Lucid dreaming frequency and personality
Personality and Individual Differences March 20, 2004 Michael Schredl, Daniel Erlacher 141 citations
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Daniel Erlacher
13 papers in the library · 699 citations · publishing 2004-2025
Papers
The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey
The American Journal of Psychology April 21, 2014 Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Miriam Johnson et al. 104 citations
Lucid dreamers are aware they are dreaming. An online survey of 684 respondents, 571 of whom were lucid dreamers (83.5%), found that lucid dreams most often begin spontaneously in adolescence and last about 14 minutes on average. Dreamers are typically active, planning actions like flying, talking with dream characters, or having sex, but often fail to remember or execute these intentions due to awakening or obstacles in the dream. The frequency of lucid dreaming was the strongest predictor of dream phenomenology, with some differences linked to age, gender, and whether the dreamer was natural or self-trained.
Testing the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in lucid dreaming: A tDCS study
Consciousness and Cognition September 8, 2013 Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl 88 citations
Applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during REM sleep increased dream lucidity in frequent lucid dreamers, though the effects were not strong. Nineteen participants spent three nights in a sleep laboratory; on the second and third nights they randomly received either 1 mA tDCS for 10 minutes or sham stimulation during each REM period starting with the second one. Self-ratings showed increased lucidity only in frequent lucid dreamers. The results provide preliminary support for the involvement of the DLPFC in lucid dreaming, but further research controlling for indirect effects and including other brain regions is needed.
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.
Practicing a Motor Task in a Lucid Dream Enhances Subsequent Performance: A Pilot Study
The Sport Psychologist June 1, 2010 Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl 76 citations
Practicing a motor task during a lucid dream can improve subsequent waking performance. In a pilot study, 40 participants were assigned to a lucid dream practice group, a physical practice group, or a control group. The task was tossing coins into a cup. Seven of the 20 volunteers in the lucid dream group successfully practiced the task in a lucid dream and showed a performance improvement from 3.7 to 5.3 successful tosses out of 20, while the other 13 in that group showed no improvement (from 3.4 to 2.9). The physical practice group improved the most, followed by the successful lucid dream group; both improved significantly more than the nondreaming and control groups. The design cannot distinguish whether specific motor learning or unspecific motivation caused the improvement.
Effectiveness of motor practice in lucid dreams: a comparison with physical and mental practice
Journal of Sports Sciences April 7, 2015 Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl 60 citations
Rehearsing a finger-tapping sequence during a lucid dream improves next-morning performance as much as physical or mental practice while awake. In an online experiment with 68 participants split into four groups, those who practiced in a lucid dream, physically, or mentally all significantly improved from evening pre-test to morning post-test, while the no-practice control group did not. Subjective sleep quality was unaffected by nighttime practice. The results confirm earlier work showing that motor practice in lucid dreams can enhance subsequent performance, with effects comparable to waking practice.
Time for actions in lucid dreams: effects of task modality, length, and complexity
Frontiers in Psychology January 1, 2014 Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich, Tadas Stumbrys et al. 48 citations
Actions in lucid dreams take longer than the same actions in wakefulness, but only for motor tasks. Counting, a non-motor task, showed no time difference. In a sleep-laboratory experiment, lucid dreamers performed counting, walking, and a gymnastics routine while marking time intervals with eye movements. Walking and gymnastics required significantly more time in dreams than in waking, but the relative duration of each task remained proportional—no task was disproportionately longer. A more complex motor task did not increase the time delay. The findings suggest prolonged dream durations may stem from absent muscular feedback or slower neural processing during REM sleep.
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.
Mindfulness and Lucid Dream Frequency Predicts the Ability to Control Lucid Dreams
Imagination Cognition and Personality December 20, 2016 Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher 28 citations
In lucid dreams, where the dreamer knows they are dreaming, full control over the dream body is possible in about two thirds of cases, while control of the dream environment and maintaining dream awareness are possible in less than half of cases. An online survey of 528 respondents, 386 of whom had lucid dream experience, found that higher lucid dream frequency, dispositional mindfulness while awake, and younger age predict greater dream control. Cultivating mindfulness may help lucid dreamers develop more control, but further longitudinal research is needed.
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.