Neurosci Biobehav Rev
January 14, 2025
Sofia Tzioridou, Teresa Campillo-Ferrer, Jorge Cañas-Martín et al.
5 citations
During most dreams, the dreamer does not realize that they are in a dream. In contrast, lucid dreaming allows to become aware of the current state of mind, often accompanied by considerable control over the ongoing dream episode. Lucid dreams can happen spontaneously or be induced through diverse behavioural, cognitive or technological strategies. Such induction techniques have spurred research...
Frontiers in Psychology
2024
Garret Yount, Sitara Taddeo, Tadas Stumbrys et al.
1 citation
Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) is considered a marker of autonomic nervous system activity in stress research, and atypical waking sAA responses have been reported for traumatized individuals. Lucid dreams, characterized by a dreamer's awareness of their dream state while remaining asleep, have shown promising preliminary evidence of their potential to enhance mental health. This study's...
The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies
October 31, 2022
Tadas Stumbrys
Lucid dreams, in which the dreamers are aware that they are dreaming, can be a source of spiritual and mystical experiences. This empirical study aimed to explore the relationship between lucid dreaming and spirituality, taking into account the role of mystical lucid dream experience, in an online sample of 471 respondents, 95% of whom had lucid dream experience and 65% were frequent lucid...
BORIS
October 9, 2020
Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl, Tadas Stumbrys
12 citations
Anecdotal evidence that lucid dreaming might contribute to mental and physical health has been widely reported in the literature. Empirical research, though, is scarce. A brief questionnaire eliciting self-perceived benefits of lucid dreaming on mental and physical health had been completed by 386 participants who had lucid dream experiences. About 90% of the participants reported some benefit...
Frontiers in Psychology
2020
Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys
24 citations
Lucid dreaming offers many opportunities to study consciousness processes. However, laboratory research in this area is limited because frequent lucid dreamers are rare. Several studies demonstrated that different methods of induction could increase the number of lucid dreams. In four field studies, a combination of a wake-up-back-to-bed (WBTB) sleep protocol and a mnemonic technique (MILD)...
November 1, 2018
Tadas Stumbrys, Viktorija Daunytė
Dreaming is a very creative state of mind. Lucid dreamers – who can become aware in their dreams that they are dreaming – have an advantage of directly tapping into the creative potentials of the dreaming mind. This study explored the relationship between lucid dreaming and creativity. Twenty lucid dreamers were asked to accomplish a creative generation task once in a lucid dream and once while...
Imagination Cognition and Personality
December 20, 2016
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher
28 citations
In lucid dreams, the dreamer is aware that one is dreaming; however, this does not necessary imply that the dreamer has complete control over the ongoing dream narrative. The present study explored the extent to which the lucid dreamers are able to control their dreams, as well as underlying factors. An online survey was completed by 528 respondents, of whom 386 had lucid dream experience....
Journal of Sports Sciences
April 7, 2015
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
60 citations
Motor practice in lucid dreams is a form of mental rehearsal where the dreamer can consciously rehearse motor skills in the dream state while being physically asleep. A previous pilot study showed that practice in lucid dreams can improve subsequent performance. This study aimed to replicate those findings with a different task (finger-tapping) and compare the effectiveness of lucid dream...
The American Journal of Psychology
April 21, 2014
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Miriam Johnson et al.
104 citations
In lucid dreams the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. Although such dreams are not that uncommon, many aspects of lucid dream phenomenology are still unclear. An online survey was conducted to gather data about lucid dream origination, duration, active or passive participation in the dream, planned actions for lucid dreams, and other phenomenological aspects. Among the 684...
Frontiers in Psychology
2014
Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich, Tadas Stumbrys et al.
48 citations
The relationship between time in dreams and real time has intrigued scientists for centuries. The question if actions in dreams take the same time as in wakefulness can be tested by using lucid dreams where the dreamer is able to mark time intervals with prearranged eye movements that can be objectively identified in EOG recordings. Previous research showed an equivalence of time for counting...
October 16, 2013
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
Lucid dream and nightmare frequencies vary greatly between individuals and to assess these differences reliable instruments are needed. The present study aimed to examine the reliability of eight-point scales for measuring lucid dream and nightmare frequencies. The scales were administered twice (with a four-week interval) to 93 sport students. A re-test reliability for the lucid dream...
Consciousness and Cognition
September 8, 2013
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Michael Schredl
88 citations
Recent studies suggest that lucid dreaming (awareness of dreaming while dreaming) might be associated with increased brain activity over frontal regions during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. By applying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), we aimed to manipulate the activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during REM sleep to increase dream lucidity. Nineteen...
Consciousness and Cognition
September 1, 2012
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Melanie Schädlich et al.
In lucid dreams the dreamer is aware of dreaming and often able to influence the ongoing dream content. Lucid dreaming is a learnable skill and a variety of techniques is suggested for lucid dreaming induction. This systematic review evaluated the evidence for the effectiveness of induction techniques. A comprehensive literature search was carried out in biomedical databases and specific...
Imagination Cognition and Personality
February 21, 2012
Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys, Michael Schredl
36 citations
Mental practice is the cognitive rehearsal of a motor task in the absence of overt physical movement. A different and rather unknown kind of mental rehearsal is practice in lucid dreams. Within lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to control the ongoing dream content and for athletes it is possible to use the dream state to deliberately practice sport skills while physically asleep. In this study,...
BORIS (University Library Bern)
2011
Tadas Stumbrys, Daniel Erlacher, Steffen Schmidt
18 citations
In dreams we usually interact with other dream characters that seem to talk and behave logically. Lucid dreamers, who are aware that they are dreaming during the dream, can have deliberate conversations with their dream characters and ask them to accomplish specific tasks. Previous studies have shown that dream characters can be creative and ingenious, but they seem to struggle with more...
University Library Heidelberg
2011
Tadas Stumbrys
14 citations
The notions of continuity and discontinuity are discussed in relation to the phenomenon of lucid dreaming (awareness of dreaming while dreaming). Lucid dreams seem to be more dreamlike than non-lucid dreams both in terms of their content and REM sleep physiology and therefore are more discontinuous with our waking experience. They also seem to represent some “crack” – discontinuity – in the...
heiDOK (Heidelberg University)
2010
Tadas Stumbrys, Michael Daniels
53 citations
Both historical accounts and modern research suggest that dreams may contribute to creativity and problem solving, however no research has been done to investigate creative problem solving in lucid dreams – in which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. This pilot and exploratory study explored the feasibility of such research. It was also hypothesised that dream characters might...