When thinking what dreams are and our experiences with them, there is a tendency for our imagination to light up. It could be a source for hope. Maybe it brings nostalgia when we experience a dream of a past event. Maybe we have a felt sense of mystery when we have a bizarre dream or an overwhelming sense of horror when we experience a nightmare. The vividness of dreams has created a blurred line between reality and imagination. It is thought that dreams can be used as a tool in developmental therapies to better understand our visceral self. Whenever the topic of consciousness is discussed, dreams play a role in how we describe consciousness, awareness, and experience. That is why when I heard Karen Konkoly’s talk on “Real-time dialogue between experiments and dreamers during REM sleep”, I had a lot of enthusiasm thinking about the possibilities that this research could lead to. Things like news ways of alleviating trauma and enhancing learning can make it sound like we could be entering into a new reality for self-creation. What I would like to do is to compliment Konkoly’s work and others that research lucid dreaming with potential ways that lucid dreaming can be deleterious to a person’s health.
In the study done by Konkoly et al., they showed it was
plausible to have a bidirectional communication with a lucid dreamer. When we say
someone is lucid in a dream, we mean that the person has become aware that they
are in a dream. For most people, this has happened to them at least once in
their life and usually spontaneously. What was intriguing in this study was the
way the researchers could induce lucid dreaming to novices with refined
training. There are now many apps for induced lucid dreaming to provide a tone
stimulus to indicate that you are sleeping. Not only were the participants able
to become lucid, but they were also trained to respond by ocular eye muscle
signals. Left and right eye movements could be detected and be used to signal
that they are in lucid dreaming as well as answering simple questions. All of
this was done while the participants were in REM sleep and verified my EEG
specialists. We can see that opening this two-way communication is analogous to
opening the door between reality and the imaginary but what could the negative
implications be? As lucid dreaming is being promoted for well-being, are the studies
being deemed too conclusive that support this?
What Soffer-Dudek wants to caution is that induced lucid
dreaming could possibly disrupt healthy sleeping and that this could also be deleterious
to mental health with people that have dispositions to psychosis. I will admit
my biased when it comes to sleep quality. Listening to sleep advocates like the
neuroscientist Matthew Walker who wrote the book “Why We Sleep”, has convinced
me of the benefits of sound sleep. It seems like sleep is fundamental to recovery,
the immune system, glymphatic system, emotional processing, neuroplasticity, memory,
learning, and so forth. Deficits in sleep quality have been linked to Alzheimer’s,
dementia, schizophrenia, and other related mental health disorders. The
question researchers should be considering is, are the benefits of induced
lucid dreaming outweigh the risks to disruption to quality sleep. If the
patient is undergoing chronic nightmares that are disrupting sleep anyways, therapies
that integrate lucid dreaming could help alleviate this. What is not being done
is once a person gains control of their nightmares, they have no procedure to
inhibit lucid dreaming to get an optimal night’s rest. Anecdotally, I dream a
lot and at times I feel like I didn’t get much rest even though I slept over
eight hours. I feel that if I became lucid in my dreams easily, I would not be
able to stop lucid dreaming. Being able to let go and just flow in a dream would
be a good ability if I want to get a good night’s rest.
Soffer-Dudek also addresses the plausible detriments to
mental health from lucid dreaming. He assigns two aspects to lucid dreaming. They are awareness of the lucid dream and the control of the lucid dream which can
vary in degree. Having more control in the dream can lead to more confidence
and having a sense of greater internal locus of control. There are studies that
lucid dream helps alleviate PTSD symptoms with increase lucid dreaming control.
Counter to these studies, it has been observed that people with higher lucid
dreaming control have higher psychopathological symptoms. Characteristics
include disassociation and schizotypy in individuals. We can see that much more
consideration is needed when dealing with disassociation disorders. Psychedelics
being integrated into therapy are also facing the same challenges. There are
various protocols that lucid dreamers follow such as reality checks but lucid
dreaming shouldn’t be the only tool that people use. Embodied movement practices,
relating group practices, and other therapies are potential ways to ground
patients in reality and to avoid alienation. Having complimentary therapies to
lucid dreaming is a plausible way of getting the full benefits.
References:
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., Oudiette, D., Dresler, M., & Paller, K. A. (2021). Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep. Current Biology, 31(7), 1417–1427.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026
Soffer-Dudek, N. (2019). Are Lucid Dreams Good for Us? Are We
Asking the Right Question? A Call for Caution in Lucid Dream Research. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13, 1423–1423. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01423
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