Monday, April 10, 2017

2017-04-10

A freight train carrying fuel to Kankesanthurai, Jaffna from Colombo derailed in Vavuniya this morning, the Vavuniya Railway Control Unit said. The train had travelled in an unused railway track and had crashed into the quarters of the railway officials. Video by Sithum Chaturanga

Mega Mess

By Ranil Senanayake –April 10, 2017

Dr Ranil Senanayake

In a nation whose environment was once clean and benign, we have now begun to suffer the wages of a Government appointed to protect the health and well being, letting destructive development become the state norm. The trend in public health deterioration is so acute that at a recent medical meeting on the subject, Prof Oliver A. Ileperuma stated that 45% of hospital admissions are for respiratory disorders. The quality of air in the city is degrading and the levels of airborne particulate matter are on the increase. Why the negligence? Do we not have laws to protect the health of the public? Do we not have laws that seek to protect the well being of our citizens? Does not the GoSL have a responsibility to protect our health? The unfolding tragedy of the air quality of Kandy town is a case in point; surrounded by hills, the city develops an ‘inversion layer’ of heavy, polluted air that does not easily escape due to these physical barriers to air movement. Thus the citizens of Kandy face the specter of increasing rates of respiratory disorders for themselves and their children. The air pollution problem of Kandy is magnified by its geographical situation, but it need not be, with no physical barriers to airflow, it had a much better quality of air than Kandy. But ‘Urban Development’ today seems to refer to built environment and infrastructure, to mega constructions, with no heed to the impact on health and well being of the citizens. Why do government institutions act against the interest of the citizens that they are supposed to serve?

A glaring example is the shady deals and conflicts of interest around the ‘Port City’ project can be seen by the The Executive Summary of the December 2015 Supplementary Environmental Impact Assessment for the Colombo Port City. It demonstrates a disturbing and troublesome conflict of interest issue for the GoSL.

The guiding principles for its formulation the SEIA states:

“(b) The Terms of the Agreement entered into between the Ministry of Ports and Shipping, acting on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL), and CHEC Port City Colombo (Pvt) Ltd (the Project Company), … stipulates inter alia that the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA)/GOSL is responsible for securing the required environmental permits and approvals.”

Such an undertaking by the GoSL can be seen to be in direct violation of its responsibilities under Article 27 subsection 14:

“The State shall protect, preserve and improve the environment for the benefit of the community.” It means that the Government of Sri Lanka agrees to get all the approvals that Parliament has set up to protect its citizens and preserve their rights. If so, who is watching after the rights of the citizens of this nation? Most certainly, not the government!

This maybe compared to the Environmental and Social Framework of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Annex Environmental and Social Policy: the onus is placed squarely on the Project Proponent:

67. Roles and Responsibilities of the Client. The Client: (a) assesses the Project and its environmental and social risks and impacts; (b) prepares the Project’s environmental and social documentation, in accordance with the ESP and ESSs; and (c) engages with people affected by the Project and other stakeholders, through information disclosure, and meaningful consultation in accordance with the ESP and ESSs. The Client furnishes all required information, including executive summaries and reports on the environmental and social assessment, all of the Project’s required environmental and social documentation, and monitoring reports, to the Bank for review.

68. The Client is responsible for complying with its environmental and social obligations under the Project in accordance with the legal agreements with the Bank governing the Project. To ensure that contractors appropriately implement the agreed measures, the Client includes the relevant environmental and social requirements in the tendering documents and contracts for goods and services required for the Project.

The activities of the promoters of the project, demonstrates a connivance that is not in the national interest and goes against the rules of both the Government of Sri Lanka and the Bank who is supposed to finance the deal. Supplementary Environmental Impact Assessments (SEIA’s) are being issued to cover any aspect of their crookedness, as it surfaces. This allows them to skirt national laws and genuine concerns that citizens have of impacts on their well-being.

In yet another SEIA for the Colombo Port City the Sri Lanka Land and Reclamation Development Corporation, titled Off Shore Sea Sand Extraction Project at Kerawalapitiya, the SLLRDC states that they have been requested by the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development to supply 40 million cubic meters of sand over three years from a reservation previously earmarked to supply up to 4 million cubic meters annually over 15 years. The environmental and social impact of this action goes unchallenged, where are the state watchdogs who are supposed to check, such excesses?

