Frontiers in Sleep
June 24, 2026
Adam Haar Horowitz, Karen R Konkoly, Michelle Carr et al.
Targeted dream incubation (TDI) is a highly effective method for eliciting hypnagogic dreams related to specific topics through the presentation of verbal prompts and serial awakenings at sleep onset. In this pilot study, we tested whether TDI at sleep onset can effectively direct dream content in subsequent rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. We allowed participants a daytime nap opportunity...
Sleep
May 1, 2026
Westley Youngren, Victoria West Staples, Emma Angle et al.
Abstract Introduction Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI) is the process of giving an individual auditory cues (i.e., “think of a tree”) while they are falling asleep, with the goal of shaping dream content (into something such as a tree). Recent research has demonstrated TDI may be able to increase dream self-efficacy (DSE) and influence other mental health outcomes. Thus, our study explored how...
SLEEPJ
May 1, 2026
Victoria West Staples, Westley Youngren, Emma Angle et al.
Both heightened nightmare (NM) distress, intense negative emotional reactions to nightmares, and low dream self-efficacy (DSE; the perceived ability to manage or influence dream experiences), are understudied contributors to posttraumatic functioning. Individuals with lower DSE shows increased suicide risk in trauma survivors and may increase emotional disturbances during sleep, while NM...
Brain Sciences
March 16, 2026
Daniel J Morris, Susana Gabriela Torres-Platas, Karen R Konkoly et al.
1 citation
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Lucid dreaming-dreaming with the awareness that one is dreaming-has been explored from many perspectives, including those of cognitive neuroscience and various ancient cultural traditions. Lucid dreaming appears within the Tibetan-Buddhist literature together with dream yoga, a set of contemplative practices aimed at cultivating lucidity during dreams along with other...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2026
Karen R Konkoly, Daniel J Morris, Kaitlyn Hurka et al.
Dreams have arguably been a source of creative insight for millennia. The specific assertion that dreams during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep promote creative problem-solving, however, has only anecdotal support, lacking strong empirical support from rigorous studies. Experimental manipulations of dream content have been confounded by waking components, such that any boost in creative...
Neuropsychologia
October 10, 2025
Karen R Konkoly, Daniel J Morris, Matthew Cho et al.
Dreams may partially reflect the memory reorganizing that occurs nightly, improving the usefulness of what we learn each day. However, solid evidence has yet to link dreaming with adaptive overnight memory reorganization. Establishing this link faces several challenges, including the difficulty of experimentally controlling dream content and the susceptibility of dream reports to distortion and...
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
September 30, 2025
Karen R Konkoly, Saba Al-Youssef, Christopher Y Mazurek et al.
3 citations
Neuroscientific investigations of human dreaming have been hampered by reliance on dream recall after awakening. For example, a challenge of associating EEG features with post-waking dream reports is that they are subject to distortion, forgetting, and poor temporal precision. In this study, we used real-time reporting to investigate whether one of the most robust features of the waking visual...
Nature Communications
August 13, 2025
William Wong, Rubén Herzog, Kátia Cristine Andrade et al.
10 citations
Magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) studies of dreaming are an essential paradigm in the investigation of neurocognitive processes of human consciousness during sleep, but they are limited by the number of observations that can be collected per study. Dream research also involves substantial methodological and conceptual variability, which poses problems for the integration of results. To...
Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
July 4, 2025
P. Wang, X. Fang, Gabriel Ducos et al.
Lucid dreaming, a state in which people become aware that they are dreaming, is known for its many mental and physical health benefits. However, most lucid dream induction techniques, such as reality testing, require significant time and effort to master, creating a barrier for people seeking these experiences. We designed LuciEntry, a portable interactive prototype aimed at helping people...
Journal of Sleep Research
June 1, 2025
Jennifer M Mundt, Kristi E. Pruiksma, Karen R Konkoly et al.
7 citations
Nightmares are a common symptom in narcolepsy that has not been targeted in prior clinical trials. This study investigated the efficacy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Nightmares (CBT-N), adapted for narcolepsy, in a small group of adults. Given the high prevalence of lucid dreaming in narcolepsy, we added a promising adjuvant component, targeted lucidity reactivation (TLR), a procedure...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2025
Daniel J Morris, D Blaise Elliott, Susana Gabriela Torres-Platas et al.
