How to Trigger a Lucid Dream and Communicating With Those in REM Sleep

 

Have you ever had a dream in which you were aware that you were dreaming? If so, you have experienced a lucid dream. If you have not experienced this interesting phenomenon, there are a couple ways that you can trigger it. Sounds cool, right? In 2018, researchers Stephen LaBerge and Kristen LaMarca from the Lucidity Institute in Pahoa, Hawaii, along with Benjamin Baird from the Wisconsin Institute for Sleep and Consciousness, studied the effect of a “pre-sleep treatment” (LaBerge et al.) on lucid dreaming. In their research article, “Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study, (LaBerge et al.)” they found that taking a capsule dosage of galantamine, an acetylcholinesterase inhibition drug that is commonly used to treat Alzheimer’s, around four and a half hours after initially going to sleep and waiting 30 minutes before sleeping again, increased the odds of having a lucid dream.

While galantamine is not readily available to the general public without prescription, Stephen LaBerge created a way to induce lucid dreaming for his dissertation at Stanford University. His technique is known as the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams or MILD and the participants of his 2018 study practiced this technique after taking their capsule. To trigger lucid dreaming via MILD, you must be able to recall dreams after you wake up. If you have good dream recall, you are already halfway to having a lucid dream. When you wake up after dreaming, remember something unusual from that dream. Then, think about that dream sign and tell yourself, “The next time I’m dreaming I want to remember to recognize that I’m dreaming” (LaBerge et al.). Doing this will help your dream become lucid. In the study, 14% of those who practiced MILD with the placebo experienced a lucid dream. While that number increased following the ingestion of galantamine, you do not need galantamine in order to trigger a lucid dream. Try the MILD technique tonight and see if you can trigger a lucid dream.

Being able to lucid dream is fun and exciting but it can actually help researchers better understand the structure behind dreams. In “Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep,” (Konkoly et al.) researchers discovered that they could communicate with people experiencing lucid dreams. By observing subjects’ “distinctive eye movements and selective facial muscle contractions,” researchers were able to obtain answers to questions about the dreams that the individuals were experiencing (Konkoly et al.). The conclusions made by Konkoly et al. open the door to dream analysis. Lucid dreaming is significant to understanding the unconscious mind and using the MILD technique, you can learn more about this amazing phenomenon and experience lucid dreaming for yourself.

 

References

LaBerge, S., LaMarca, K., & Baird, B. (2018). Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study. PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0201246

Konkoly, K.R., Appel, K., Chabani, E., Mangiaruga, A., Gott, J., Mallett, R., Caughran, B., Witkowski, S., Whitmore, N.W., Mazurek, C.Y., Berent, J.B., Weber, F.D., Türker, B., Leu-Semenescu, S., Maranci, J.B., Pipa, G., Arnulf, I., Ouidette, D., Dresler, M., & Paller, K.A., Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology 31, 1417-1427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026