Prof. Dharma De Silva: The unforgettable trailblazer in management education in Sri Lanka

Professor Dharma De Silva (extreme left) with Vice Chancellor Rev Walpola Rahula (extreme right) at a book donation ceremony to Vidyodaya University by US Embassy in 1966. Also in the picture are Deputy Secretary K.P.G. Wjayasurendra (second from the left) and US Embassy’s Commercial Officer Dr. Walter Simon (third from the left)

A trailblazer in management education

Tuesday, 11 April 2017

Wichita State University’s Professor of International Business, Dr Dharma de Silva, known to his friends as Dharma, had been a trailblazer on many counts in Sri Lanka’s management education. His contributions for the advancement of management education in Sri Lanka were made when he was the Professor of Business and Public Administration at the old Vidyodaya University now known as the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Prof. Dharma De Silva The unforgettable trailblazer in management education in Sri Lanka.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

California community college first to pass Israel divestment resolution

Israeli occupation forces use a Caterpillar bulldozer to destroy a Palestinian home in the al-Tur neighborhood in Jerusalem, May 2013. Sliman KhaderAPA images

Nora Barrows-Friedman-7 April 2017

A community college in Cupertino, California, has become the first educational institution of its kind in the US to support a resolution in favor of divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights.

The resolution, which the student senate passed on 15 March, urges the De Anza College’s board of trustees to pull the college’s investments from three US-based corporations that enable Israel’s rights violations – Hewlett-Packard, Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar – as well as from G4S, the largest private security firm in the world.

G4S has provided equipment and services to Israeli military checkpoints and inside prisons where Palestinians have been tortured.

Due to mounting international boycott pressure, G4S announced last December that it was exiting most of its businesses with Israel, but remains co-owner of a police training center.

The resolution also calls on the community college to implement a socially responsible investment policy.

In authoring the resolution, members of Students for Justice at De Anza investigated and discussed themes of mass incarceration, state violence and settler-colonialism from the US to Palestine, according to Sara Elzeiny, a Students for Justice member.

The resolution points out that Hewlett-Packard not only provides equipment to Israeli checkpoints which “restrict the freedom of movement of Palestinians, facilitate discrimination against Palestinians, and reinforce a stratification of citizenship,” but also profits from mass incarceration and the detention of undocumented persons in the US.

“You have border patrol and stop-and-frisk [laws] in the US, and in the occupied territories, you have border patrol and checkpoints and the Israeli army,” Elzeiny told The Electronic Intifada, adding that US police and Israeli soldiers have partnered in militarized training exercises.

Students for Justice works on a number of human rights and environmental issues, Elzeiny said, from mobilizing against police violence and resisting military recruitment on campus to campaigning for fossil fuel divestment. They are also joining the movement to resist the Dakota Access pipeline and support indigenous rights at Standing Rock.

The decision to support Palestinian rights was a clear one, she explained.

“Divestment takes a concrete step that pushes against the status quo that says we should normalize military intervention and occupation in a region,” Elzeiny said.

The vote to divest passed 12-1, with four student senators abstaining, according to the campus newspaper.

Growing campaign

The push for divestment at De Anza College is part of the growing student campaign in support of Palestinian rights.

Students for Justice at De Anza worked with other activists, including members of Students for Justice in Palestine at nearby San Jose State University, which in 2015 passed a resolution demanding the university divest from companies that profit from Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights.

San Jose State became California’s first state university campus to pass a divestment resolution regarding “companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine,” while seven out of nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California have passed resolutions urging the UC’s governing body to pull its investments from companies that profit from Israel’s occupation.

Israel-aligned groups, meanwhile, are pushing for state and federal legislation aimed at silencing and criminalizing boycott activism.

Last month, the state senate of New York fast-tracked three separate bills that create a blacklist of BDS activists, prohibit student-led boycott campaigns and threaten academic associations supporting the academic boycott.

Palestine Legal called these bills “blatantly unconstitutional attacks on First Amendment rights to protest and dissent.”

At De Anza, students know they “have a lot of work ahead,” Elzeiny said, as they take the resolution to the college’s financial governing board.

