Lucid dreaming frequency and personality
Personality and Individual Differences March 20, 2004 Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher 141 citations
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Daniel Erlacher
Institute of Sport Science, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland.
7 papers in the library · 295 citations · publishing 2004-2025
Papers
Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample
Perceptual and Motor Skills February 1, 2011 Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher 81 citations
About half (51%) of a representative sample of 919 German adults reported having had at least one lucid dream—a dream in which the person knows they are dreaming. Women recalled lucid dreams significantly more often than men, and lucid dream recall decreased with age. These differences may be explained by overall dream recall frequency, which correlated moderately (r = .57) with lucid dream frequency. Education, marital status, and income showed no relationship with how often people had lucid dreams. The high prevalence suggests that laboratory research on lucid dreams could further understanding of sleep, dreaming, and consciousness.
Frequency of Lucid Dreams and Lucid Dream Practice in German Athletes
Imagination Cognition and Personality February 21, 2012 Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys, Michael Schredl 36 citations
About 57% of German athletes have experienced a lucid dream at least once, 24% have one or more per month, and 9% of lucid dreamers have used the dream state to practice sport skills. Most of those athletes felt that such practice improved their waking performance. The prevalence of lucid dreaming among professional athletes is similar to the general population, but the proportion of lucid dreams relative to all dreams is nearly twice as high (14.5% vs. 7.5%). The findings suggest lucid dreaming offers a unique form of mental rehearsal for sports.
Wake Up, Work on Dreams, Back to Bed and Lucid Dream: A Sleep Laboratory Study.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2020 Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys 24 citations
A combination of the wake-up-back-to-bed (WBTB) sleep protocol and the mnemonic technique MILD can effectively induce lucid dreams in people who are not selected for lucid dreaming ability. In a sleep laboratory experiment, participants were awakened after 6 hours, kept awake for 30 or 60 minutes to practice MILD or a control task, then returned to bed. Across three MILD conditions, 36% to 54% reported lucid dreams, and 14% to 27% produced PSG-verified eye signals. In contrast, only 9% reported lucid dreams after reading, and none occurred after playing a video game. The findings suggest that WBTB plus MILD is an effective induction method for laboratory research.
Electrophysiological Correlates of Lucid Dreaming: Sensor and Source Level Signatures.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience May 14, 2025 Çağatay Demirel, Jarrod Gott, Kristoffer Appel et al. 8 citations
Lucid dreaming, where a person becomes aware they are dreaming, is linked to REM sleep. To overcome previous research limitations, a new preprocessing pipeline was applied to pooled EEG data from multiple labs. Sensor-level differences between lucid and nonlucid REM sleep were minimal, but source-level analysis revealed reduced beta power (12-30 Hz) in right central and parietal areas, including the temporoparietal junction, during lucid dreaming. Alpha-band (8-12 Hz) connectivity increased compared to nonlucid REM sleep. During eye signaling of lucidity, gamma1 power (30-36 Hz) increased in right temporo-occipital regions, including the precuneus, and interhemispheric gamma1 connectivity rose. These patterns suggest shifts in network communication underlying changes in perception, self-awareness, and cognitive control.
Combining Wake-Up-Back-to-Bed with Cognitive Induction Techniques: Does Earlier Sleep Interruption Reduce Lucid Dream Induction Rate?
Clocks & sleep April 20, 2022 Daniel Erlacher, Vitus Furrer, Matthias Ineichen et al. 3 citations
Lucid dreaming, where dreamers are aware they are dreaming and can communicate with researchers in real time, offers a new way to study dreams. However, such research is limited because lucid dreamers are rare. In three experiments replicating an earlier method that successfully induced lucid dreams in 50% of participants, the researchers shortened the first sleep period to 4.5 hours (instead of 6), simplified morning awakenings, and tested a different induction technique. Only 26%, 0%, and 20% of participants reported lucid dreams, suggesting that earlier sleep interruption reduces success, that REM awakenings are necessary for induction, and that reality testing is less effective than the mnemonic technique.
Electrophysiological correlates of lucid dreaming: sensor and source level signatures
bioRxiv Preprint Server April 9, 2024 Çağatay Demirel, Jarrod Gott, Kristoffer Appel et al. 2 citations preprint
Lucid dreaming, a state of conscious awareness during REM sleep, is associated with specific brain activity patterns. Compared to non-lucid REM sleep, EEG sensor-level differences were few. However, source-level analysis revealed increased gamma1 power (30-36 Hz) in left-hemispheric temporal areas during lucid dreaming, potentially reflecting verbal insight processes, and in right temporo-occipital regions including the precuneus around the onset of lucid eye signaling, linked to self-referential thinking. Beta power (12-30 Hz) decreased in right central and parietal areas including the temporo-parietal junction, possibly related to conscious reality assessment. Alpha-band (8-12 Hz) functional connectivity increased, contrasting with psychedelic states and highlighting enhanced self-awareness.