Lucid Dreaming

My 11-year-old asked, “have you ever been in a dream where you realized you were dreaming?” She said this had happened to her several times. That experience — lucid dreaming — is a cross-cultural phenomenon that more than half of people experience at some point in their lives, with nearly a quarter of people saying that it happens to them once a month or more. Researchers have found few factors, in terms of either demographics or personality, that predict who is likely to have lucid dreams.

To cultivate lucid dreams, people have developed various techniques that can be used to determine whether you are currently dreaming. My older daughter said she had heard you could test whether you were dreaming by counting your fingers, because people in dreams have only eight fingers. This was news to me, but is in fact a known strategy for generating self-awareness during dreaming. The specificity of having eight fingers isn’t essential — instead, lucid dreaming practitioners look for some type of change in their hands. (One online writer reported counting five fingers on one hand, then looking at the other to discover that it was a giant crab’s claw!). Other recommended ways to determine that one is dreaming are changes in vision, unusual symbols in writing or on a clock, and being able to breathe even when one’s nose and mouth are shut. My younger daughter posited that she was more likely to experience sudden lucidity if she had a memory within the dream of another previous dream. That one has happened to me as well. This phenomenon of “dream sequels” is another common experience, although I have not been able to find other instances in which it was associated specifically with lucid dreams. 

However it arises, an awareness of the dream state while still dreaming can produce a "dream-initiated lucid dream" in which the dreamer achieves greater control over his or her experiences. This is the really interesting kind that lucid dreamers often hope for, in which you can voluntarily change your environment, reach out to others with your mind, or fly like Superman. My daughters both reported finding it easier to manipulate aspects of themselves in the dream than aspects of their environments.

Whether one can deliberately produce a lucid dreaming state, rather than simply recognizing it when it happens, is slightly different question. Two of the most widely-endorsed methods are the "mnemonic technique" which involves consciously repeating an intention like "I will remain aware in my dreams" while falling asleep, and the "wake-initiation" technique which involves using progressive muscle relaxation to induce sleep while the mind is still alert. Another option is the "wake back to bed" method, in which you set an alarm to wake you during REM sleep (e.g., 2 hours before the normal wake time, when dreaming is most likely to occur), and then return to sleeping -- likely going directly back into REM sleep. Although these methods have been studied scientifically and can produce positive results, a 2012 systematic review showed that none of them could reliably produce lucid dreams. At best, they seem to increase the likelihood of lucid dreaming for some people, while others often achieve a lucid dreaming state with no special techniques. Overall it seems likely that people can learn techniques that produce more frequent lucid dreams, but that no method leads to lucid dreaming truly "on demand."

From a Two Minds Theory perspective, one of the most interesting aspects of lucid dreaming is that it is consistently associated with activation in the prefrontal cortex, an area that I have argued is closely connected to the Narrative mind. In general, sleep involves lower prefrontal activation with more activity in the limbic system connected to emotion and memory; lucid dreaming is therefore a deviation from typical sleep. EEG research shows that lucid dreaming is in fact a state with features of both waking and REM sleep. And a recent study found that people in a lucid dreaming state can even give a conscious response to researchers outside the dream, such as solving math problems or answering simple questions. One of the most interesting aspects of that study was how the participants experienced the researchers' questions, incorporating them into the dream in forms like a voice-over narration of events or a light that blinks in Morse code. Even though the Narrative mind was active, the typical dreaming imagery of the Intuitive mind was still the dreamers' predominant experience.

Finally, lucid dreaming has potential as an intervention technique, because the simultaneous activation of both the Narrative and Intuitive mental systems is one of the suggested ways in which people can change their behavior. In Two Minds Theory, problem-solving and mindfulness are two suggested approaches that engage both the Narrative and Intuitive minds. About 30% of lucid dreamers do in fact say that they use the experience for creativity and problem-solving, and lucid dreaming also historically has been recommended as a way to resolve psychological conflicts. In one Buddhist tradition, the practice of dream yoga is utilized to gain spiritual insights while dreaming, and to also develop greater mindfulness during waking life. Lucid dreaming is therefore potentially more than just a curiosity. It has the potential to generate solutions to important life problems by tapping into the strengths of both the Narrative and Intuitive minds.