While some people experience lucid dreams spontaneously, for others it occurs only after an external stimulus (such as a conversation, watching a video or reading an article about lucid dreaming), or sometimes after a great job trying to get one.
"There are people who can learn to do it in a few days and other people it takes three months," says Michael Schredl, a researcher in the sleep laboratory at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. "I, for one, trained for almost three months before I had lucid dreams. So it's a very, very strong difference between people."
Studies have found that the primary motivation for lucid dreaming is simply to have fun or fulfill desires, whether it's flying or having sex. But many people also use lucid dreaming to help manage nightmares or bad dreams, solve problems, explore creative ideas or insights, or practice skills.
Since people who have lucid dreams are often rare, researchers may find it difficult to achieve high levels of success in inducing these dreams, making it difficult to study – especially in laboratory settings. This is why a large focus of research currently is simply to find out which techniques work best. "Right now, we don't have a single technique that can induce lucid dreaming reliably and with a high success rate," says Stumbrys.
However, there are some simple ways that lucid dreaming can be facilitated, he adds. People who have good dream memory, for example, are more likely to remember having lucid dreams. Dream recall can be improved by keeping a dream journal or simply replaying your dreams in your mind for 10 minutes after you first wake up. This helps you become more familiar with your dream settings, and thus learn about common dream attributes.
Reality testing is another commonly used technique. Here, you ask yourself several times a day whether you are dreaming or not, in the hope that you will do so while dreaming, causing lucidity. "In general, when we dream, we accept what is happening in our dreams uncritically," says Stumbrys.
This happens because part of the prefrontal cortex, responsible for much of our consciousness and critical thinking, is slightly deactivated during REM sleep. According to a study, the frontal areas of the brain may be slightly more activated during lucid dreams.
Ultimately, researchers like Konkoly hope that lucid dream research can help us understand more about how and why we dream, such as by allowing researchers to test dream theories experimentally.
She also hopes it can shed light on consciousness. "It's a very unique state of consciousness with unique properties," she says. "To me, if you understand how that's happening and what's different in a lucid dream from waking, it's just going to tell us more about what the human mind is doing in general."
The benefits of these dreams
Reduces nightmares.
They reduce anxiety.
Increase motor skills.
They increase creativity.
Be careful if you have a mental disorder. Attempting to lucid dream presents several risks, including sleep disruptions and disconnection from reality. Talk to a therapist or sleep specialist before trying to lucid dream.
Source: BBC