3 citations
The immersive environments of virtual reality (VR) have potential to engender a vast range of experiences. Although participants recognize these experiences as artificial, the consequences can still be profound. Compared to VR, lucid dreams-characterized by awareness that one is dreaming-potentially allow for even more expansive explorations of immersive multisensory experience. Furthermore,...
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
December 1, 2024
Remington Mallett, Karen R Konkoly, Tore Nielsen et al.
Dreams have long captivated human curiosity, but empirical research in this area has faced significant methodological challenges. Recent interdisciplinary advances have now opened up new opportunities for studying dreams. This review synthesizes these advances into three methodological frameworks and describes how they overcome historical barriers in dream research. First, with observable...
Consciousness and Cognition
October 1, 2024
Karen R Konkoly, Nathan W Whitmore, Remington Mallett et al.
4 citations
The ability to realize that you're dreaming - lucid dreaming - has value for personal goals and for consciousness research. One route to lucid dreaming is to first undergo pre-sleep training with sensory cues and then receive those cues during REM sleep. This method, Targeted Lucidity Reactivation (TLR), does not demand extensive personal effort but generally requires concurrent polysomnography...
May 16, 2023
William Wong, Kátia C. Andrade, Thomas Andrillon et al.
21 citations
preprint
Magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) studies of dreaming are an essential paradigm in the investigation of neurocognitive processes of human consciousness during sleep, but they are limited by the number of observations that can be collected per study. Dream research also involves substantial methodological and conceptual variability, which poses problems for the integration of results. To...
Sleep
April 12, 2023
Claudia Picard-Deland, Karen R Konkoly, Rachel Raider et al.
Memories of waking-life events are incorporated into dreams, but their incorporation is not uniform across a night of sleep. This study aimed to elucidate ways in which such memory sources vary by sleep stage and time of night. Twenty healthy participants (11 F; 24.1 ± 5.7 years) spent a night in the laboratory and were awakened for dream collection approximately 12 times spread across early,...
Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society
2022
Remington Mallett, Laura Sowin, Rachel Raider et al.
22 citations
Therapies focused on lucid dreaming could be useful for treating various sleep disorders and other conditions. Still, one major roadblock is the paucity of systematic information on the consequences of attempting these sorts of dreams. The current study sought to quantify positive and negative aspects of seeking lucid dreams, describe their phenomenology in detail, and identify features...
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
April 15, 2021
Remington Mallett, Michelle Carr, Martin Freegard et al.
7 citations
Dream lucidity, or being aware that one is dreaming while dreaming, is not an all-or-none phenomenon. Often, subjects report being some variant of “a little lucid” as opposed to completely or not at all. As recent neuroimaging work begins to elucidate the neural underpinnings of lucid experience, understanding subtle phenomenological variation within lucid dreams is essential. Here, we focus on...
Current biology : CB
April 12, 2021
Karen R Konkoly, Kristoffer Appel, Emma Chabani et al.
126 citations
Dreams take us to a different reality, a hallucinatory world that feels as real as any waking experience. These often-bizarre episodes are emblematic of human sleep but have yet to be adequately explained. Retrospective dream reports are subject to distortion and forgetting, presenting a fundamental challenge for neuroscientific studies of dreaming. Here we show that individuals who are asleep...
Consciousness and Cognition
August 1, 2020
Abigail Stocks, Michelle Carr, Remington Mallett et al.
33 citations
Lucid dreaming is a unique phenomenon with potential applications for therapeutic interventions. Few studies have investigated the effects of lucidity on an individual's waking mood, which could have valuable implications for improving psychological wellbeing. The current experiment aims to investigate whether the experience of lucidity enhances positive waking mood, and whether lucidity is...
May 27, 2020
Michelle Carr, A. Stocks, Remington Mallett et al.
Lucid dreaming (being aware that one is dreaming) is typically a positive experience that may enhance positive mood even after waking. There is concern, however, that lucid dreaming may interfere with sleep quality. In the current experiment, participants practiced common lucid dream induction techniques over the course of a week, and kept a daily sleep and dream diary. The study objective was...