Understanding Sleep Paralysis – An Interview with a Leading Researcher of the Phenomenon
Baland Jalal is currently one of the most active researchers of the sleep paralysis phenomenon. A Research Fellow at Harvard University, he received his Ph.D. from Cambridge and is the…
What is REM Sleep?
REM means “rapid eye movement.” This physical feature is considered decisive in determining the onset of the REM sleep phase; however, the term describes several phenomena at once: the state…
Lexical Analysis of Near-Death Experiences
While science and religion argue about what near-death experiences (NDEs) are, even the term itself and the identification of those who survived it are yet to be fully defined. Descriptions…
Are Gamers More Likely to Have Lucid Dreams?
Can video games affect lucid dreaming frequency? This correlation was first discovered by researcher Jayne Gackenbach in 2006. When she interviewed university students who were more likely to have lucid…
How Men and Women Experience Sleep Paralysis
Various aspects of sleep paralysis are regularly discussed in studies conducted in different countries, as well as on different age groups. Another such study, published in 2020 with a sample…
Do Lucid Dreams Affect Attention?
Mindfulness is directly related to the function of attention. This property has been studied in several scientific experiments, including a study conducted in 2010 to assess the frequency of lucid…
Do Out-of-Body Experiences Improve Memory?
It is generally accepted that emotions strongly affect our memory. On the other hand, emotions represent a sense of oneself in time and space within one’s own body. What effect…
Are Lucid Dream Masks Quackery?
The British site, The Independent, in a recently published article, notes the increase in public interest in lucid dreaming over the past year. For example, the query on Google “how…
Indirect Method Study Published in a Scientific Journal
The indirect phase method, that is, entering a lucid dream or out-of-body experience immediately upon awakening and without losing consciousness, is one of the most effective phase induction techniques. At…
Is It Possible to Recreate a Near-Death Experience Under Hypnosis?
Near-death experiences (NDEs) are of great interest to science, however, the difficulty in studying them lies in the fact that they are based on subjective memories. To overcome this issue,…
Is Sleep Paralysis Possible in the Elderly?
It is believed that sleep paralysis is extremely rare in old age. Most studies attribute this phenomenon to a younger age group, especially college students and teens. However, there is…
“When Brains Dream” – A New Book on the Mystery of Sleep
January 2021 saw the publication of a new book dedicated to how our brains behave during sleep. The authors of the book, called “When Brains Dream: Exploring the Science and…
What Is the Difference Between Consciousness in Sleep and Wakefulness?
It is generally accepted that consciousness differs significantly between sleep and wakefulness. When we sleep, we experience an unconscious stream of thoughts and images. In the waking state, we are…
Do REM Sleep Disturbances Create Near-Death Experiences?
People who have had near-death experiences or who have found themselves teetering on the edge between life and death often describe their experiences as mystical. Regardless of gender, age, ethnicity,…
How Lucid Dreams Affect Mental and Physical Health
Despite the fears of some scientists about the possible negative impact of lucid dreaming on people’s physical and mental health, actual practitioners are increasingly sharing amazing stories of how their…
Has COVID-19 Changed Our Dreams?
The scientific journal Dreaming dedicated a special section in September 2020 to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our dreams. Researchers from different countries have published reports on how…
A Narcoleptic’s View on Lucid Dreams
“People look at me in fear after I tell them what I see in my dreams. Sometimes this look scares me more than the creatures that dwell in my hallucinations,”–…
