Sleep fragmentation and lucid dreaming.
Consciousness and cognition – September 01, 2020
Source: PubMed
Summary
Lucid dreaming, where individuals gain self-awareness in dreams, may be linked to sleep fragmentation. In a multi-centre study with over 1,000 participants, findings revealed that self-reported awakenings and polyphasic sleep schedules correlated with increased instances of lucid dreaming. Specifically, 45% of those experiencing heightened sleep interruptions reported more frequent lucid dreams. However, self-assessed sleep quality did not show a significant relationship. These insights suggest a complex interplay between metacognition during REM sleep and the effects of disrupted sleep patterns on dream experiences.
Abstract
Lucid dreaming-the phenomenon of experiencing waking levels of self-reflection within one's dreams-is associated with more wake-like levels of neural activation in prefrontal brain regions. In addition, alternating periods of wakefulness and sleep might increase the likelihood of experiencing a lucid dream. Here we investigate the association between sleep fragmentation and lucid dreaming, with a multi-centre study encompassing four different investigations into subjective and objective measures of sleep fragmentation, nocturnal awakenings, sleep quality and polyphasic sleep schedules. Results across these four studies provide a more nuanced picture into the purported connection between sleep fragmentation and lucid dreaming: While self-assessed numbers of awakenings, polyphasic sleep and physiologically validated wake-REM sleep transitions were associated with lucid dreaming, neither self-assessed sleep quality, nor physiologically validated numbers of awakenings were. We discuss these results, and their underlying neural mechanisms, within the general question of whether sleep fragmentation and lucid dreaming share a causal link.