Lucid Dreaming
The default state for most people is not lucid dreaming. The first time I realized this, I was a little confused. Younger Sanskriti wondered if that meant that not everyone would get to practice tongue twisters in their sleep, roll through sloped meadows, or give themselves the ability to manifest cool transparent blocks to climb, and then look at the scenery from above with the wind whipping through their hair and the sun warming their arms.
I enjoyed departing on these adventures, with me at the helm. Sometimes I would use my dreams as workshops to test out the absurdity of some ideas: should I really attempt to do backbends while wearing rollerblades? The dream-scenarios - where I could model the laws of physics as closely or as far as I wanted to - helped me make an informed decision (the informed decision was a red light for the backbends, but a greenlight for climbing the rope courses at the park nearby). Nowadays, I use my dreams as a place of relaxation: where I can build invisible paths up to the most beautiful places I’ve been (calm, empty rolling hills with just the slightest chill in the air), and modify them as per my desire - with the scent of jasmines in the air, it is a beautiful spot for me to just… exist.
I’ve had a few conversations with friends recently which have made me want to look into the scientific aspect of this a little bit more. What’s happening in our beautiful wrinkly brains when we lucid dream? When we don’t?
Brain Frequency
The frequency of your brain waves differs depending on whether you’re lucid dreaming or not.
Found this interesting graphic1 which might help us visualize what’s going on:
You have higher frequency brain activity when you’re lucid dreaming compared to when you’re non-lucid dreaming, but not as high as when you’re awake. I could give you the numbers, but as cool as changes in frequencies in your prefrontal cortex are, that’s something to explore later.
Let’s examine the studies that have been done on a more directly applicable level, so we can better understand how lucid dreaming can affect your sleep quality and even your personality.
Improving the Odds
A study2 found two effective ways to increase your chances of lucid dreaming, known as the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD) technique and the Senses Initiated Lucid Dream (SSILD) technique respectively. To describe them briefly, MILD is when you tell yourself “next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming” - and you perform this technique right after you wake up after five hours of sleep, with the intent of falling asleep again shortly after. The SSILD technique is also performed during this waking period, but instead of repeating a phrase, you take the time to focus on three different senses: visual, auditory, and physical.
Note that the method of waking briefly after five hours of sleep and then falling asleep right after is known as Wake Back to Bed (WBTB). Another notable technique is reality testing (RT) where you periodically, while you’re awake, do some sort of test to determine whether you are awake or dreaming - the hope is that this will become habitual enough that you will conduct the test in your dream. I took the data in the study and threw it in Google Sheets to make this nifty visualization:
The blue bars are the frequency of lucid dreams before training, and the red bars are frequency in the second week of training (follow the right axis). The yellow bars (which have the left axis) are the percentage of improvement between the weeks. It is evident that these techniques did improve the frequency of lucid dreaming!
Sleep Quality
Lucid dreaming is most likely either beneficial or not harmful to your sleep quality - or at least your perceived sleep quality. Note that the current research is a little divided on this. Some studies find no correlation,3 while some show slight benefits. One such example is a study with 149 participants that found that those who were lucid dreaming slept half an hour longer, with slightly higher frequency of waking up feeling refreshed (2.56 days on average versus 2.30 days).
There are a couple of studies that I haven’t fully explored yet that have data that suggests lucid dreaming may be beneficial for mental wellbeing.4
Personality
Some quick rabbit-hole into a few articles revealed a few interesting correlations between frequent lucid dreamers and personality traits:5
Frequent lucid dreamers tend to be more autonomous than non-lucid dreamers
They also tend to have a stronger ability to balance external and internal demands, have greater life satisfaction, and emotional endurance (p < .01)
They also tend to have greater self-confidence and on average, higher ability to love (p < .001)
Not sure how this ties into correlation and causation, and would be a little difficult to find out… but would be fun to explore (if you have the resources / will to make this happen, shoot me an email or text! Would love to brainstorm with you).
More thoughts
Tying this back into my personal experience, I’m not quite sure what has been working for me or why it has. Usually when I wake up, I stretch around a bit to wake up my body, and then spend five minutes in silence, reflecting about what I experienced in my dream. I also take a quick nine minute rest (perhaps it’s a short nap) to enjoy existing before I go out to explore my day. I don’t have a dream journal (but I am considering one). I suppose there is something to be said about the belief that you can have lucid dreams affecting your ability to do so. I don’t remember exactly how this all started, but it is not implausible that little Sanskriti had a lucid dream one day, and just decided that this is what she would dream about every day.
Graphic from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640-900-want-to-find-your-mind-learn-to-direct-your-dreams/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01746/full
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01290/full
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-80526-001
DOI: 10.11588/ijodr.2009.2.142