Science investigates lucid dreams and their potential benefits

Only 20% of adults report having lucid dreams regularly, and lucidity training techniques are not always successful.

Lucid dreams are not easy to describe and the experience often varies from person to person. It is about when a person dreams and realizes the dream.

Science has not yet fully determined how lucid dreams work, but in the few studies on the topic, you can read testimonies from people who claim that lucid dreaming has benefited them. For example, it has helped with pain, to be more creative, to be inspired to create imagination, to think of solutions for the real world or just to have a good time.

Only 20% of adults report having lucid dreams regularly, and lucidity training techniques are not always successful. This is because lucid dreams occur during the REM phase of our rest, the deepest of the five cycles that generally make up sleep.

As a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies human cognition, he told MIT, “It could be argued that lucid dreaming is a kind of neglected resource.” It is “maybe this state can be used for entertainment, creative solutions. Problems., learning about how memory works and all kinds of neuroscience.”

But the fact is that within the framework of the study of dreams, conscious people are the most regressive and the most difficult to study. However, already in the treatise “On Dreams” signed by Aristotle in the 4th century BC. Jim, there is a mention of this mind game. Although it was in 1913 when a Dutch psychiatrist coined the term to define a dream in which one feels realised. At the end of the seventies, the idea was scientifically verified and a further step was taken with the assertion that lucid dreaming means not only controlling this dream world, but also that dreamers can activate the decisions they made while awake.

But in February of this year, the study turned the tables. MIT reports that it has been shown that “lucid dreamers can maintain two-way communication with people who were awake.” As detailed in the journal Current Biology, the study was replicated in four different laboratories in different parts of the world. There they “asked conscious dreamers questions (such as ‘What is 8 minus 6?’) with spoken messages, beeps, flashing lights, or tactile stimulation.” In this way, the participants “responded with specific eye movements.” Thus, “the researchers had an effective conversation with a person who was asleep.”

Science still isn’t sure what to look for with lucid dream research. But he has a certainty: to understand it a little better, it will be a long advance in the knowledge of the human mind.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Sleep Foundation (a non-governmental organization devoted to the study of sleep) have published a list of the aspects that help to have a lucid dream. There is no accepted recipe.

Keep a log of dreams: write down everything as soon as you wake up or record it in audio.

The Power of Suggestion: Sleep and think about a lucid dream, and convince yourself of it.

Reality Test: A Stanford University study installed a “reality check”. It is about incorporating a habit that is repeated several times a day (turning the light on or off, looking in the mirror for example) to repeat it consciously or unconsciously in a dream.

Meditation: Several studies have found relationships between meditation and lucid dreaming, although it is not yet clear what this link might be.

Interactive video games: A study from Oxford University found a connection between immersion in imaginary places and lucid dreams.