Lucid Dreamers Reach Out from the World of Sleep

By Mark Miller

Have you ever realized that you were having a dream while it was happening? If so, you may be a lucid dreamer. According to the article “‘Lucid’ dreamers could solve mysteries about sleeping minds” in Science News Explores, scientists are working with people with this ability to conduct research about the nature of our dreams.

Responding in Real Time

Lucid dreaming isn’t daydreaming. In fact, most lucid dreams occur during rapid eye movement or REM sleep, which is experienced about 60 to 90 minutes after falling asleep.

Once in this state, lucid dreamers can do more than just become aware that they are dreaming; they can achieve some control over their dreams, perform tasks, and even communicate with waking researchers in real time.

According to the article, neuroscientist Karen Konkoly and Martin Dresler and sleep neurologist Isabelle Arnulf asked lucid dreamers to answer yes-or-no questions or solve rudimentary math problems while they were dreaming. They posed questions 158 times and didn’t receive many responses, but six participants provided 29 correct responses—including the correct answer to: What is eight minus six?

The subjects communicated by moving their eyes from left to right or smiling or frowning. Electrodes attached to their bodies detected these movements.

Dream Job

Finding lucid dreamers for these studies is a challenge. Surveys reveal that only about half of adults say they’ve ever had a lucid dream and only 23 percent have lucid dreams every month, according to the Sleep Foundation. And the studies require more than just experiencing lucid dreams.

“It’s a lot harder than just passively lucid dreaming in your bed,” says participant Christopher Mazurek. “You realize, ‘OK, I have to stabilize the dream. I have to remember what the task is. I have to do the task without the dream falling apart.’”

Scientists are exploring ways to enlarge the available pool. One method is to play sound cues that subjects associate with being self-aware and then play the cues again during sleep. Another is to recruit subjects with narcolepsy, a condition that makes it difficult to stay awake. “They’re just champions at lucid dreams,” says Arnulf, whose team performed a study where 18 out of 21 narcoleptic subjects experienced lucid dreaming while sleeping in the lab.

Sleep Solutions

Scientists are trying to answer a range of questions by tapping into the slumbering mind: Do dreams help us solve problems? How do we differentiate what we imagine from what we perceive? How do we experience emotions in dreams? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Why do we dream? If you’re a lucid dreamer, maybe you can help.