SLEEP
September 1, 2009
Ursula Voss, R. Holzmann, Inka Tuin et al.
443 citations
Lucid dreaming combines hallucinatory dream activity with wake-like reflective awareness and control. Electrophysiological recordings from six trained student volunteers show that lucid dreaming shares REM-like power in delta and theta frequency bands but exhibits higher-than-REM activity in the gamma band, peaking around 40 Hz, especially in frontal and frontolateral regions. Overall brain coherence during lucid dreaming resembles waking levels and is significantly higher than in REM sleep across the analyzed spectrum; waking shows high alpha coherence, while lucid dreaming shows increased delta and theta coherence, largest in frontolateral and frontal areas. These findings suggest lucid dreaming is a hybrid state of consciousness with measurable physiological differences from both waking and REM sleep.
January 1, 2015
Ursula Voss, Allan Hobson
27 citations
Lucid dreaming is the conscious awareness of dreaming while still in a dream state. This review examines evidence that lucid dreaming is a real phenomenon, including its occurrence, underlying mechanisms, and scientific value. Four hypotheses are presented: the Brain Maturation Hypothesis links brain development to lucid dream frequency in children and adults, suggesting spontaneous lucid dreams result from accidental frontal cortex activation during REM sleep. The Hybrid State Hypothesis and Space of Consciousness Model describe a wake-like EEG pattern in frontal brain areas alongside REM sleep-like EEG in posterior regions. The Gamma Band Hypothesis proposes that gamma oscillatory activity, which accompanies conscious awareness while awake, also promotes awareness in dreams. Experimental evidence suggests lower gamma band activity is necessary for conscious awareness in dreams.
International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP
January 1, 2023
Judith Koppehele-Gossel, Lena-Marie Weinmann, Ansgar Klimke et al.
5 citations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, pandemic-related themes were incorporated into dreams, but such incorporation was rare. Psychiatric outpatients and healthy controls did not differ in how often their dreams included pandemic content, and incorporation was unrelated to psychiatric symptoms or loneliness. Loneliness was, however, linked to threat-related dream content, suggesting it is a risk factor for bad dreams but not for crisis-specific incorporation. Lucid dreaming core dimensions—insight, control, and dissociation—were similar between outpatients and controls during lockdowns. Compared to a pre-pandemic sample, scores for control and dissociation were lower, while insight was not. The authors propose that REM sleep intensified during lockdowns for emotional consolidation, making the mental state less hybrid and thus less lucid.