Lucid Dreams: A Beginner’s Guide to Dream Control

Lucid dreaming, also referred to as ‘conscious dreaming’, is the experience of becoming conscious within your dreams whilst still sleeping. Essentially, this means that you realise you’re dreaming but remain asleep. It’s the ultimate expression of metacognition, thinking about your own state of mind, but happening in a world entirely constructed by your brain.

Once you become conscious within a dream, you can often interact with it and direct it at will, communicating directly with your unconscious. These are usually particularly vivid dreams that you can remember clearly the next day.

Lucid dreamers often report possessing many of their waking cognitive functions despite being asleep. This includes being able to reason, remember details from waking life, and act voluntarily. The range of possible experiences can extend from simple feelings to fantastical adventures. In contrast to other daydream techniques, such as hypnosis, lucid dreamers are asleep rather than awake.

A major review of studies found that 55% of the population has had at least one lucid dream in their lifetime, and 23% experience them regularly (once a month or more). So, if you’ve had one, you’re in good company. If you haven’t, you’re certainly not alone either.

The term “lucid dream” as nomenclature was not introduced until 1913 by Dutch psychiatrist Frederik Van Eeden. However, the phenomenon of lucid dreaming has been discussed for centuries. Aristotle referred to lucid dreams as part of his Parva Naturalia – seven works that investigated the body and soul, dating back to 400BC. In eastern cultures, practices to cultivate awareness of dreams and “apprehend the dream state” have also occurred for thousands of years, often intertwined with meditation.

For a long time, lucid dreaming was dismissed by most researchers due to the lack of objective proof. This changed with pioneering work in the 1970s that proved lucid dreams were a real, verifiable phenomenon that occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

Psychophysiologist Stephen LaBerge developed a clever method in his sleep laboratory. He asked lucid dreamers to move their eyes in a pre-agreed pattern (e.g., left-right-left-right) as soon as they realised they were dreaming. These eye movements were captured by machines, providing the first objective proof that a person could be both asleep and consciously aware.

A lucid dream is essentially a hybrid state of consciousness. It happens when your brain does something unusual during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep.

Normally, the parts of your brain responsible for self-awareness and critical thinking (like the prefrontal cortex) are quiet during REM sleep. This is why dreams often feel random, and we don’t question their bizarre logic. In a lucid dream, however, these areas of the brain “reactivate.” This reactivation allows you to have self-reflective awareness while the rest of your brain continues to create the dream world. So, you’re not half-awake. You are fully asleep, but with an added layer of conscious insight that isn’t usually there.

Lucid dreams happen almost exclusively during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep. This is the stage where most of our vivid and story-like dreaming occurs. We cycle through different sleep stages all night, but the REM periods get longer as the night goes on. For this reason, lucid dreams are most common in the early morning hours, during the final one or two sleep cycles before you wake up.

While anyone can have a lucid dream, some people seem to be more prone to them. You might be more likely to have lucid dreams if you:

• Pay close attention to your dreams and regularly try to remember them.
• Practice mindfulness or meditation, as this trains your awareness.
• Are a creative person or a frequent daydreamer.
• Play a lot of video games, which may train the brain to operate with awareness in a simulated environment.
• Have certain sleep patterns, like those with narcolepsy, who often enter REM sleep more quickly and frequently.

Why would we want to dream lucidly? The reasons are as varied as the dreams themselves:

• Wish fulfilment and fun: This is the most popular reason. In a lucid dream, you can fly, travel to other planets, or meet your heroes. It’s a safe and natural way to experience the impossible.
• Overcoming nightmares: If you suffer from recurring nightmares, becoming lucid could allow you to face the scary situation, change the outcome, or simply realise it’s not real, which can reduce its emotional impact.
• Problem-solving and creativity: Some people use the unique state of lucid dreams to work through real-life problems or find creative inspiration, accessing parts of their mind that are less inhibited.
• Healing and overcoming fears: You can use the dream world as a simulator to safely confront phobias or work through past trauma with a sense of control.

Scientific research shows that lucid dreams occur in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep, which is one of the deepest stages of sleep. The Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry discovered that during lucid dreaming, part of the brain reactivates allowing you to experience the dream state consciously with self-reflective awareness. Therefore, despite common belief, you’re not half awake while lucid dreaming. You’re completely out for the count, except for the part of your brain that has become reactivated. This is evidenced by several studies into the physiology of lucid dreaming.

LaBerge further observed that lucid dreams are associated with heightened physiological activation. Moreover, our heart rates and perspiration are increased compared to non-lucid sleep following research in 1986.

Frequent lucid dreaming has also been associated with increased cortical activation, such as the frontopolar cortex of the brain responsible for higher-order behaviour, which is usually suppressed during sleep. This may explain the increased cognition, insight and vigilance compared to normal sleeping.

Lucid dreams are completely safe. However, there are a few potential negative side effects to be aware of:

• Blurring reality: For beginners, the vividness can be disorienting. It might be initially scary if you’re unsure what is or isn’t real, but after a reality check and the realisation that you are dreaming, you can relax and have fun with it.
• Poor sleep quality: Because lucid dreaming involves a more active brain state, some studies suggest it could be associated with poorer sleep quality. However, since lucid dreams are usually brief, it’s unlikely to cause major sleep disruption for most people.
• Lucid nightmares: While you can control a lucid dream, you can also be consciously aware during a nightmare. This can make the experience feel particularly real and frightening. The upside is that because you are aware, you have the power to change the dream or wake yourself up.
• Sleep paralysis: A common side effect of trying to lucid dream is sleep paralysis. This is when your mind wakes up but your body remains temporarily paralysed, which is a natural part of REM sleep. Although sleep paralysis can be scary, it is harmless and passes quickly. Some people even learn to turn an episode of sleep paralysis directly into a lucid dream.

It can be tricky to train yourself to have a lucid dream, as they often happen by chance. If you want to give it a try, there are a few popular techniques you can use. There’s no single guaranteed method, so it’s about finding what works for you.

Lucid dreaming invites us to step behind the curtain of our subconscious and take a more active role in one of the most mysterious aspects of human experience. It doesn’t just offer surreal adventures, though those are part of the appeal. It also gives us a unique window into the mind’s capacity for awareness, creativity, and even healing while we sleep.

Whether you’re curious about mastering dream control or simply want to better understand the science and psychology behind it, lucid dreaming offers a rare kind of insight: one that blurs the boundary between the known and the unknown. Like all forms of exploration, it begins with awareness and the willingness to look closely at what we usually overlook.

So, if you find yourself awake in the middle of a dream, take a moment. You might just discover more than you expected.