During dreams, bizarre scenes you encounter can seem as tangible as reality; you feel as though you're really flying through the sky or being chased through a jungle of bright-purple trees. But in special cases, people realize they're in the midst of a dream as it's unfolding. Related storiesDo your dreams change as you age?Why are recurring dreams usually nightmares?Do people dream in color or black and white?Called lucid dreaming, this phenomenon occurs when we suddenly regain our capacity for metacognition, or thinking about our own thoughts, in the middle of a dream. Lucid dreamers can sometimes even control the content or trajectory of their dreams. Now, researchers claim that they've found a way to "train" people to lucid dream by having them meditate and complete virtual-reality-augmented exercises while they're awake.In a study involving a few dozen participants, the scientists found that repeating this training twice a week for a month significantly increased how often participants experienced lucid dreaming. They say the approach could have practical applications as an intervention for people with nightmares, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — but those applications are theoretical, for now.If you could learn how to lucid dream, would you? Let us know in the poll below, and add your thoughts in the comments.

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Archaeologists excavating in northeastern France have unearthed a small fifth-century cemetery containing the graves of two Germanic chieftains and two warhorses. The burial ground is providing new information about the transitional period after the fall of the Roman Empire.The burial complex was discovered near the city of Colmar, just a few miles from the Rhine River, which forms the border between France and Germany. This area had a Gallo-Roman village from the first to the third centuries, and archaeologists found several ancient houses, hearths, wells and craft areas, according to a Nov. 6 translated statement from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap). Archaeologists also uncovered a rare fifth-century cemetery at the site, which was used from about A.D. 450 to 500, a critical time period in Western Europe because of the collapse of the Roman Empire. While scholars have debated for centuries about why the empire fell, one key issue was the repeated occupation of Rome in the fifth century by Germanic tribes known as the Goths and the Vandals. Several of the burials included gold-and-garnet accessories on weapons and clothing. (Image credit: © L. Sornin-Petit, Inrap)Archaeologists discovered 11 adult graves, three graves of children and two horse burials at the site, according to the statement. In two of the female burials, archaeologists found silver bird-shaped brooches, glass bead necklaces and a bone comb, suggesting that these may have been high-status women.But two of the male burials, in particular, stood out because of their high-quality grave goods, including a sword with a partially preserved wooden scabbard, a shield, a javelin and a scramasax, a type of Germanic short sword, which was decorated with a gold-and-garnet accessory. The weapons are characteristic of the burials of Germanic chieftains or mercenaries, according to the archaeologists, and two horses were buried nearby with their harnesses.Two horse burials were discovered in the cemetery. (Image credit: © H. Cicutta, Inrap)RELATED STORIESMan rummaging in a Polish junkyard finds a 1,800-year-old shield holding the cremated remains of a Vandal warrior1,700-year-old 'barbarian' burial discovered along Roman Empire's frontier in Germany'Exceptionally rare' 1,500-year-old Roman helmet found in chief's burial in DenmarkIn addition to the weapons and warhorses, archaeologists noticed evidence on the men's bones that hinted that the individuals were likely warriors. Two people suffered stab wounds that showed no signs of healing, which suggests they died quickly and violently, according to the statement. And another man's right knee bones had completely fused together, which would have prevented him from bending it. This condition, called ankylosis, commonly results from an improperly healed injury.The archaeologists believe the warrior's grave goods weren't just for show, but further study of the skeletons is planned to confirm whether the injuries seen during the excavation could have been sustained in a conflict.Few Germanic settlements and cemeteries from the fifth century have been found, so the newly excavated site should provide important information about the upheavals linked to the fall of the Western Roman Empire and how that political collapse affected communities on the edge of the empire.Can you identify these historical objects of war? Test your smarts with our weapons of the world quiz!

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Early Wednesday (Nov. 4), NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory fell out of space, burning up in the sky over Sumatra. It was a fitting, fiery end for a telescope that spent 22 years studying the most powerful explosions in the universe — and, even with Swift gone, its observations will continue to feed scientific curiosity for years to come.Swift's most important contributions to astronomy are not exactly eye candy. Designed to swivel toward deep-space explosions at a moment's notice, Swift excelled at capturing bright, fleeting and faraway specks of light. The multiwavelength observatory was equipped with optical, ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray instruments, allowing it to catch cosmic bursts of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, zeroing in on flares of light that other telescopes might miss. One of its most significant detections was a gamma-ray burst — an incredibly bright blast, likely emitted by a giant star as it exploded in a supernova before collapsing into a black hole. Swift's famous image of GRB 221009A, or the BOAT ‪—‬ short for "brightest of all time" ‪—‬ looks like a speckled orange bull's-eye, caused by waves from the explosion rippling across space.How the Swift Observatory saw the gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A, which may be the most energetic emission of this kind ever seen. (Image credit: NASA/Swift/A. Beardmore (University of Leicester))But Swift also took millions of observations of the nearby universe, including galaxies in our backyard. One of its most jaw-dropping images is this 24-hour exposure of the Andromeda galaxy (M31), located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth.More space photos(Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Tyler Desjardins (STScI))'On our way to groundbreaking science': Stars turn green in first test image from NASA's Roman telescope James Webb telescope shares one of its biggest images everWebb and Hubble discover new details in one of space's spookiest objectsAndromeda is the closest major galaxy to ours, and it may be destined for a shared fate. Scientists suspect that Andromeda and the Milky Way are drawing closer together and might eventually collide. The merger would add Andromeda's roughly 1 trillion stars to our sky, though there probably wouldn't be any life left on Earth to appreciate it.In Swift's view of our encroaching neighbor, captured with the observatory's ultraviolet instrument, tens of thousands of Andromeda's stars shine like sapphires set in a sparkling ring. According to NASA, the observatory detected some 20,000 ultraviolet light sources in this image, captured over two months from May to July 2008. These sources include thousands of dense, hot star clusters scattered across Andromeda's 150,000-light-year-wide ring, as well as the distant galaxy M32 (seen as a bright orb of light to the bottom right of Andromeda's center).In visible-light images of Andromeda taken with ground-based telescopes, the galaxy's bright center bleaches out many of the fiery young stars that emerge in Swift's view. While Swift likely won't be remembered best for shimmering starscapes like this one, it's a powerful reminder that looking at familiar structures in a new light can change everything.