A meta-analysis of 34 studies from 1966 to 2016 estimated that 55% of people have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetime, with a 95% confidence interval of 49% to 62%. A separate analysis of 25 studies found that 23% of people experience lucid dreams at least monthly, with a 95% confidence interval of 20% to 25%. The analysis used a quality effects method to reduce the influence of study quality on the estimates. Moderator analyses found no systematic bias from suspected sources of variability. These findings align with earlier estimates but are based on more robust evidence.
The conversation among religion, psychiatry, and neuroscience has changed how religion is understood and how that understanding affects its relationship with psychiatry. This review covers the history and phenomenology of religious experience, neuroscientific explanations of religious experience, the benefits of religious beliefs and practices, and the evolutionary basis of those benefits. It also examines how neuroscience and evolutionary theory account for the claim that religious experience connects to a transcendent reality. The authors conclude with a summary and unresolved questions.