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When we see something in our dreams, our brain activity is strikingly similar to when we're awake

Tanya LewisAug 11, 2015, 23:15 IST

Riccardo Cuppini/Flickr Creative Commons

You can often tell when a person is dreaming because her eyelids will flit about like she's watching a high-speed chase.

This is known as rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, and it describes the portion of our sleep when we experience a storm of brain activity and eye movements while the rest of our bodies are paralyzed.

Now, scientists have found evidence that these rapid eye jerks resemble our eye movements when we're awake, according to a small study of people with epilepsy published Tuesday, August 11.

And it could explain why people woken from REM remember having vivid dreams.

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