Lucid Dreaming (LD), a concept that made headlines in the 1980s, has become a subject of discussion yet again. While some researchers studied the potential applications of LD, some others continued making clinical observations. The purpose for most groups of researchers was common – to find if LD could help treat or tackle nightmares.

Nightmares are common for patients of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Repeated occurrences can traumatise a patient further, causing him to feel threatened about his survival or security. These normally occur during rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep, hence, a person is easily awakened.

For ordinary individuals too, recurrent nightmares can be a cause of distress and impairment in social and occupational functioning. Researchers said Lucid dreaming, a concept investigated in the 19th century, could be a way to help them.

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But can it really help tackle nightmares? Is it a good idea to allow the subject to use lucid dreaming?

The study also reviewed the available and eligible literature on the use of LD as a tool for treating nightmares and concluded that LD can be helpful in reducing the frequency and intensity of nightmares and the associated psychological distress. Lucid dreamers might be able to consciously turn nightmares into normal dreams in order to sleep better.

During lucid dreaming, subjects are aware that they are dreaming and may be able to control the content of their dreams. Such a possibility with LD can enable re-significations of the dream scene for the subject and prove useful in nightmare disorder. [1]

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However, it is still not clear if LD can be effectively conducted as therapy in a clinical environment.

Clinical observations

Clinical experiments with LD have been done using the LD objective detection method with EEG and fMRI. Researchers and authors Vallat R, Ruby PM in their article ‘Is It a Good Idea to Cultivate Lucid Dreaming?’ provide their observations recorded during an EEG and fMRI study done for LD. [2]

LD promotes a conscious-awakened state during sleep and can be applied during dreams or nightmares even, which tend to awaken the subject.

The EEG study recorded increased activity in the gamma frequency band in the frontal lobe in lucid REM (rapid eye movement) sleep state. This when compared to a non-lucid REM sleep state, presented the evidence that LD takes place in a hybrid state of consciousness, sometime in between sleep and wake moments. And there were definable and measurable differences seen in the frontal areas when observed during from waking and from REM sleep.

Reactivation of these regions during LD means the subject can use self-awareness and voluntary control to a certain extent. A study of an fMRI case showed that lucid REM sleep promoted reactivation of areas that were inactive during REM sleep. So inactive regions like the bilateral precuneus, parietal lobules, and prefrontal and occipito-temporal cortices, which are associated with higher cognitive functions like self-awareness could be reactivated.

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Does it work?

A paper titled ‘Lucid dreaming treatment for nightmares: a pilot study’ by Spoormaker VI, van den Bout J., describes an experiment to make relevant observations.

The pilot was conducted on the premise that ‘becoming lucid, that is realising that one is dreaming while experiencing a nightmare can enable one to alter the storyline during the nightmare itself.’

A total of 23 patients of nightmare disorder were divided into three groups and each had to fill out a questionnaire. Two of these groups were treated with varying intensities of lucid dreaming therapy (LDT) and one group was kept on a waiting list. LDT designed for this experiment was based on exposure, mastery and lucidity exercises.

The same set of participants were recalled after 12 weeks and were asked to fill the same questionnaire again.

The result: LD could reduce the frequency of nightmares in the study groups although, there were no changes observed in the sleep quality and severity of PTSD symptoms. The most important aspect of the study, however, was that the extent to which lucidity played a role as therapy remained unclear. [3]

So it is possible that LDT can act as an aid for people suffering from nightmare disorder, however, advanced research and clearer observations about its effectiveness are still needed.

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Applications and Techniques of LD

Authors Mota-Rolim SA, Pavlou A, Nascimento GC, Fontenele-Araujo J, Ribeiro S. in their study titled 'Portable Devices to Induce Lucid Dreams—Are They Reliable?’ referred to the time in the 1980s when neuroscientists attempted induction of LD using verbal suggestions, musical tones, tactile stimuli, and even olfactory stimuli. [4]

The same set of authors state the first-ever commercialisation of LD by LaBerge and his team from the Lucidity Institute when they created and launched a sleeping mask by the name ‘NoveDreamer’. The device was designed to automatically detect REM sleep and trigger flashing lights to incubate them as stimuli in the subject’s dream, as a cue to induce lucidity. However, NoveDreamer was discontinued in 2004.

In the article ‘Is It a Good Idea to Cultivate Lucid Dreaming?’, the authors also discussed and reviewed methods of using LD and also, those which could increase the frequency of LD.

Mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD) technique was one that was widely used. However, the effectiveness of MILD could be optimised if the subject woke up at night, stayed up for a duration of a half-hour to four hours and then went to sleep. Likewise, the Wake-up-back-to-Bed technique and the dream re-entry method also relied on forced awakenings. Hence, these methods would alter the subject’s sleep architecture or duration.

The stimulation methods for LD involved the risk of waking up participants, thereby impacting the sleep depth, sleep architecture and duration. The use of substances was also tried (via intracerebral acetylcholine increase and often combining it with MILD), to stimulate LD, however, this method added to the already existing risks. It also created an imbalance of the serotonergic and cholinergic systems, responsible for regulating sleep. Such an imbalance had the potential of negatively affecting the integrity of one’s sleep structure, which would mean increased sleep fragmentation, longer awake times at night and sleep paralysis. All these can have adverse effects on one’s health and longevity. [2]

Most reviews of the above methods have only emphasised that neither of the induction techniques could be consistent in enabling lucidity and be reliable. Also, given that the results of most studies hinted at disturbed sleep structure and related adverse health outcomes, the idea of practising LD regularly as therapy or tackling nightmares may not be a good idea after all.

The same study supported the tACS (fronto-temporal transcranial alternating current stimulation) method, which helps the subject use self-reflective awareness during an ongoing dream. However, there were questions raised about the safety of using a technique involving cortical electrical activity. [4]

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