LOGIN Newsletters SUBSCRIBE MENU

Lucid dreaming is the state of becoming aware of one's dream as it occurs.

P H OTO I L LU S T R AT I O N BY O S C A R B U R R I E L , S C I E N C E P H OTO L I B R A RY

SCIENCE M I N D , B O D Y, W O N D E R

You can learn to control your

dreams. Here’s how.
Lucid dreaming has been shown to reduce insomnia and anxiety, and even
help people process their grief. But for most of us, it doesn’t come
naturally.

B Y S TAC E Y C O L I N O

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 12, 2023 • 8 MIN READ

If you’ve ever felt like you were in a movie and watching a movie at the
same time while you were dreaming, you have probably experienced lucid
dreaming. But you may not have known that’s what it was called—or how it
can benefit your health and well-being.

Simply put, a lucid dream is one in which the person is aware that they’re
dreaming and can either exert some control over the dream, or passively
observe its unfolding while maintaining awareness that it’s a dream. This
gives the dreamer an opportunity to potentially influence their dream life—
perhaps by consciously interrupting a nighttime narrative to rescript a new
outcome—which can be especially helpful for reducing the frequency of
nightmares in those who have them, according to research in a 2023 issue
of Encephale. Research has also found that engaging in lucid dreaming can
help people reduce the severity of their insomnia, along with symptoms of
anxiety.

“Some people who lucid dream don’t want to alter the dream—they want to
explore the dream and see what it offers them,” notes Antonio Zadra, a
professor of psychology at the University of Montreal and co-author of
When Brains Dream. “It’s a way of exploring your own mind and opening
opportunities to engage with different parts of your psyche.”

There’s also entertainment value in lucid dreaming, says Benjamin Baird, a

cognitive neuroscientist and a research professor at the University of Texas
at Austin. “It’s like having your own form of virtual reality.”

History of lucid dreams

While awareness of dream states dates back centuries, it wasn’t until 1913
that the Dutch psychiatrist Frederik Van Eeden coined the term “lucid
dream,” based on his own experiences. In the 1970s and 1980s,
researchers, including Stanford psychophysiologist Stephen LaBerge,
proved that lucid dreaming was a phenomenon during REM sleep, when
dreamers were asked to move their eyes in distinct patterns when they
became lucid during their dreams.

Meanwhile, practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism have long believed that

people can train to be lucid while dreaming through a practice called
dream yoga.

“All dream yoga is lucid dreaming,” explains Michael Sheehy, a Tibetan

Buddhism scholar and director of scholarship at the Contemplative
Sciences Center at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. “The
difference is, in dream yoga you’re intentionally performing contemplative
techniques while you’re in the dream. You are aware of what you’re doing
while you’re dreaming and you’re doing things you can’t normally do when
you’re awake.”

These intentional actions include conjuring unusual objects to appear in

your dream, transforming the dream’s environment or location, or
transforming one item into another, he explains.

After the dream, “you may experience cognitive flexibility, realizing how
easily you can change your thoughts and mindset or how you perceive your
circumstances. And you can imagine new possibilities, perspectives, and
situational outcomes,” Sheehy says.

The breadth of benefits

The neurobiological underpinnings of lucid dreaming aren’t well
understood, says Ken Paller, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University
in Evanston, Illinois. But preliminary research suggests there’s greater
activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex—which regulates executive
functions, such as thinking and problem-solving, and emotions—and the
parietal cortex, which plays a role in processing and integrating sensory
information and attention.

Using electroencephalograms (EEGs), which measure electrical activity in

the brain, researchers have shown that lucid dreaming “constitutes a
hybrid state of consciousness” with aspects of brain activity that are
features of both waking states and REM sleep.

As far as the potential benefits of lucid dreaming go, Baird says they range
from the scientific to the personal to the therapeutic.