Even if the board rejects the students’ demands, she said that the resolution – and the larger campaign of education on Palestinian rights – starts a necessary conversation on campus.

“Trying to make our organization the face of this discourse has made other activists want to learn about Palestine,” she said.

In 2015, a broad coalition of students brought a resolution to divest all 112 community colleges in California from companies that profit from Israel’s rights violations. The resolution was defeated.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article indicated that the resolution has to be brought to De Anza’s board of directors. Instead, it is the board of trustees which votes on implementation of the divestment resolution and a socially responsible investment policy. It has been corrected.

G7 diplomats escalate tension with Russia over Syria

Tillerson blames Russia for chemical attack, Johnson says Assad is toxic and must go

Italy Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano welcomes US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as he arrives for a meeting of the G7 Foreign Affairs Ministers in Lucca, Italy (AFP)

Monday 10 April 2017

G7 foreign ministers were on Monday to send a "clear and coordinated message" to Russia over its stance on Syria as Washington ratcheted up the pressure following a suspected chemical attack in the war-torn country.

"Russia failed in their committment to the international community" by not preventing the Syrian regime from carrying out the chemical attack, US Secretary of State Tillerson told CBS ahead of the meeting.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as "toxic", saying it was "time for (Russian President) Vladimir Putin to face the truth about the tyrant he is propping up".

Top diplomats from the seven major advanced economies were in Italy for their annual two-day meeting. They were initially expected to focus on talks with new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about Libya, Iran and Ukraine.

“The result of their failure has led to the killing of more children and innocents,”

- Tillerson on Russia

The agenda has shifted following increased tension between Russia and the West over Syria, especially after last week's suspected chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun that killed at least 87 civilians, and the US cruise missiles fired at a Syrian air base in retaliation.

It was the first time Washington has intervened directly against the regime of Assad, who is fighting a civil war with the backing of Russia and Iran, and the G7 ministers will deliberate the West's next steps.

Italy has arranged a last-minute meeting on Tuesday between the G7 ministers and their counterparts from Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates "to avert a dangerous military escalation", according to Italian media.

Assad must go

The US Secretary of State Tillerson said that while there is no evidence suggesting that the Russians were responsible for the attack, Moscow failed to abide by its promises of overseeing the destruction of the Syrian regime chemical weapons stockpile.

“The result of their failure has led to the killing of more children and innocents,” Tillerson said.

"We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world," he said after he and other ministers visited the site of a Nazi massacre in Sant'Anna di Stazzema near Lucca, Italy.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks with the media after he greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida (AFP)

Tillerson heads to Russia on Tuesday for talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

The US urged Russia on Sunday to rein in the Syrian regime, warning that any further chemical attacks would be "very damaging" to their relationship and suggesting any peace deal would be difficult with Assad in power.

"We need to make it clear to Putin that the time to back Assad has gone," UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said Monday, warning that Putin was "damaging Russia" by supporting Assad.

He called on Moscow to do "everything possible to bring about a political settlement in Syria and work with the rest of the international community to ensure that the shocking events of the last week are never repeated".

Tillerson would "deliver that clear and coordinated message to the Russians", he said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the pressing task for the G7 was to "find a political solution, a political transition" in Syria, particularly if the West wanted to triumph over the so-called Islamic State (IS).

"The fight against terrorism cannot be effective if we do not link it to resolving the Syrian situation," he said.

Several rounds of UN-backed peace talks have failed to end the Syrian conflict, which has killed more than 320,000 people since March 2011.

The G7 gathering in the Tuscan city of Lucca brought foreign ministers from the United States as well as Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan to the 15th century Ducal Palace.

The ministers, ushered out of the Tuscan sunshine and into the fresco-decorated palace for their first working session, were set to go on a walking tour of the city's historic centre later before a working dinner in the majestic Palazzo Orsetti.

'Use of chemical weapons a war crime'

In a separate meeting on Monday, the leaders of southern EU nations said that a US missile strike on a Syrian air base in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack was "understandable," as diplomatic tensions mount over the incident.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, French President Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy at the summit of the EU southern countries (AFP)

"The strike launched by the United States on Shayrat Airfield in Syria had the understandable intention to prevent and deter the spread and use of chemical weapons and was limited and focused on this objective," they said in a joint statement after a summit in Madrid.

