Portable Devices to Induce Lucid Dreams—Are They Reliable?
Sérgio Mota‐rolim, Achilleas Pavlou, George Nascimento, John Fontenele Araújo, Sidarta Ribeiro
Frontiers in Neuroscience May 8, 2019 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2019.00428 via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractLucid dreaming is rare but pleasurable and has potential clinical uses, such as treating nightmares in PTSD. Researchers have been developing portable devices to induce lucid dreams. These devices detect REM sleep via EEG and then deliver visual, auditory, or tactile cues to alert the dreamer without waking them, or use transcranial alternating current stimulation of the frontal cortex. This review covers 10 such devices: DreamLight, NovaDreamer, Aurora, Remee, REM-Dreamer, ZMax, Neuroon, iBand, LucidCatcher, and Aladdin.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Sleep system call Circadian rhythm Neuroscience Cognitive psychology |
| Citations | 25 |
| Key finding | Ten portable devices for inducing lucid dreams are reviewed, which use EEG detection of REM sleep and sensory cues or tACS to induce lucidity. |
Abstract
One of the main current challenges in lucid dreaming (LD) research is to develop a simple and reliable way to induce it (Stumbrys et al., 2012). This is because, for most people, LD is very pleasurable but also very rare (LaBerge and Rheingold, 1990; Mota-Rolim et al., 2013). Along with its recreational nature, LD also has potential clinical applications, such as the treatment of recurrent nightmares in post-traumatic stress disorder (Aurora et al., 2010; Mota-Rolim and Araujo, 2013; Morgenthaler et al., 2018). This has attracted the attention of high-tech companies, which have been launching portable LD induction devices commercially available to the general public. This equipment captures electroencephalographic (EEG) activity for the online detection of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the sleep stage associated with typical dreaming (Aserinsky and Kleitman, 1953; Dement and Kleitman, 1957; for review, see Hobson et al., 2000). To induce lucidity, most devices provide visual, auditory, and/or tactile stimuli as sensory cues, which can become incubated into the dream content to alert dreamers that they are dreaming but without waking them up (LaBerge et al., 1981a; LaBerge and Levitan, 1995). Other devices provide transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) of the frontal cortex (Voss et al., 2014). Here we review 10 such devices: DreamLight, NovaDreamer, Aurora, Remee, REM-Dreamer, ZMax, Neuroon, iBand, LucidCatcher, and Aladdin.