The idea of ​​controlling what happens in dreams it is particularly attractive to us and for this reason has attracted interest several times over the years.

But what are the risks that “lucid dreaming” poses to the quality of our sleep?

Benefits

Many people pay a lot of attention to the potential benefits of lucid dreaming, and according to research, they are right.

In one study, researchers asked participants to do sit-ups while lucid dreaming and found that their heart rate and breathing increased, as if they were actually doing the exercise. Another study showed that practicing finger tapping in lucid dreams can significantly improve the same ability when subjects are awake.

Lucid dreaming has also been seen as a possible way to help people who often have nightmares or suffer from similar disorders.

Some researchers also report that lucid dreaming can be used to treat serious psychological disorders such as clinical depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

dangers

So, given the above, it is easy to see why lucid dreaming is of such great interest. However, there are cases that should be avoided.

In particular, people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, psychosis or bipolar disorder do not tolerate lucid dreams because they can make them worse, says Denholm Aspy, a researcher at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Karen Kolkoni of Northwestern University in Illinois agrees that lucid dreaming techniques can be dangerous for these people. “They kind of make you think about reality, question it. It can hurt a person who is already having difficulty defining reality.”

Lucid Nightmares

In addition, there are other negative aspects of lucid dreaming. Aspie notes that some of their induction techniques may increase the risk of sleep paralysis. “It can be very frustrating,” he says, noting, however, that there is a way to use sleep paralysis to have more lucid dreams.

Some research has linked other negative effects of lucid dreaming to their methods of induction. Specifically, a 2022 study examining whether Reddit posts about lucid dreaming were positive or negative concluded that “lucid dreaming can end nightmares and prevent them from recurring, but they can also cause frighteningly unpleasant dreams.”

The authors concluded that these negative effects “are the result of failed induction attempts or low-control lucid dreaming.” On the other hand, successful induction of lucid dreams with high control is associated with a low risk of negative consequences, they conclude.

Despite this complex picture of the pros and cons of lucid dreaming, in many cases the pursuit of lucid dreaming will be a matter of personal choice.

“Some of these techniques are actually meant to blur the lines between sleep and dream. They can make you feel more confused or desensitized and alienated if you do it on a regular basis. And this is a risk that people should be aware of,” says Nirit Sofer Dudek, a clinical psychology researcher at Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

^{Source: The Future of the BBC.}