Lucid dreaming, where dreamers know they are dreaming and can control dream content, may help people with nightmare disorder by allowing them to transform nightmares into normal dreams, improving sleep. A review of the existing literature found that lucid dreaming may reduce nightmare frequency, intensity, and psychological distress, but the available studies are scarce and yield inconsistent results. More research is needed to determine the effectiveness of lucid dreaming as a treatment for nightmares in clinical practice.
A new open database, the DREAM database, combines standardized sleep magneto/electroencephalography (M/EEG) recordings with dream reports from 505 participants across 20 datasets, totaling 2,643 awakenings. Each awakening includes at least 20 seconds of high-resolution sleep EEG (≥100 Hz, ≥2 electrodes) and a classification of the sleeper's reported experience. Analyses showed that reports of conscious experiences during sleep can be predicted from objective EEG features in both REM and NREM sleep. The database aims to overcome limitations of small sample sizes and methodological variability in dream research, enabling larger-scale investigations of the neurocognitive basis of dreaming.
Sleep paralysis is a dissociative state during awakening marked by inability to move, visual hallucinations, chest pressure, and fear. While most people experience it rarely, it becomes a parasomnia when recurrent or distressing. Across cultures, sleep paralysis has been interpreted supernaturally: Canadian Eskimos attribute it to shamans' spells, Japanese tradition to a vengeful spirit, Nigerian culture to a female demon, and modern accounts to alien abductions. This review examines the Pisadeira, a Brazilian folk figure who tramples the chest of those sleeping on a full stomach, and compares it with other cultural manifestations. The work argues that sleep paralysis is a biological phenomenon shaped by cultural context.