Theoretically, a very attentive person with excellent mental abilities should have a higher chance of lucid dreaming (LD). After all, he/she will easily notice all the absurdities of an ordinary dream. However, another hypothesis proposes that lucid dreamers actually have a harder time distinguishing between reality and fantasy, which may hamper their control of reality.
Researchers from Taiwan—Loo and Cheng—decided to test this connection. They conducted an experiment in which participants assessed their level of lucidity in a dream for a week. At the second stage, the subjects performed mindfulness and memory tests. Based on the results of the experiment, the authors announced the first option to be true—people with a tendency to LD control reality better.
It also turns out that lucid dreamers experience a rich range of sensations both when remembering real events and when thinking up imaginary ones. As the authors note, this also helps to detect the oddities of dream scenarios. For comparison, participants with a low level of lucidity had a much weaker intensity and range of sensation in both memories and fantasies.
The researchers add that eye movements during lucid dreaming are smoother, which suggests that visual images in the LD are more like perception than imagination.
How do you rate your level of mindfulness and reality control?
The article was published in October 2022 in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.
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