The German gestalt psychologist Paul Toley first described the criteria distinguishing lucid dreams from ordinary dreams in 1981. These included awareness of spatial orientation, awareness of the capacity of choice, awareness of intense concentration, awareness of one’s own identity (the “I”), awareness of the dream environment, awareness of the meaning of the dream, and awareness of memory.
Based on this list, Brigitte Holzinger and her colleague, Lucille Mayer, from the Institute for Consciousness and Dream Research in Vienna, hypothesized that each of these phenomena activates specific areas of the brain that together form the brain network responsible for lucid dreaming.
In their July 2020 article, the scientists suggest that the lucid dreaming experience requires changes in not one, but several areas of the cerebral cortex and, as a result, the emergence of a neural network between them.
While further research is needed to prove this hypothesis, you yourself have probably noticed mental changes following phase practice. If you have, please share them in the comments.
The study was published in Frontiers in Psychology magazine.
