According to one estimate, every second person has fallen into a lucid dream (LD) at least once, and every fourth person experiences LD on a monthly basis. Such data are provided by well-known LD researchers from the USA and Canada, including Karen Konkoly, Michelle Carr, Ken Paller, and Remington Mallett. This practice can have a lot of benefits; for example, it can help people heal from nightmares. However, progress is being slowed down by the lack of a technique that could be guaranteed to cause LDs.
The authors conducted an experiment: they found five volunteers through social networks and fliers. These volunteers arrived at the laboratory an hour before their usual bedtime and were instructed how to signal with their eyes if they managed to become lucid in a dream. After that, they went to bed, and after 4-5 hours, they were woken up to perform a small task on a computer. Specifically, the participants were asked to monitor their breathing by clicking on the left arrow on breaths 1-8 and the right arrow on breath 9 (and the spacebar if they lost count). Music played in the background while participants performed this exercise.
The participants then returned to bed wearing sensors that determined the stage of sleep they were in. When a person entered the REM sleep phase, 30-second fragments of the same melodies that were played during the breathing exercise were activated. There was a pause of 1-5 minutes between the melodies. The music played until the REM phase ended or the person demonstrated awareness with eye signals.
The researchers called their experiment a pilot, agreeing that the sample was too small to constitute a full study. However, two out of five volunteers achieved success by getting into an LD and confirming it with eye movements that the devices recorded. As the scientists added, most likely, no single method works for everyone – some combination of techniques is needed, which the participants tried to do.
What technique works best for you?
A preprint of the article was published in July 2023 on PsyArXiv.
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