Portable Devices to Induce Lucid Dreams—Are They Reliable?

Abstract

One of the main current challenges in lucid dreaming (LD) research is to develop a simple and reliable way to induce it (Stumbrys et al., 2012). This is because, for most people, LD is very pleasurable but also very rare (LaBerge and Rheingold, 1990; Mota-Rolim et al., 2013). Along with its recreational nature, LD also has potential clinical applications, such as the treatment of recurrent nightmares in post-traumatic stress disorder (Aurora et al., 2010; Mota-Rolim and Araujo, 2013; Morgenthaler et al., 2018). This has attracted the attention of high-tech companies, which have been launching portable LD induction devices commercially available to the general public. This equipment captures electroencephalographic (EEG) activity for the online detection of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the sleep stage associated with typical dreaming (Aserinsky and Kleitman, 1953; Dement and Kleitman, 1957; for review, see Hobson et al., 2000). To induce lucidity, most devices provide visual, auditory, and/or tactile stimuli as sensory cues, which can become incubated into the dream content to alert dreamers that they are dreaming but without waking them up (LaBerge et al., 1981a; LaBerge and Levitan, 1995). Other devices provide transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) of the frontal cortex (Voss et al., 2014). Here we review 10 such devices: DreamLight, NovaDreamer, Aurora, Remee, REM-Dreamer, ZMax, Neuroon, iBand, LucidCatcher, and Aladdin.