“Traditionally, it’s been very difficult to study dreams—you’re trying to

correlate reports of dreaming with what was going on physiologically in
the brain,” says Baird. With techniques developed to induce eye
movements and lucid dreams during REM sleep, researchers can
essentially mark the start and end of a lucid dream, “which allows for
precise alignment with subjective reports and brain physiology reports,
[which] used to be impossible,” he explains.

On a personal level, lucid dreams can enhance creativity and contribute to

people’s well-being by helping them learn things about themselves that
they wouldn’t otherwise know. “They can learn skills, come up with
answers to problems, and experience spiritual transformation,” says Paller.

Christopher Mazurek heard about lucid dreaming when he was in high

school and tried for a year and a half to do it based on a book he read. It
wasn’t until he volunteered in Paller’s lab in 2018, as a college student at
Northwestern, that Mazurek had his first lucid dream. The lab uses the
targeted memory reactivation technique, in which specific sounds are used
to provoke a lucid dream while the person is asleep.

Once he was able to do it, Mazurek’s lucid dreaming was particularly

healing; his grandparents had recently passed away and he was able to talk
to them in his lucid dreams. “It was powerful and it helped me process my
grief,” says Mazurek, who is now a research assistant at Northwestern
University. “It was a very exhilarating, rewarding experience.”

Lucid dreaming also offers people opportunities to practice their skills.

Research has found that practicing motor skills in lucid dreams is a form
of mental rehearsal that improves subsequent performance in sports or
games in real life.

Meanwhile, on a therapeutic level, lucid dreaming has been found to help

with insomnia and nightmares. If someone has recurrent nightmares and
learns how to engage in lucid dreaming, they can recognize that they are
dreaming, that what they’re experiencing isn’t real, and possibly change
the dream’s outcome. “This can be a powerful transformative experience,
helping them reach some level of resolution or healing,” Baird explains.

Learning to have lucid dreams

If you don’t have lucid dreams naturally (most people don’t), you can learn
to induce them through a variety of techniques—but there can be
drawbacks.

In a study published in the journal Sleep Advances, researchers examined

and analyzed 400 posts on a lucid-dreaming discussion forum and
discovered both positive effects and negative experiences. On the upside,
many people reported dream enhancement, waking up in a positive mood,
and fewer nightmares.

On the negative side, people reported feeling paralyzed—unable to yell or

move—or having trouble distinguishing whether they were asleep or really
awake, and less restorative sleep.

“Some people don’t want to have lucid dreams—they just want to sleep,”
says Remington Mallett, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Center for
Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine at the University of Montreal.

If you decide to try lucid dreaming, a prerequisite is to have fairly good

dream recall, experts say. “If you keep a dream journal, you will start to
have better dream recall,” Mallett says.

The techniques used to induce lucid dreams have varying degrees of

success and there isn’t one that works for everyone. “It’s a learnable skill
but people make it sound much easier than it really is,” Zadra says.

Among the more proven techniques are cognitive ones that are performed
during the day, or while you’re falling asleep.

With the reality testing technique, you stop what you’re doing at regular
intervals throughout the day, and ask yourself whether you’re in a dream
or reality then go back to your usual activities, Zadra explains. The idea is
that these “reality checks” eventually can become incorporated into “a
person's dream, enabling them to distinguish between sleep and
wakefulness realities, which in turn induces dream lucidity,” according to
research published this year.

A technique called the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams involves

rehearsing a dream during the day and visualizing becoming lucid while
telling yourself, the next time I’m dreaming, I’ll recognize that I’m
dreaming.

With the Wake-Up-Back-to-Bed technique, the person sets an alarm clock

to go off after about six hours of sleep, stays awake for approximately 30
minutes, then goes back to bed with the intention to become lucid if they
start dreaming. Another one, called the Senses Initiated Lucid Dream
technique, involves waking up after about five hours of sleep and
repeatedly shifting your attention between visual, auditory, and physical
sensations before going back to sleep.

Of these three techniques, a 2023 study found that rehearsing a dream

during the day was the most effective.

