In 2009, a group of German researchers led by Ursula Voss recorded increased activity in the frontal zones at 40 Hz power during lucid dreams (LD). Based on these data, the authors concluded that LD is a “hybrid state”—a mixture of sleep and wakefulness.
Scientists from the US—Benjamin Baird, Giulio Tononi, and the legendary Stephen LaBerge—conducted an experiment to test this hypothesis. The results showed that bursts at 40 Hz in the frontal zones occur from eye movements in the LD state. First, in laboratories, dreamers are asked to confirm the presence of consciousness in a dream with eye movements. Second, people experiencing a lucid dream are more actively looking at the space around them. As a result of these eye movements, the frontal EEG sensors are also triggered.
So is LD not a hybrid state after all? Canadian scientists from the Dream & Nightmare Laboratory in Montreal experimentally proved it wasn’t back in August 2020. In their study, a group of subjects tried to become conscious in a dream for two days: one day with the help of 40 Hz current stimulation, and the second day without it. No significant difference was found between the two trials. The results of this experiment were published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.
Comment by Michael Raduga, REMspace: “It seems that Voss’s publication about 40 Hz sent the study of the LD on the wrong track for a whole decade. In our laboratory, we also do not see anything unusual in the EEG of the frontal zone, if we discount the products of eye movements. It remains a big mystery how Voss herself did not notice this.”
Do lucid dreams feel more like dreams or waking life to you?
The article was published in February 2022 in the journal Sleep.
