The phenomenon of dreaming for many years has captivated us because of its illusiveness. From movies to novels, dreaming has been pervasive within our culture and gained popularity through its key feature of being fundamental to all humans with very little actually understood about it. For as much as dreaming is discussed in popular discourse, science has struggled to unravel the mystery of dreams. That is until recently, in an article published by Konkoly et al. (2021), where experimenters discuss how they successfully were able to communicate with participants lucid dreaming. This breakthrough opens the door for endless possibilities in dream research, but scientists should not start celebrating just yet. In order for Konkoly et al.’s method to work, the participants must lucid dream and that may pose an issue for continuing with this method as inducing lucid dreaming may not be as neutral to participants as experimenters thought.
Nirit Soffer-Dudek in her article “Are Lucid Dreams Good for Us? Are We Asking the Right Question? A Call for Caution in Lucid Dream Research” discusses an overlooked part of research involving lucid dreaming, the potential negative side-effects that can occur from inducing lucid dreaming. Dream research has looked over the potential downsides of lucid dreaming because, as mentioned earlier, neuroscientists have struggled to get valid data from dream experiments leading to a hole in scientific literature. Since scientists naturally want to get as much research as possible to help people, it is understandable that negative effects would be overlooked. However, science cannot propose solutions until problems are addressed, and Soffer-Dudek lists out the potential drawbacks to inducing lucid dreaming in individuals and proposes directions for future research to ensure methods such as Konkoly et al. are safe.
The most obvious drawback that comes with inducing lucid dreaming in a participant is the disrupted sleep quality that the participant may experience. Good quality sleep is vital for one’s mental and physical health. In certain cases, lucid dreaming is considered a hindrance to quality sleep and by extension to one’s overall health. There are reported instances where individuals have lucid dreams every time they sleep, disrupting normal sleep patterns that are conducive for a healthy lifestyle. For these individuals lucid dreaming impairs their lives and would be an example of the extreme drawback that lucid dreaming can have on sleep quality. Fear for studies, such as Konkoly et al.’s study where participants learn to induce lucid dreams, are that the participants too will be unable to stop the occurrence of lucid dreams. Thus, quality sleep would be disrupted, leading to a decline in the mental and physical health of the participants. Currently though lucid dreaming research has no consensus as to whether or not lucid dreaming does or does not hinder quality sleep, so research must be dedicated to solving this question to allow for safe experiments.
The other important drawback to inducing lucid dreams that Soffer-Dudek points to is that individuals who lucid dream are more susceptible to losing a sense of reality. Lucid dreaming allows an individual to be aware of the fact they are sleeping, which for Konkoly et al. this is an advantage they are able to exploit to then get participants to answer questions via movements in a lucid state. For research this is astonishing, but some fear that this will cause individuals to lose their sense of reality. Having a grip on reality is important to mental health. Without knowing what is real, people tend to behave in strange ways that are harmful for themselves and others. Lucid dreaming, despite its potential benefits for mental health that researchers have found, other researchers point to evidence that inducing lucid dreams can be deleterious for mental health as it increases psychosis-proneness and dissociative symptoms. In experiments utilizing lucid dreaming participants could develop these mental health problems as an unforeseen side effect, so researchers should aim at diminishing these issues should they arise in their own experiments. Additional research in the area of lucid dreaming and mental health is crucial for labeling Konkoly et al.’s method of dream research as safe as well as effective.
Konkoly et al. and studies utilizing similar methodology with lucid dreaming ought to pause and consider the effects of inducing lucid dreams in participants. While some research points to lucid dreaming as safe and even a method for treating mental health, other research points to negative side-effects lucid dreaming invokes. Soffer-Dudek wrote her review to remind researchers of that fact; lucid dreaming is complex and displays variant effects on individuals. For the future, research must be devoted to finding all the range of effects lucid dreaming can cause an individual. All this is to not say that lucid dreaming research such as Konkoly et al. should be stopped, it is to say it is imperative that researchers work not just in their own best interests, but also the best interest of their participants.
References
Konkoly KR, Appel
K, Chabani E, Mangiaruga A, Gott J, Mallett R, Caughran B, Witkowski S,
Whitmore NW, Mazurek CY, Berent JB, Weber FD, Türker B, Leu-Semenescu S, Maranci
JB, Pipa G, Arnulf I, Oudiette D, Dresler M, Paller KA. Real-time dialogue
between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Curr Biol. 2021 Apr
12;31(7):1417-1427.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026.
Soffer-Dudek N
(2020) Are Lucid Dreams Good for Us? Are We Asking the Right Question? A Call
for Caution in Lucid Dream Research. Front. Neurosci. 13:1423.
doi: 10.3389/fnins.2019.01423
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