Lucid dreaming is a strange state of consciousness in which the dreamer becomes aware that he or she is dreaming. Many of us have experienced this at one time or another, but for some, lucid dreaming is a desirable skill that can be acquired with training. People have used lucid dreaming to train new skills or rehearse for future events. Researchers are interested in lucid dreaming because it provides a way to scientifically study the content of dreams in real time, without relying solely on dream diaries that are created retrospectively.
Scientific research into lucid dreaming began in the 1980s with psychologist and lucid dreaming expert Stephen LaBerge, who developed a technique for lucid dreamers to communicate with the outside world. Because lucid dreams occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep, large parts of the dreamer’s body are paralyzed, so even if the dreamer is completely lucid, they are still in a state of consciousness. It can be difficult to control your body to let you know. . Laberge demonstrated that despite this paralysis, lucid dreamers can generate signals by deliberately moving their eyes in a pre-agreed manner.
communicate with the outside world in dreams
Since Laberge’s early research, follow-up studies have shown that expert lucid dreamers not only signal their lucid dream state by clenching their fists or making deliberate eye movements, but also by simply It has been confirmed that (in some cases) it is possible to answer even the most complex questions.
A few years ago, Konkoly et al. asked lucid dreamers to respond to simple math questions (e.g., “What is 2 plus 3?”) by moving their eyes or tightening their facial muscles an appropriate number of times. I asked him to answer. A significant number of participants answered the questions and started responding. It’s just the fact that the dreamer was able to come up with an answer to the question posed, although the accuracy of his answers was quite low. sleeping We have established that lucid dreamers are able to process sensory input and respond meaningfully through eye and muscle movements, even during lucid dreaming.
The main obstacle in the scientific study of lucid dreams is how often these experiences occur. Even for “expert” lucid dreamers, these experiences only occur occasionally, once or twice a week. Lucid dreamers practice a variety of techniques, including doing regular “reality checks” while awake, keeping a dream diary, and developing the habit of entering into a “lucid mindset” (focused consciousness). This can increase your chances of lucid dreaming. It captures your current state of consciousness while awake and can induce a similar state during sleep.
Recently, researchers have been able to develop lucid dreaming by combining specific sensory cues with the aim of entering a lucid thinking state during participants’ waking states and recreating those sensory cues during REM sleep. We have developed an experimental technique to increase the frequency of This technique, called Targeted Lucidity Reactivation (TLR), was demonstrated by Carr et al. (2023) induce high rates of lucid dreaming in both dreamers experts and novices.
Trigger a lucid dream via a smartphone app
In a new study published in this month’s issue, consciousness and cognitionKaren Konkoly and colleagues adapted TLR to the home environment by creating a smartphone app to deliver these sensory signals to your home. The app displayed a series of tones along with verbal instructions to enter a lucid state.
After repeating the tone and instruction several times, the tone alone was presented several more times during the REM period. This procedure was repeated daily for one week and compared to a control week in which no tones or instructions were presented.
The results were convincing. The average number of lucid dreams during the induction week was approximately 2.1, compared to 0.7 per week in the control condition (an approximately 3-fold increase in the number of lucid dreams). The researchers replicated their findings in a follow-up experiment in which they presented cues every other night and showed significantly more lucid dreams on the cued nights than on the uncued nights.
This study confirmed that TLR technology developed in a laboratory environment can be easily applied to home use via a smartphone app. This innovation not only provides an opportunity for people interested in lucid dreaming to train themselves, but also provides dream researchers with a promising approach to studying lucid dreaming in the general population.
