In recent years, lucid dreams have become a subject of increasing interest for the study of psychophysiological differences between dreaming and consciousness. To increase the frequency of lucid dreaming for research purposes, special phase induction techniques are taught to experiment participants.
One such study was recently conducted by a European team led by Daniel Erlacher from the University of Bern (Switzerland), who studies acoustic stimulation methods for lucid dreaming induction. Standard polysomnography was used to obtain electrophysiological data, and REM sleep was recorded using an eye movement sensor.
As part of the lab experiment, an ordinary ringtone was used as auditory stimulation, as well as a reality check tool. The implementation ringtone procedure caused lucid dreams in 5 out of 12 participants compared to just one case before stimulation.
Until now, a large quantity of reality checking studies during lucid dreaming have been conducted in field experiments with moderate success. On the other hand, there have been few studies that uses reality checking as a method of LD induction in sleep labs. Hopefully, the aforementioned study will help to develop a better understanding of the technique of effective phase induction.
The study was published in the October issue (2020) of the International Journal of Dream Research.
