How are lucid dreams related to psychological health? Researchers from the US and Canada, led by leading lucid dreaming researcher Michelle Carr, set out to find out. They surveyed 1332 people, asking them how often they experienced lucid dreams and nightmares, and then assessed their levels of anxiety, depression, stress, and sleep quality.
They found that people who regularly experience lucid dreams more often suffer from these psychological problems as well as poor sleep in general. However, when the authors added nightmare frequency to their calculations, it became clear that nightmares, not lucid dreams, were the cause of these problems. In other words, experienced lucid dreamers simply tend to see more negative dream content than the general population.
The researchers concluded that nightmares are the root cause of sleep problems. They cause stress and anxiety, and they increase one’s risk of depression, both independently and in combination with lucid dreaming.
Do you frequently suffer from nightmares?
The article was published in November 2024 in Behavioral Sleep Medicine.
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