Last week's suspected attack on a rebel-held Syrian town killed at least 87 civilians, including many children.

In their statement, the southern EU leaders - including Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and French President Francois Hollande - condemned "in the strongest terms the air strike with chemical weapons".

"The repeated use of chemical weapons in Syria, both by the (Bashar al-) Assad regime since 2013 and by Daesh (Islamic State group) constitute war crimes," they added.

Wells Fargo orders two executives to pay back an additional $75 million after sales scandal probe

By Renae Merle April 10 at 11:30 AM

Wells Fargo said Monday that two former senior executives, including its long-time CEO John Stumpf, must return an additional $75 million in compensation after a scathing internal report found the bad sales practices that have rocked the mega bank date back far longer than initially acknowledged.

Stumpf, who stepped down in October, had already agreed to give up $41 million in compensation as the scandal roiled the San Francisco bank. Now, Wells Fargo says it will “claw back” an additional $28 million from Stumpf. The former head of retail banking, Carrie Tolstedt, who stepped down last year and agreed to give up $19 million in compensation, will lose an additional $47 million in stock options.

It is one of the largest clawbacks of compensation by a company in history and a sign that big U.S. banks feel increasingly under pressure to show the public that they can hold themselves accountable for wrongdoing.

The report was the culmination of a six-month investigation by the bank’s independent board members and comes as Wells Fargo struggles to move beyond the sales scandal. It indicates that the problems at Wells Fargo went on for far longer than originally acknowledged and likely involved more employees and customers.

Wells Fargo admitted last year, for example, that it had fired 5,300 employees over five years for opening accounts for customers they didn’t want or know about. But the report found that Stumpf was notified of a problem at one of the bank’s Colorado branches in 2002 that led to “mass termination” of bank employees, according to the report.

The roots of the problem, the report said, was the autonomy given to Wells Fargo’s community banking division and the apathy of senior executives who downplayed the problems. The executives tended to view the sales abuses as largely “minor infractions and victimless crimes” committed by a relatively few bad apples, and clung to a sales culture that had helped the bank grow so large.

“The Community Bank identified itself as a sales organization, like department or retail stores, rather than a service-oriented financial institution. This provided justification for a relentless focus on sales, abbreviated training and high employee turnover,” the report said.

Wells Fargo has been in lawmakers’ crosshairs since acknowledging last year that some of its employees created as many as 2 million fake accounts — from credit cards to checking accounts — to meet sales goals. In some cases, Wells Fargo customers faced various fees for accounts they did not request, or bank employees took money from an authorized account to create a fake one.

In a tense exchange, Senator Elizabeth Warren badgered Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf on why he had not offered to give up any of his compensation or to resign in the wake of the fake accounts controversy. (Reuters)

Syria’s Chemical Weapons Kill Chain

A mother and father weep over their child's body who was killed in a chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in Syria on Aug. 21, 2013. (Photo credit: NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)

There’s a long list of Syrian officials with blood on their hands -- but the culpability goes all the way to the top.

BY GREGORY KOBLENTZ-APRIL 7, 2017

For the first time since President Barack Obama declared in August 2012 that the use of chemical weapons constituted a “red line,” the United States has responded militarily to the Syrian government’s use of these weapons. On the night of April 6, the U.S. military fired a salvo of 59 cruise missiles at Syria’s Shayrat air base, in response to a deadly chemical attack launched from that base earlier in the week. The chemical attack on the northwestern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, according to first responders on the scene, caused at least 84 deaths and injured more than 500 more.

Syria’s Chemical Weapons Kill Chain.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

“One China” Policy Should Exclude Tibet?

Tibet has been an independent country for hundreds of years and was occupied by China by force. Many Tibetans including the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet to protect their safety and stay alive to fight for Tibet.

by N.S.Venkataraman-Apr 10, 2017

( April 10, 2017, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the wake of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, China has conveyed it’s objection to India and has sharply criticized the visit of the Dalai Lama. However, India has ignored such protests from China and the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh has taken pace with dignity and amidst warm reception from the people. The visit of the Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh has been noted by the media all over the world, which has only angered China.

