Ever wanted to be awake in a dream? Here's how to lucid dream, according to an expert.
Lucid dreaming changed Dr. Denholm Aspy’s life.
A visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide, Aspy (who recently changed his surname to Adventure-Heart) was set to focus his Ph.D. program on nonverbal communication until he had a lucid dream the night before his program started. Adventure-Heart pivoted his topic to lucid dreaming, which eventually produced his “International Lucid Dream Induction Study.” The study tested five combinations of lucid dreaming induction and found two particularly effective methods.
About 55% of adults have experienced at least one lucid dream in their life. Here’s how you can join that number.
What is lucid dreaming?
Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon that occurs when a person is aware that they are dreaming while they are dreaming.
It’s more complex than just changing circumstances in your dreams – in fact, lucid dreaming is often confused with dream control, says Adventure-Heart. While dream control is deliberately changing what’s happening in the dream, lucidity is an awareness that you’re in a dream.
“They happen hand in hand, but dream control is usually secondary to lucidity,” Adventure-Heart says.
Lucid dreaming is real, though Adventure-Heart says for most of history people believed it could just be explained away by vivid imaginations or being half asleep, half awake. Sleep research has since proven that lucid dreaming occurs exclusively during rapid eye movement or REM sleep.
“In non-lucid dreams, there are parts of the brain involved in critical thinking and self-awareness that are really deactivated,” Adventure-Heart says, explaining why we might make decisions in dreams we’d never make in real life or think it’s normal to see something bizarre. “When you’re lucid, what we’ve seen from imaging studies is that some of those parts of the brain basically come back online.”
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What does lucid dreaming feel like?
It feels a little bit different for everyone, but Adventure-Heart describes it as “your mind’s own virtual reality machine.”
“Often it’s full-blown lucidity where you’re for sure that you’re dreaming and that awareness is consistent, but sometimes it can fade in and out or you have a vague awareness that you might be dreaming, but you still act as though it’s not a dream,” he says.
How to lucid dream
Some people have an easier time inducing lucid dreams than others – you might have even had one without meaning to. There isn’t a clear answer as to why, but Adventure-Heart says remembering your dreams is the biggest predictor of lucid dream ability.
Step one: Dream recall
Even if you aren’t prone to dream recollection, you can certainly learn. Adventure-Heart recommends taking a few minutes in the morning to remember at least one dream per night and write it down in a journal.
Step two: Technique
There are several techniques to induce lucid dreams, but Adventure-Heart's research found one particularly effective. The MILD, or Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams technique involves setting an intention:
Go to sleep normally and try meditating or reading about lucid dreaming before drifting off to sleep.
Set an alarm to wake up in five hours – 50% of our dreams are clustered in the final few hours of the night.
When you wake up, spend a few minutes recalling a dream you’ve just had or had a few days ago. Envision yourself inside the dream noticing what’s around you and realizing it’s a dream.
Repeat the phrase “Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming.”
Go back to sleep.
“You’ve got to really put intention into (the phrase),” Adventure-Heart says. “If you do it mechanically, it tends not to work.”
You can also try the SSILD method, or Senses Initiated Lucid Dream. With SSILD, set an alarm for five hours. When you wake up, repeatedly shift your attention between visual, auditory and physical sentences before returning to sleep. For 20-second intervals, think about anything you can hear, see behind your closed eyelids and feel your body.
Step three: Repetition
“The longer you practice, the better you’ll get,” Adventure-Heart says. “I think that’s why a lot of people don’t have success straight away and then they give up because they don’t stick with it for long enough.”
Is lucid dreaming dangerous?
Lucid dreaming, and the technique that involves waking up in the middle of the night, do not generally impact the quality of sleep, Adventure-Heart says. He likens it to having to wake up for another reason like a parent feeding their baby or to use the bathroom.
However, he cautions against lucid dreaming for those who have difficulty telling the difference between real life and fantasy, especially in cases of psychosis.
There are some techniques that may cause sleep paralysis, which Adventure-Heart says is "harmless," but may feel uncomfortable. But in most cases, lucid dreaming has many benefits that psychologists are beginning to explore in treatment:
People with anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder may experience nightmare disorder, or repeated nightmares that affect their quality of life.
“People often relive their trauma through their dreams, and when that happens people can wake up feeling traumatized and that can affect their mood and well-being for the rest of the day,” Adventure-Heart says. “You can lucid dreaming to make peace with the nightmare or learn how to fight back or change the scenario.”
Psychologists sometimes have clients with trauma-based nightmares try lucid dreaming so they can physically remove themselves from the situation in the dream. Often this starts small, Adventure-Heart says, like getting the person to close their eyes, turn their focus away from the action or practice breathing techniques while in the nightmare.
Adventure-Heart and other sleep researchers have also found physical benefits:
“We are seeing activation of the motor cortex,” Adventure-Heart says. “So we’ve had lots of anecdotal evidence from elite athletes, for example, using lucid dreaming as a way to practice their sports or to get better skills.”
Adventure-Heart says this could especially be applied in recovery or physical therapy settings, like someone with a traumatic brain injury. And it’s more than just a practical application – there are also emotional benefits. Take this example of a survey of people with spinal cord injuries that found nearly all are either sometimes or always out of their wheelchairs in their dreams, which can “present a unique environment to realistically explore physical experiences,” the author writes.
“It might sound frivolous, but for someone who might be bedridden or have a debilitating disability, to be able to have experiences that are just as real as waking life where you can run, fly, explore forests and jungles and oceans, that’s really life-enriching,” Adventure-Heart says.
It’s also inspired art, music, literature and film. Adventure-Heart recalls an example of an artist he knew who would dream she was in an art gallery and spend time studying the paintings until she woke up, and then she would sketch them out.
Do you think you’re up to giving lucid dreaming a try?
“Enjoy the ride, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to have your first lucid dream,” Adventure-Heart says. “Enjoy getting to know your dreams and enjoy the practice – it’s the journey, not the destination.”
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to lucid dream: Follow this method to see what it feels like
