Lucid dreams: their advantage and disadvantage in the frame of search activity concept.
Vadim S Rotenberg
Frontiers in Psychology September 30, 2015 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01472 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Rem sleep Helplessness Search activity Lucid dreams Dream function |
| Key points | Argues that lucid dreams protect dreamers from awakenings during disturbing dreams by fostering separation from dream events, but this same separation reduces their capacity to restore search activity, so non-lucid dreams that are experienced as real stories are needed to restore search activity for wakefulness. |
Abstract
Search activity (SA) is the behavioral and mental activity that is oriented to changes of the environment or of the subject's view and approach to the environment according to personal needs without the definite probability forecast of the outcomes of such activity, but with a regular consideration of the outcomes in the process of active behavior. Dream's lucidity (the subject's realization that he/she is dreaming) protects dreamer from awakenings during emotionally disturbing or frustrating dreams, because lucid dreams allow subject to feel separated from the dream events that may cause a feeling of helplessness. Due to such a protection from awakenings that can bring subject back to the frustration in wakefulness, subject can turn in the further sleep to normal non-lucid dreams that are restoring subject's SA in the subsequent wakefulness (activity in the uncertain situation with the feedback between behavior and its outcome). It is the advantage of lucid dreams. Their disadvantage is that due to the separation from the dream events that are in lucid dreams accepted as rationalized dreams, not as real stories where the dreamer acts like in wakefulness, their ability to restore SA is decreased until they are not displaced by the normal non-lucid dreams accepted as real stories.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| What I make up when I wake up: anti-experience views and narrative fabrication of dreams | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| New perspectives for the study of lucid dreaming: From brain stimulation to philosophical theories of self-consciousness | 2010 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Lucid dreaming: Evidence and methodology | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- The dynamic framework of mind wandering revisited: How mindful meta-awareness affects mental states' constraints. Consciousness and Cognition October 1, 2021
- Nightmare and Psychosis Proneness: Mediating Role of Lucid Dreaming in Pakistani Adults Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research June 30, 2022
- Sleep and mindfulness meditation as they relate to false memory. Psychological Research June 2020
Cites 13
- Lucid Dreaming: a State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming Sleep September 1, 2009
- Lucid Dreaming Treatment for Nightmares: A Pilot Study Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 2006
- The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey The American Journal of Psychology April 21, 2014
- The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2009
- Studies with lucid dreaming as add-on therapy to Gestalt therapy Acta Neurologica Scandinavica January 30, 2015
and 8 more in the library