In his speech in Arunachal Pradesh, the Dalai Lama said clearly that the acts of repressive measures employed by China in Tibet are similar to the atrocities committed by Polpot’s in Cambodia, when more than a million Cambodians were massacred in 1970s. The Dalai Lama has also accused China of sending wrong information about his visit to Arunachal Pradesh. Further, the Dalai Lama has slammed China for making a bid to name his successor in Tibet. He further said that the Chinese people were being fed with wrong information about him and the totalitarianism in China has done great damage to the Chinese people who have every right to know the reality.

Millions of people around the world are convinced that Tibet has been wronged by China and justice must be done to the people of Tibet. The world conscience is clearly disturbed by the aggressive behavior of China in Tibet and China is well aware of it, which has made China feel jittery. The Tibetans living across the world are longing to go back to Tibet and live in Tibet , maintaining the traditional value systems that the Tibetans are associated with.

While China is militarily and economically strong and many world governments think twice before antagonising China on any count, nevertheless the fact remains that the world knows that China’s position on Tibet is unjustifiable and unacceptable. The world opinion is bound to assert itself in one form or the other sooner or later that will make China quit Tibet. The history of the world have repeatedly revealed that the truth and fair dealings alone triumph ultimately.

While the world opinion is certainly in favour of a liberated and independent Tibet, the recent reported statement of the Dalai Lama that he has no issues with the “One China” policy, ensuring economic benefit to Tibet and providing the right to preserve their culture and language in Tibet has surprised everyone.

This reported statement has sent a confusing signal amongst millions of supporters of Tibet all over the world , as to whether the Dalai Lama has accepted that Tibet would function under China as part of China. He was also reported to have said that he would return to China if China would show the green light. The reported statement of the Dalai Lama that the “whole world knows that I am not seeking independence of Tibet” has dismayed supporters of the Tibet.

I appeal to his Holiness the Dalai Lama to clarify his stand in the matter and confirm as to whether his statement has been misreported in the media.

Tibet has been an independent country for hundreds of years and was occupied by China by force. Many Tibetans including the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet to protect their safety and stay alive to fight for Tibet.

Tibet being a part of China under “One China” policy is an unacceptable stand, as Tibet has all the claims to be an independent country following it’s own policies and programmes and beliefs. Tibet should never be a part of “one China policy”

Tibetans across the world and supporters of Tibet’s cause are waiting eagerly to know as to whether the Dalai Lama really meant what he was reported to have said.

The pain and sadness in the air

Luis Robayo 8 April 2017

MOCOA — It’s really, really hard to watch the survivors and their pain and trauma. There are many people who have lost six, ten or more relatives. Not to mention friends, neighbors and acquaintances who also died. Out of all the things that I have covered — the armed conflict in Colombia, protests, mine collapses — this is by far the hardest.

You smell the overpowering stench of dead bodies, you hear rocks cracking, machines working. At times you hear weeping, at times you hears screams, when people see the body of a relative or of friend. And there is a heavy blanket of sadness and pain that seems to envelop the entire site. Sometimes a burst of joy, when people are reunited with their loved ones, pierces through the sadness.

The pain and sadness in the air.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Cyber attack on Union Bank of India similar to Bangladesh heist - WSJ

An illustration picture shows a projection of binary code on a man holding a laptop computer, in an office in Warsaw June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Files

Mon Apr 10, 2017

A cyber attack on Union Bank of India last July began after an employee opened an email attachment releasing malware that allowed hackers to steal the state-run bank's data, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The attempt closely resembled the cybertheft last year of more than $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank's account at the New York Federal Reserve, the paper reported.

The opening of the email attachment, which looked like it had come from India's central bank, initiated the malware that hackers used to steal Union Bank's access codes for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a system that lenders use for international transactions.

The codes were used to send transfer instructions for about $170 million to a Union Bank account at Citigroup Inc in New York.

Union Bank had traced the money trail and blocked the movement of funds.

SWIFT late last year said that some banks using its system had been attacked after the Bangladesh heist, the Journal said, but did not specifically name Union Bank of India.

Union Bank Chairman Arun Tiwari told the newspaper that SWIFT officials had been working with the bank since the day of the cyber attack.

SWIFT declined to comment.

