Lucid dreams can end nightmares and prevent their recurrence, but they can also induce harrowing dysphoric dreams. The realization of dreaming (lucidity) and dreams with high control were both associated with positive experiences. Negative outcomes primarily result from failed induction attempts or lucid dreams with low dream control; successfully inducing high-control lucid dreams poses low risk for negative outcomes. A process model describes the progression from lucid dream induction to waking benefit, identifying potential areas of concern. The findings provide new insights into possible negative repercussions and how to avoid them in future applications.
People who have more dissociative experiences during the day also tend to have more nightmares, lucid dreams, and beliefs in paranormal phenomena, and they take longer to fall asleep. The coherence and perspective of dreams—specifically how stable and first-person the dreamed self feels—predicts about 26% of the variation in dissociative symptoms. These findings suggest that REM sleep intruding into waking consciousness may contribute to some dissociative experiences. The results come from 219 volunteers who completed surveys including the Dissociative Experiences Scale, plus dream reports and sleep measures from a subgroup. The authors propose that dream content stability could be a useful indicator of dissociative tendencies and that treating nightmare distress might help reduce dissociation.