird, Philip G Zimbardo

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
22citing papers in PubMed
3.4field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

22 citing papers in PubMed, 106 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. The Future of Parasomnias.Journal of sleep research · 2025
    Review
  4. Electrophysiological Correlates of Lucid Dreaming: Sensor and Source Level Signatures.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  5. Dreaming conundrum.Journal of sleep research · 2025
    Review
  6. New strategies for the cognitive science of dreaming.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2024
    Review
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Predictive coding, multisensory integration, and attentional control: A multicomponent framework for lucid dreaming.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022
    Article
  11. The vision of dreams: from ontogeny to dream engineering in blindness.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2022
    Review
  12. Article
  13. Review
  14. Offline perception: an introduction.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021
    Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. On Moving the Eyes to Flag Lucid Dreaming.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020
    Article
  19. The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2019
    Review
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Stephen LaBergeDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-2130, USA.
Benjamin BairdWisconsin Institute for Sleep and Consciousness, Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53719, USA. bbaird@wisc.edu.
Philip G ZimbardoDepartment of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-2130, USA.
Stanford University · USUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison · US

Funding

Establishing a biomarker for reflective awareness in brain-injured patientsF32NS089348 · NINDS · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · PI BAIRD, BENJAMIN · 2015 to 2017
$169k
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (NIH) F32NS089348
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Humans are typically unable to engage in sustained smooth pursuit for imagined objects. However, it is unknown to what extent smooth tracking occurs for visual imagery during REM sleep dreaming. Here we examine smooth pursuit eye movements during tracking of a slow-moving visual target during lucid dreams in REM sleep. Highly similar smooth pursuit tracking was observed during both waking perception and lucid REM sleep dreaming, in contrast to the characteristically saccadic tracking observed during visuomotor imagination. Our findings suggest that, in this respect, the visual imagery that occurs during REM sleep is more similar to perception than imagination. The data also show that the neural circuitry of smooth pursuit can be driven by a visual percept in the absence of retinal stimulation and that specific voluntary shifts in the direction of experienced gaze within REM sleep dreams are accompanied by corresponding rotations of the physical eyes.

Indexed as

AdultBayes TheoremDreamsEye MovementsFemaleHumansImaginationMaleMiddle AgedSleep, REMVisual PerceptionWakefulnessYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID30120229
PMCPMC6098118
OpenAlexW2885402046

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.