The new science of controlling lucid dreams

The idea is that when you check while awake, you will pass the awake-check, but set up a habit pattern. While dreaming, you will observe weird stuff when this happens, realize it must then you must be dreaming; you then become lucid, and can sort of control the dream, or at least be aware you're dreaming.

It may or may not have worked for me a handful of times. It certainly felt so, but only briefly, and I can't confirm it was the desired effect. Would wake up shortly after each time.

Disclaimer: My message before ChatGPT correcteded because my English isn't good enough to me:

As a kid I was so happy to "discover" that I can be mildly awake and control my dreams. It happen by mistake, I fall at sleep while listening music loudly, I was in a middle state of being awake because the loud music, and being sleep dreaming, in the dream I was as a observer, knowing that that was a dream, and with the music on the backround annoying me, it was stresfull. Later I "improved" the technique and was able to control the dream, and discard the annoying music.

I was in a conversation recently with a christian convert who seemed to operate on the principle that the tenants of a religion are real if there are religious experiences which indicate it to be so -- and it became clear they meant in dreams, but not exactly dream-like states. At the same event there was a muslim who had family members with visions (and so on). I made the point that localised to each region of the world are its own cultural beliefs 'replayed back' in such states -- this is especially noticiable in schizophrenia where psychosis-based delusions are heavily mapped through a cultural lens (eg., some spy service is contacting them through 5G; and UFOs in a previous era; ghosts before then; and devils before then).

It does seem plausible that lucid dreaming offers a plausible explanation of religious 'visions' which occur in well-functioning people; and likewise a mechanism for why they are so encultured -- with gods of one locale appearing to adhearents there.

And if lucid dream were previously much more widespread, this offers an additional benefit of religious mythology, which is narrative material for the construction of these dreams.

> This research could lead to wearable devices programmed with algorithms that detect opportune moments to induce lucidity in people as they sleep

-we would’ve lost our minds. Above most other recent inventions, this really feels like the future

This felt odd to read.

The purpose of sleep isn't to dream, it's to garbage collect. Activating parts of the brain to control dreams means they aren't sleeping anymore, which surely is getting in the way of the primary function?

Looks like it's out there on streaming services still: https://www.tvguide.com/movies/dreamscape/2000115208/

>That was the conclusion of a recent study by Mallett, who surveyed 400 posts on Reddit to identify exactly when and how lucid dreams are helpful for improving mental health.

I woke up from the dream in a state of sleep paralysis, and predictably tried screaming but to no avail. Since then, I would lucid dream at least a few times a week for many years. I would also constantly get sleep paralysis and night terrors. The night terrors were nothing new, I'd had them for as long as I can remember. But they would consistently occur when I was in sleep paralysis.

During paralysis, before falling asleep or after waking up, I would hallucinate beings entering my room, shuffling things around, staring at me, touching me and speaking to me. I've been visited by ghosts, people, giant spiders, the grim reaper, succubi, elves, all sorts of things. Usually there is a great feeling of terror or impending doom. Sometimes I'm told specific things or asked to do favors for the beings.

It's easy to see how people would mistake these incidents for real encounters with otherworldly beings during a time when science was less advanced. In fact, my Catholic guardians were convinced, and still are, that I was possessed by Satan. I never received help for my night terrors, which largely exist because of childhood torture by my guardians in the first place. My grandfather would shake me violently and tell me that Satan was inside of me and that I would never have the capacity to love another person, and that my nightmares and "possession" were a result of letting Satan in my heart.

Eventually I realized that I was having lucid dreams and sleep paralysis far, far more often when I would sleep on my back. In my youth, sleeping on my side hurt and so I was stuck constantly having sleep paralysis. I developed a Pavlovian response to sleeping which fed into an already severe insomnia.

I'm now a 30-year-old adult who still suffers from insomnia and constantly has nightmares about missing the bus, experiencing childhood abuse, being persecuted by police, being at school, etc. My dreams have become a window into childhood trauma where I continually get retraumatized and trigger flashbacks. However, because I often lucid dream, these dreams also afford me a chance to explore these traumas and experience control and safety in situations when I felt like I had neither. Also, I now cannot sleep on my back almost ever due to degenerative spine disease, and other chronic pains keep me up all night, so the nightmares happen a little less frequently. Silver linings.

I think there is so much potential in the therapeutic application of lucid dreaming and I would love to figure out a way to use my knowledge and skill with lucid dreaming to help others.

Where are the editors? Scientific American has fallen a long way.