Dr Jen Walsh explains how lucid dreaming could help us to sleep productively and even do simple maths sums.
In the current world where time is becoming an increasing valuable commodity, wouldn’t it be great if we could use our sleeping time a little more productively?
A group of scientists believe that this might be possible if we can tap into our dream state. Specifically, lucid dreaming – when the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming and is perhaps even able to control the content or events – is thought to hold the key.
Dreaming typically occurs during the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage when the brain becomes relatively active compared to the non-REM sleep stages.
A crucial feature of normal REM is that, with the exception of the diaphragm and eye muscles, there is complete suppression of skeletal muscle activity throughout the body. This serves to keep us from ‘acting out our dreams’ – if we do act out our dreams this is a hallmark feature of the sleep disorder known as REM sleep behaviour disorder.
Despite reports of lucid dreaming by Aristotle as early as 350 BC, the first empirical evidence of lucid dreaming wasn’t published until 1978. Individuals equipped with brain, muscle and eye movement sensors to confirm that they were in REM sleep, signalled that they were aware that they were dreaming with a specific eye movement pattern (four times left to right in quick succession).
Prior to these recordings of volitional eye movements during sleep, evidence for lucid dreaming consisted of personal reports, which scientists largely considered sceptically. The ‘lucidity signal’ has since been utilised in all subsequent lucid dreaming studies.
Recent research done in the US, Germany, France and the Netherlands (see reference) has progressed our understanding of lucid dreaming further by demonstrating that it is possible to communicate with someone while they are dreaming.
Scientists recruited people with minimal prior experience who were trained to lucid dream as well those who were experienced lucid dreamers. The participants were prepared with equipment for monitoring their brain, muscle and eye movements and instructed to ‘signal’ (left to right eye movements) when they were aware that they were dreaming.
They were then asked a series of maths questions, either verbally spoken or signalled with auditory tones or flashing light in Morse code, to which they were instructed to respond with rapid left to right eye movements corresponding to the answer (ie 8 minus 6 resulted in 2 left to right maximal eye movements).
The lucid dream signal was not observed in all sessions and not all attempts at communication with the participant resulted in responses, or correct responses. However, the study convincingly demonstrated that individuals can be aware of their external environment, whether it is light, sound or someone speaking, and that they can communicate while in the dream state.
It has previously been demonstrated that the dream time can be utilised, through lucid dreaming, for activities such as rehearsing skills, solving problems or reducing impact of emotional trauma. These new findings open up even further opportunities such as using light or sound cues to modify dream/nightmare content in people with PTSD or using verbal communication to focus the practice of musical or athletic skills.
Perhaps in the coming years we might all be able to better use our 1-2 hours per night spent dreaming.
Reference
Konkoly et al., Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology (2021)
+ Dr Jen Walsh is director of the University of WA’s Centre for Sleep Sciences.