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal and Tom Bergin; Editing by David Goodma

Scientists identify parts of brain involved in dreaming

Experts say findings are ‘astounding’ and could help understand the purpose of dreams and predict whether people are dreaming

Coloured sagittal MRI scans of the human brain. Changes in brain activity offer clues to what the dream is about. Photograph: Simon Frazer/SPL/Getty Images

Nicola Davis-Monday 10 April 2017

Scientists have unpicked the regions of the brain involved in dreaming, in a study with significant implications for our understanding of the purpose of dreams and of consciousness itself. What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to offer clues as to what the dream is about.

Dreaming had long been thought to occur largely during rapid eye-movement (REM) sleep, a period of slumber involving fast brain activity similar to that when awake, but dreams have also been reported to occur during non-REM sleep, leaving scientists scratching their heads as to the hallmark of dreaming.

“It seemed a mystery that you can have both dreaming and the absence of dreaming in these two different types of stages,” said Francesca Siclari, co-author of the research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

Now it seems the puzzle has been solved.

In addition the team found that dreaming about faces was linked to increased high-frequency activity in the region of the brain involved in face recognition, with dreams involving spatial perception, movement and thinking similarly linked to regions of the brain that handle such tasks when awake.

“[It is] a proof for the fact that dreaming really is an experience that occurs during sleep, because many researchers up until now have suggested that it is just something you invent when you wake up,” said Siclari. “Maybe the dreaming brain and the waking brain are much more similar than one imagined because they partially recruit the same areas for the same type of experiences,” she added.

Experts have hailed the significance of the research, saying it could help to solve the conundrum of what dreams are for, and even the nature of human consciousness.

“The importance beyond the article is really quite astounding,” said Mark Blagrove, director of the sleep lab at Swansea University, who was not involved in the study. “It is comparable really to the discovery of REM sleep and in some respects it is even more important,” he added.

Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Siclari and colleagues from the US, Switzerland and Italy, reveal how they carried out a series of experiments involving 46 participants, each of whom had their brain activity recorded while they slept by electroencephalogram (EEG) – a noninvasive technique that involved placing up to 256 electrodes on the scalp and face to monitor the number and size of brainwaves of different speeds.

While the experiments probed different aspects of the puzzle, all involved participants being woken at various points throughout the night and asked to report whether they had been dreaming. “Overall in the whole experiment we did over 1,000 awakenings,” said Siclari.

If the participants had been dreaming, they were asked how long they thought it had lasted and whether they could remember anything about their dream, such as whether it involved faces, movement or thinking, or whether it was instead a vivid, sensory experience.

Analysis of the EEG recording reveal that dreaming was linked to a drop in low-frequency activity in a region at the back of the brain dubbed by the researchers the “posterior cortical hot zone” – a region that includes visual areas as well as areas involved in integrating the senses. The result held regardless of whether the dream was remembered or not and whether it occurred during REM or non-REM sleep.

The researchers also looked at changes in high-frequency activity in the brain, finding that dreaming was linked to an increase in such activity in the so-called “hot zone” during non-REM sleep. Further, the team identified the region of the brain which appears to be important in remembering what a dream was about, finding that this recall was linked toan increase in high-frequency activity towards the front of the brain. A similar pattern of activity was seen in the hot zone and beyond for dreams during REM sleep. The upshot is that dreaming is rooted in the same changes in brain activity regardless of the type of sleep.

“You can really identify a signature of the dreaming brain,” said Siclari.

Using their findings, the team discovered that they were able to predict whether participants had been dreaming when asleep. In an experiment involving seven participants the researchers correctly predicted instances of dreaming and no dreaming 87% of the time.

The authors say the study could help shed light on the nature of consciousness, revealing what happens in the brain during sleep when we switch from being unconscious to having conscious experiences. This is hugely valuable, they add, since there are myriad complicating factors involved in comparing wakefulness versus an anaesthetised state.

The findings, adds Siclari, are surprising. “It only seems to need a very circumscribed, a very restricted activation of the brain to generate conscious experiences,” she said. “Until now we thought that large regions of the brain needed to be active to generate conscious experiences.”

Blagrove adds that the impact of the study is profound, and that understanding what is causing the changes in activity in the “hot zone” could reveal whether dreaming has a purpose, for example in memory processing. “[Such changes in activity might] provide some extra processing and part of the extra processing might be [that] you simulate the world,” he said.