I moved my eyes, and I realized that I was asleep in bed. When I saw the beautiful landscape start to blur, I thought to myself, “This is my dream; I want it to stay!” And the scene reappeared. Then I thought to myself how nice it would be to gallop through this landscape. I got myself a horse … I could feel myself riding the horse and lying in bed at the same time.
So recounted a test subject in the sleep laboratory at the University of Bonn in Germany. This particular sleeper was having a lucid dream, in which the dreamer recognizes that he or she is dreaming and can sometimes influence the course of the dream. By measuring the brain waves of lucid dreamers, my colleagues and I are gaining a better understanding of the neural processes underlying this state of consciousness that exists between sleep and waking. In addition to providing clues about the nature of consciousness, research on lucid dreams is also beginning to suggest new ways to treat anxiety and learn complex movements while asleep.
Waking Frequencies during Sleep
Most people report having a lucid dream at least once in their life, and a small fraction of us have them as often as once or twice a week. Some individuals even develop routines to increase their chances of having a lucid dream. But researchers who wanted to study lucid dreams were long confounded by the need to rely on subjects’ self-reports. The process of recall is notoriously prone to distortion; for example, some people may confuse lucid dreams with the transient hallucinations that occur while falling asleep or waking up.
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In 1975 sleep researcher Stephen LaBerge of Stanford University and his colleagues figured out a way to prevent such misinterpretation. Unlike the rest of the body, the eye and its movements are not inhibited during sleep. The researchers instructed subjects to move their eyes a certain way as soon as the sleepers recognized they were dreaming, for example, by rolling their eyes twice from left to right. These signals are easily distinguished from the rapid eye movement (REM) that occurs randomly during regular dreams. We still use this method today.
After a sleeper has signaled with eye movements that a lucid dream has started, researchers can investigate the corresponding brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). In an EEG recording, electrodes attached to the skin of the head pick up the oscillating electrical signals that indicate that thousands or millions of neurons are firing in synchrony. Recent studies indicate that the brain’s activity during lucid dreaming resembles that of waking consciousness.
In 2009 my team and I decided to take a closer look at the brain activity of lucid dreamers. In the sleep laboratory, we found what we believe to be an electrical signature of lucid dreaming—increased activity in the 40-hertz range (the “gamma band”), primarily in the frontal lobe, located behind the forehead. We tend to generate these high-frequency waves when we concentrate on a particular object. In addition to the frontal lobe, other regions of the cerebral cortex—the rippled mantle on the surface of the brain—play a major role in lucid dreaming. The frontal lobe seems to work in lucid dreams much as it does in the waking state, whereas areas in the parietal and temporal lobes exhibit patterns more typical of REM sleep.
Another striking feature in our study involved coherence—a rough measure of how coordinated the activity is in various areas of the brain. Coherence is generally slightly decreased in REM sleep, but not during lucid dreams. Think of the brain’s activity during REM sleep as equivalent to a party with all the guests talking simultaneously. In lucid dreams, however, the party guests tend to converse with one another, and the overall background noise decreases.
Beyond Fantasies
Until recently, most experts thought of lucid dreaming as a curiosity—a fun way to act out wishful thinking about flying or meeting celebrities. But recent research has uncovered practical uses for lucid dreams. Chronic nightmare sufferers often find their only source of relief is learning how to take control of their dreams. A study in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics in October 2006 found that those who learned how to increase their frequency of lucid dreams reported fewer awful dreams afterward, although the exact mechanism underlying the relief is unclear. Perhaps becoming aware during a bad dream allows sufferers to distance themselves emotionally from the dream’s content. Some people may even become so adept at lucid dreaming that they are able to keep themselves from imagining frightening disaster scenarios while they are asleep.
In theory, lucid dreams could help alleviate generalized anxiety or the reaction to specific fear stimuli in everyday life (for instance, spiders) by allowing people to confront worries and frights in the safe environment afforded by knowing “it’s just a dream.” More research is needed to test this application.
Beyond therapeutic applications, lucid dreaming may also facilitate the learning of complicated movement sequences. In dreams, we are all capable of unusual actions. We can fly, walk through walls or make objects disappear. According to sports psychologist Daniel Erlacher of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, athletes can internalize complex motor sequences, such as those needed in the high jump, more quickly after targeted lucid-dream training.
Regular dreams have been shown to be involved in problem solving, so some researchers have asked if lucid dreams could be useful in focusing the dreamer’s mind. A small study last year at Liverpool John Moores University in England suggests that lucid dreams are good for creative endeavors such as inventing metaphors but not for more rational exercises such as solving brainteasers. The lucid dreamers in the study were instructed to summon a “guru” figure, a wise character to serve as a kind of guide. Indeed, some of the subjects found their dream characters to be surprisingly helpful.
We still have much to learn about lucid dreaming. For example, we do not know under what circumstances these dreams appear most frequently or how to induce them more reliably. Once we do, we may finally harness these unique dreams’ healing power and gain insight into the nature of consciousness. Lucid dreaming’s potential for therapy, problem solving or pure entertainment could be limitless.
Am I Dreaming?
Lucid dreams cannot be willfully induced, but you can increase the likelihood that you will have one. People who practice these techniques regularly are able to have one or two lucid dreams per week.
Throughout each day, ask yourself repeatedly if you are awake. When this habit becomes ingrained, you may find yourself asking the question in a dream—at which point your chances of realizing you are dreaming skyrocket.
Make a point to look in a mirror or reread a bit of text every so often as a “reality check.” In dreams, our appearance is often altered and the written word is notoriously hard to pin down. You may carry the habit of checking for these dream signs into sleep, where they could alert you to the fact that you are dreaming.
Keep a dream journal by the bed and jot down the dreams you remember immediately on waking. Studies show that this practice makes you more aware of your dreams in general, and people who are more aware of their dreams are more likely to have a lucid dream.
Before falling asleep, focus intently on the fantasy you hope to experience in as much detail as possible. Research shows that “incubating” an idea just before bed dramatically increases the likelihood that you will dream about it. And if you suddenly notice that you are dancing with the movie star you hoped to meet, you might just realize you are having a dream and be able to take control of what happens next.