Dutch scientists from the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior in Nijmegen have published a new study on lucid dream induction training using virtual reality (VR). The results sparked a debate about the effectiveness of such techniques.
The study, conducted by Jarrod Gott et al., involved 39 people who were divided into three groups: the VR group; the active control group (taught to induce lucid dreams using classical techniques); and the passive control group (which used neither the classical techniques nor VR).
Volunteers from the VR group, who had no previous experience of immersion in virtual reality, had to conduct reality checks for 4 weeks using regular questions: “Am I dreaming?” At the same time, they went through certain dream-like scenarios in the simulator. The experience of such an environment, according to scientists, should have strengthened the participants’ critical thinking abilities.
However, the results failed to corroborate the hypothesized effect: although the VR group showed a much higher number of successful lucid dreams than the passive group, its results were virtually identical to those of the active control group. Thus, the authors’ hypothesis that VR training can improve the success of lucid dream training was not confirmed. This left the scientists wondering if the specific simulation scenario was to blame, or if such training is simply no more effective than the tried-and-true phase induction methods.
The study was published in The Royal Society magazine in December 2020.
