BrainStuff Classics: How Does Lucid Dreaming Work?

not a new thing. Aristotle wrote about it, and Tibetan Buddhists have been practicing dream yoga called malam for centuries. A Dutch psychiatrist named Frederick van Eden actually came up with the term lucid dreams in nineteen thirteen, and it's become popular in some scientific circles since the early eighties, largely because of the work of psychophysiologist Dr Deven Leberts, a Stanford grad who founded the Lucidity Institute in Researchers

have confirmed that lucid dreaming is possible. The way they do it is by having sleepers give you a distinctive, predetermined eye movement signal when they become aware that they're dreaming. So,

how does that work well. Generally, people are dreaming when they're in the fifth stage of sleep r e M sleep or REM REM is marked by rapid eye movements, paralysis through the rest of our muscles, rises in heart rate, breath rate and blood pressure, changes in body temperature, and acceleration of brain wave oscillation to the type we have while we're awake, which are alpha waves. These are all

part of REM. Note that some of these can happen during other stages of sleep and transitions between those stages, signaling what's known as covert REM dreaming. So you can monitor for these signs and your predetermined signal with machines like a polygraphed or an e G or an e MG. But what about the whole thing about controlling your dreams? Right? That sounds cool, Let's get back to that. Some researchers are skeptical that it's possible. That's because there's no empirical

way to test for it. We don't know enough about how memories work or how dreams work to see and experience what people are thinking or dreaming, so we've only got their reports to go on. Sure, some subject report being able to control their dreams, but even when people are trying to be honest about their memories, they can't always succeed. That's because memories are electrochemical patterns in the brain, and every time we call one up, we change it,

maybe a little, maybe a lot. Some research indicates that the harder we're trying for perfect recall, the more we mess our own memories up. Okay, but you are year because you want to learn how to control your dreams. Right. There are lots of books and workshops that are totally willing to help you at varying expenses. Of course, this is another reason why we're skeptical about lucid dreaming. Here at how stuff works. But here are some tips for

lucid dreaming no dream control promised. First, you could practice mindfulness while you're awake. This is what they call reality testing. Throughout your day, pay attention to how it feels to be awake and the cause and effect nature of reality. Like when you flip a light switch, a light turns on, and if it doesn't, there are steps you can take to figure out why. Well. The idea here is that by being more aware of what it's like to be awake,

you'll be able to notice differences while you're dreaming. Secondly, keep a dream journal. When you wake up, immediately write down what you remember of your dreams. The immediacy is important because we tend to forget dreams much more quickly than waking events. One Freudian era dream researcher by the name of L. Strumple hypothesized that that is because the strength of our memories is based in association and repetition, which we don't get in dreams the way we do

in waking activity. The idea here is that by paying closer, wakeful attention to your dreams, you'll be able to recognize them while you're asleep. Third, disrupt your dream cycles. Set an alarm to wake yourself up after ninety minutes after bedtime. That should give your brain enough time to cycle through the sleep stages and reach rem Or set an alarm to wake yourself up a couple hours early, stay awake for about half an hour, then go to sleep again.

The idea here is that by waking yourself up in the middle of rem sleep, you should be able to remember your recent dreams more clearly than usual. And finally, there's Laberge's mild technique, and that's mild in all caps because it stands for new monic induction of lucid dreaming.

This is one of Leberge's most famous techniques. When you wake up from a dream, try your best to remember it fully, and when you go back to sleep, keep telling yourself that you're going to remember that you're dreaming during your next dream. The next step is to picture yourself back in the dream that you just had and look for a sign that the dream is a dream and not reality, like the fact that you're flying through

the air with wings. Leberts calls these dream signs. At this point, remind yourself that you're dreaming and continue the visualization.

Keep doing this until you fall asleep. If you liked that and you want to learn more about lucid dreaming, my other show Stuff to Blow Your Mind has a real deep dive into the topic where my co host Robert and I talk all about lucid dreaming, it's history and all of the dream types that Frederick vany Eden came up with ye Today's episode was produced by Tyler Clang and written by me for brain Stuffs Erstwhile YouTube series. If you enjoy our show and want to support us

in return for some brainy housewears or people wears. Visit our online shop at t public dot com slash brain stuff, and of course, for more on this and lots of other dreamy topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com