STUDY OBJECTIVES
The goal of the study was to seek physiological correlates of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a dissociated state with aspects of waking and dreaming combined in a way so as to suggest a specific alteration in brain physiology for which we now present preliminary but intriguing evidence. We show that the unusual combination of hallucinatory dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness and agentive control experienced in lucid dreams is paralleled by significant changes in electrophysiology.
DESIGN
19-channel EEG was recorded on up to 5 nights for each participant. Lucid episodes occurred as a result of pre-sleep autosuggestion.
SETTING
Sleep laboratory of the Neurological Clinic, Frankfurt University.
PARTICIPANTS
Six student volunteers who had been trained to become lucid and to signal lucidity through a pattern of horizontal eye movements…