Benefits and concerns of seeking and experiencing lucid dreams: benefits are tied to successful induction and dream control

Abstract

Therapies focused on lucid dreaming could be useful for treating various sleep disorders and other conditions. Still, one major roadblock is the paucity of systematic information on the consequences of attempting these sorts of dreams. The current study sought to quantify positive and negative aspects of seeking lucid dreams, describe their phenomenology in detail, and identify features associated with positive or negative experiences. Observational data from a massive lucid-dream discussion forum were analyzed to capture lucid-dreaming themes. Forum posts were independently rated on multiple dimensions hypothesized to contribute to the valence of lucidity-related phenomena. Our results revealed that lucid dreams can end nightmares and prevent their recurrence, but they can also induce harrowing dysphoric dreams. The realization of dreaming (lucidity) and dreams with high control were both associated with positive experiences. We translated our results into a process model that describes the progression from lucid-dream induction to waking benefit, identifying potential areas of concern. Our results and model suggest that negative outcomes primarily result from failed induction attempts or lucid dreams with low dream control, and that successfully inducing high-control lucid dreams poses low risk for negative outcomes. Lucid dreaming has valuable therapeutic and recreational potential, but a better understanding of the risks is required. Our findings provide new insights into possible negative repercussions and how to avoid them in future applications.

Intentionally awakening from sleep through lucid dreaming

“…This finding adds to mounting evidence that sleep is not an entirely uncontrollable off-state, as suggested by folk psychology (Carr, Haar, et al, 2020;Paller et al, 2021). The observed ability to wake up from a lucid dream is consistent with prior subjective reports of intentional awakening (Mallett et al, 2022;Stumbrys et al, 2014), and adds a quantitative success rate that can be used for the basis of future research and clinical trials. Because of the inclusion of an active control condition in this experiment, we obtained convincing support that it is indeed the cognitive act of attempting to wake up from a lucid dream -as opposed to merely the lucid state or general effort to complete a task -that is operative for yielding awakening.…”

“…Although the current approach would only end a single nightmare, pilot LDT studies suggest that a single actively-ended nightmare with lucidity can reduce repetitive nightmares at a 6-month follow-up (Zadra & Pihl, 1997) or longer (Mallett et al, 2022). Patients might develop the skill to become lucid with the expectation that lucidity will occur during a nightmare and that they can deliberately choose to exit the dream.…”

“…Participants were recruited through two rounds of data collection. In the first round, a study advertisement was posted on the lucid-dreaming subreddit (Mallett et al, 2022) in February 2022, and data collection continued for about one month. In the second round (May-August) a broader series of advertisements were posted to social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Discord) and a lab email list.…”

Cognitive control and semantic thought variability across sleep and wakefulness

“…However, our analyses did not distinguish between lucid dreams with dream control and those without. Lucid dreams are often associated with having a degree of control over the dream narrative, but sometimes negligible control [43,49], so perhaps only lucid dreams with volitionally altered dream content result in nonspontaneous thought processes.…”

To be or not to be hallucinating: Implications of hypnagogic/hypnopompic experiences and lucid dreaming for brain disorders

“…The “reality-check” strategy is more subjective, but allows confirming both the awake and the dreaming states. Important caveats are that both strategies may fail (more probably in cognitively impaired patients), that caution may well be warranted before encouraging training in lucid dreaming ( 76 , 77 ), and that the dualistic split of awake vs. dreaming is a useful simplification, but it may be admittedly too simplistic to capture the full complexity of dissociated sleep–wake states. With the fast development of wearable technologies for sleep–wake scoring ( 78 ), the ideal polysomnographic confirmation of hallucinations vs. hypnagogic/hypnopompic experiences ( 25 ) may become clinically viable in the home setting, at least for some patients.…”