Audio Comprehension Experiment

Hello everyone,

I am interested in studying the ability to comprehend external audio from within a lucid dream.

Upcoming Informal Study
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I have written a Java application that will allow you to select a delay and then play an audio file at random every 3 minutes (between ~50 audio files).

The application introduces itself as a PA system for lucid dreams. Each audio file plays a tone similar to a grocery store announcement and then plays a sequence of audio (mostly containing information about lucid dreaming). The audio has been modified to have a PA-system like echo effect.

Upon waking a participant would click a button that will allow you to fill out a short form and type in a dream report. The dream report along with an encrypted log of your interactions with the application would be mailed to myself and optionally cc'ed to an address of your preference.

it would be ideal to use this only while sleeping for a short period of time so the WBTB method would be preferred. Please reply to this thread if you would be interested in participating in this study.

So far, I have been able to locate the following previously published studies on the topic. Any other information/links would be extremely helpful

Previous Studies
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Excerpt from Dement 1972 in the book "The Mind in Sleep"
http://books.google.com/books?id=V2f...0sleep&f=false

Dement 1972 associated incorporation with Alpha EEG bursts, he only used a 1000hz tone and had 10% incorporation. sound was applied "during ongoing REM and the subject was awakened by a loud bell afterwards for mentation"

Dement's students did a study aftewards in which they used sounds that would be familiar to the subjects and introduced them 10 seconds after REMP onset and found that a locomotive was more effective than traffic noise and a 56% rate of audio incorporation (i'm assuming overall across all audio)

Dement cites Foulkes 1970 (a similar study)

Some later studies could not find a difference regarding incorporation of stimuli between children and adults.

Berger 1973 tested by presenting names during REM in a very controlled study. Results:
54% overall incorporation (48/89)
Assonance (similar sounding) was the most common at 31/48 reports
Direct in 8/48 (externalized or internalized voice)
Representation 3/48 (a similar object appeared)

Study on audio awakening theshholds (Rechtchaffen and Foulkes 1975)

In summary, it is apparent that audio can affect dream reports in both NREM and REM. In the study with names 16% had direct incorporation of the stimuli. In my opinion, it is possible that assonance occurs due to not clearly attending to the audio stimulus.

It may be possible to do one of the following:

1) Play a tone until near-waking threshhold and then play more audio and measure the possibility of increased direct incorporation

2) Play a tone repeatedly at sub-waking threshold until a dreamer indicates that the introductory tone was heard and then play some audio.

3) Play a tone that indicates the start of an audio sequence and then play the sequence more than once to aid in comprehension.

The first two of these methods requires REM and lucidity signal detection. The first method requires knowledge of the level of wakefulness which, it seems, can only be accomplished with EEG/Polysomnograph. The third method can be studied with simple timing.

A similar study was done on one person in 1983:
Lucid dreaming: Correspondence between dreamed and actual events in one subject during rem sleep
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...b65a1a27d9c44c

In this study a person was able to count external stimuli in the form of light electric shocks to the forearm while experiencing a lucid dream.