Beyond the Labels: Phenomenological Profiles of Lucid Dreams, Sleep Paralysis, and Sleep-Related Out-of-Body Experiences
PsyArXiv Preprints October 24, 2026 preprint DOI: osf:tvez3_v1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational survey study (exploratory, cross-sectional) |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 389 |
| Population | Adults who reported at least one lucid dream, sleep paralysis, or sleep-related out-of-body experience |
| Topics | Lucid dreaming Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Agency Bodily self-consciousness Embodiment Out-of-body experiences Sleep paralysis Life sciences Cognitive neuroscience |
| Key findings | Within each phenomenon, features such as voluntary induction, agency, and environmental control did not consistently co-occur: in lucid dreams and OBEs, consistent voluntary induction and consistent environmental control characterized different profiles. In OBEs, positive emotions accompanied varied induction and agency patterns while negative emotions accompanied low volition; in sleep paralysis, negative emotions appeared across several profiles. Sleep-related OBEs showed marked variability in bodily experience, including profiles of consistent body ownership, variable embodiment, or no perceived body. The authors present these profiles as exploratory patterns rather than fixed subtypes. |
Abstract
Lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and sleep-related out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are usually defined by a characteristic feature, although considerable phenomenological variability exists within each phenomenon. We explored how different experiential features were organized across participant-level profiles within these phenomena. Data came from an online survey completed by 389 adults who reported at least one of the three experiences. Separate multivariate analyses were conducted within each phenomenon using multiple correspondence analysis followed by hierarchical clustering on principal components. We examined volitional regulation, predominant affective category, and, for OBEs, embodiment-related features. In lucid dreams and OBEs, voluntary induction, agency, and environmental control did not always occur together. Consistent voluntary induction and consistent environmental control characterized different profiles in both phenomena. In OBEs, predominantly positive emotions characterized profiles with different patterns of induction and agency, whereas predominantly negative emotions characterized a profile with low volition. In sleep paralysis, predominantly negative emotions occurred across several phenomenological profiles, whereas predominantly positive emotions characterized a profile associated with vestibular-motor experiences and out-of-body feelings. Sleep-related OBEs also showed marked variability in bodily experience, including profiles characterized by consistent body ownership, variable embodiment, or no perceived body. These findings provide an exploratory description of how phenomenological features are organized across participant-level profiles within lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, and OBEs. The resulting profiles should not be considered fixed subtypes, but rather patterns to be tested in independent samples using prospective or episode-level assessments.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey Respondents to an online survey about lucid dreams | 2014 | Online survey | n = 684 |
| Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Representative sample of German adults | 2011 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 919 |
| Lucid dreaming: an age‐dependent brain dissociation Students aged 6-19 years | 2012 | Survey | |
| Terror and bliss? Commonalities and distinctions between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking life experiences Adults aged 18–82 years | 2016 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 1,928 |
| Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy Patients diagnosed with narcolepsy and healthy control subjects | 2015 | Cross-sectional study | n = 979 |