Through a process of trial and error, you could see which one works for
you. Or, “you can stack them up and use them all,” Baird says, because
they can work together.

Regardless of the frequency, lucid dreaming can help people gain a sense
of “agency or control over their dream content,” Mallett says. Which is
helpful, he adds, “because the effects of dreams can carry over into waking
life.”

SHARE TWEET EMAIL

READ THIS NEXT

SCIENCE

Women are more

likely to be sleep
deprived. Here’s…
More than a third of adults struggle with
getting enough sleep—and recent
research suggests it has serious
implications for their ability to learn and…

SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE

Walking is the sixth vital M I N D , B O D Y, W O N D E R How going sober for
sign. Here’s how to do it How magnesium affects even a month can
right. your sleep and anxiety improve your health

GO FURTHER

ANIMALS

ANIMALS ANIMALS ANIMALS ANIMALS ANIMALS ANIMALS

PHOTO ARK W I L D L I F E WATC H W I L D L I F E WATC H W I L D L I F E WATC H
Why does Pantone have a color of the Crocodiles are spre
These 5 species may vanish. If they do, $1,500 for ‘naturally refined’ coffee? Florida has a python problem—are year? It started with birds Paradise or parking lot? A Florida Florida. That’s a go
we’re all in trouble. bounty hunters the solution? ecosystem is a battleground.

E N V I RO N M E N T

ENVIRONMENT ENVIRONMENT PA I D C O N T E N T F O R A DV E RT I S E R ENVIRONMENT PA I D C O N T E N T F O R A DV E RT I S E R ENVIRONMENT

Meet the fungus that can transform into Whatever happened to the zero waste Food systems: supporting the triangle of Is cooking oil really the future of flying— Connecting with curiosity What’s the big dea
a carnivorous predator movement? food security or a distraction? 2°C hotter?

H I S T O RY & C U LT U R E

ANIMALS MAGAZINE H I STO RY M AGA Z I N E H I S TO RY & C U LT U R E H I S TO RY & C U LT U R E H I S TO RY & C U LT U

W I L D L I F E WATC H 2023 IN REVIEW
Saving endangered species, saving The quest for the Holy Grail began long How an ancient revolt sparked the Why this once isolated tribe took up cell
$1,500 for ‘naturally refined’ coffee? ourselves before King Arthur Festival of Lights phones and social media 7 of the most excit
discoveries in 2023

SCIENCE

SCIENCE SCIENCE ANIMALS SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE

M I N D , B O D Y, W O N D E R M I N D , B O D Y, W O N D E R W I L D L I F E WATC H 2023 IN REVIEW
A young tyrannosaur’s last meal gives Salmonella can be
How to navigate holiday travel and You can learn to control your dreams. $1,500 for ‘naturally refined’ coffee? new insight 7 medical breakthroughs that gave us protect yourself fr
avoid getting sick Here’s how. hope in 2023

T R AV E L

T R AV E L T R AV E L T R AV E L T R AV E L T R AV E L T R AV E L

You won’t find these Hawaiian hiking Why yule log has become a Christmas Is this city the chocolate capital of How Moroccan crafts inspired this This sail and ski trip in Norway is the 6 of the best serie
trails in a guidebook favourite Europe? author to become a globemaker ultimate winter adventure Earth III

LEGAL OUR SITES JOIN US FOLLOW US

Terms of Use Nat Geo Home Subscribe

Privacy Policy Attend a Live Event Customer Service

United States (Change)
Interest-Based Ads Book a Trip Renew Subscription

EU Privacy Rights Buy Maps Manage Your Subscription

Cookie Policy Inspire Your Kids Work at Nat Geo

Manage Privacy Preferences Shop Nat Geo Sign Up for Our Newsletters

Visit the D.C. Museum Contribute to Protect the Planet

Watch TV

Learn About Our Impact

Support Our Mission

Masthead

Press Room

Advertise With Us

Copyright © 1996-2015 National Geographic Society Copyright © 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved