Can we control what we dream? The science of lucid dreaming

If you are reading these lines, it may be because the title has caught your attention because this possibility had not been considered. Or, on the contrary, you may be part of that percentage of the population that experiences lucid dreams.

As often happens in topics related to brain function, answering the questions we raise is not easy, so let's go in parts.

What do we know about dreams?
Human beings spend approximately a third of our lives sleeping. Everything that happens during this time arouses great interest and, probably, dreams are the phenomenon that has aroused the most curiosity throughout history. However, there is still much to know in this field.

Today we know that daydreams are physiological phenomena that occur mainly during the REM sleep phase, and that include emotions, sensations, perceptions and thoughts. Although the content of dreams is very varied, it is generally related to visual experiences, people or objects that we encounter while awake.

What are lucid dreams?
The main characteristic of lucid dreams is that the person is aware of dreaming; It can even control the content of the dream, although this does not always happen.

These types of dream experiences are often triggered by a nightmare in which we feel: “This can't be happening.” They are quite common, since more than half of the adult population has experienced them at least once in their life, and more than 20% do so with some frequency.

However, it is not clear what the level of consciousness is during that time interval. Lucid dreams would be understood as an intermediate state between sleep and wakefulness, and people with a tendency to experience them may present greater neuronal activation in the areas that control thoughts. Furthermore, it seems that these individuals have access to the memories they generate while awake.

Finally, the fact that techniques such as mindfulness or full attention allow us to work with this type of dreams, as we will discuss later, could be pointing to the possibility that some attention control mechanisms are active during the experience.

Is there any way to induce them?
As we have said, some people experience this phenomenon spontaneously, although it is not the most common. It is a skill that can be learned, and the scientific community continues to investigate different methods for this.

Cognitive techniques, for example, are based on the basis that dream experiences reflect life experiences, and try to train the ability to generate lucid dreams through aspects such as memory or self-reflection.

Other types of techniques are based on incorporating signals (for example, sounds) during the REM phase, which will eventually enter dreams and be recognized by the person. And some researchers use practices such as mindfulness to increase both the ability to control lucid dreams and the frequency of them.

We also find experiments based on the ingestion of substances, and even devices have been developed that would help induce them. However, most of these works do not have a high methodological quality; more research is needed.

How do they affect our health?
Although general interest in this phenomenon usually focuses on its more recreational aspect, there are studies that point to its possible clinical usefulness. We cannot forget that these types of experiences are common in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, among others.

Firstly, the presence of lucid dreams has been linked to a higher degree of well-being, positive emotions, resilience and increased self-confidence. It has even been suggested that they could serve as a problem-solving strategy.

On a more therapeutic level, specialists have used them to modify the ending of nightmares in people who suffer from this problem chronically. On the other hand, the intensity of lucid dreams and the fact that positive emotions appear during them could reduce psychopathological symptoms in people with emotional distress.

In contrast, other studies suggest that encouraging this practice could be harmful in patients with psychotic-type symptoms, since it could contribute to a loss of contact with reality.

Another relevant area of ​​research has to do with the relationship between lucid dreams and the quality of night's rest, but the evidence is not firm in this regard. If there is any alteration in this sense, it seems that it would not be of great relevance, since lucid dreams would occupy a small part of the total sleep time.

We know that, in general, anomalous experiences that occur while we sleep can be associated with symptoms of emotional distress that would cause sleep intrusion. However, it seems that lucid dreams do not generate as much distress as other types of experiences.

In conclusion, we can say that not all people experience this experience as something pleasant, and that lucid dreams are not positive or negative in themselves: the characteristics of the dream and the way of experiencing them will determine their influence on emotional health. The possibility that they can affect the quality of our sleep is reason enough to approach this issue with caution.

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Source: The Conversation. Authorship:

Laura Río Martínez
Doctor in Psychology, researcher and university teacher, International University of Valencia