54 studies whose primary subject is lucid dreaming have been published so far in 2026. Newest first. Back to the lucid dreaming overview
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) September 30, 2026 preprint
No direct evidence for lucid dreaming therapy as a broad therapeutic method was identified; limited studies suggest it is particularly effective in reducing nightmare frequency, but further research is needed.
arXiv (Cornell University) September 29, 2026 Ziqi Wen, Ting Xu, Lianyu Wang et al. preprint
World models enable agents to learn and plan in imagination, but predictions beyond their experience can become unreliable and mislead decisions. Existing uncertainty estimates derived from predictions can remain overconfident on unfamiliar state-action pairs. We propose the Lucid World Model (LucidWM), which learns doubt from experience and propagates trust through imagination. By integrating...
Frontiers in Psychology September 28, 2026 Andrea Signorelli, Francesco Tormen, Bruna Dal Bianco et al.
IntroductionLucid dreaming (LD) involves awareness of being in a dream during REM sleep and depends on the reactivation of metacognitive and reality-monitoring processes. This study tested whether a virtual reality (VR) intervention designed to rehearse lucid-dream-relevant metacognitive routines increases LD rates beyond baseline training, and whether generic VR exposure produces similar...
Papyrus : Institutional Repository (Université de Montréal) September 1, 2026 Kennedy Robertson
Le rêve lucide survient lorsqu’un individu prend conscience de rêver en cours de rêve, et s’accompagne souvent d’un sentiment accru d’autonomie et de contrôle. Cette capacité de réflexivité et d’action volontaire a été associée à des bénéfices personnels, thérapeutiques et spirituels, et a suscité l’intérêt des traditions scientifiques et contemplatives. L’un des mécanismes proposés pour...
August 16, 2026 Emma Peters, Daniel Erlacher, Clarita Bonamino preprint
Lucid dream control (LDC), the ability to deliberately influence dream experiences during a lucid dream, is central to many theoretical, experimental, and lucid dream clinical applications. Despite its importance, standardized instruments for assessing LDC remain limited, typically treating it as a single, broad construct. This study aimed to develop and validate the Lucid Dream Control...
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry August 14, 2026 Zhiyu Cui, Linlin Fan
The association between sleep-related phenomena and psychosis has received increasing attention in recent years, as sleep disturbances (e.g., insomnia) have shown robust associations with psychotic symptoms. However, the role of other, more specific sleep processes in psychosis remains unclear, despite their potential importance as symptom-related correlates. Particularly, phenomena such as...
Journal of Sleep Research August 1, 2026 Nicola De Pisapia, Erdem Taskiran, Stefano Mastino et al.
Lucid dreaming, defined as the experience of becoming aware of dreaming while dreaming, offers a unique window into a state of consciousness characterised by a blending of the sensory vividness of REM sleep with the self-awareness of wakefulness. While past functional imaging has shed light on the neural activity supporting lucid dreaming, the structural brain correlates of lucid dream...
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews August 1, 2026 Clarita Bonamino, Clara Hausen, Matthew D. Sacchet
Consciousness can persist, transform, and dissolve across wakefulness, sleep, and advanced meditation. Despite empirical and theoretical advances within each domain, these states are rarely examined within an integrated scientific framework. An interdisciplinary perspective reveals converging phenomena that challenge binary accounts of consciousness and highlight its graded, dynamic, and...
Consciousness and Cognition July 20, 2026 Marina Trakas, Ryan Daley
Research on the continuity and discontinuity between the waking and dreaming minds has largely focused on similarities and differences in waking and dream content. The present study expands this debate by examining another dimension: the relationship between the dream self and the waking self at the phenomenal level. Specifically, it investigates how bodily and affective dimensions of dream...
PsyArXiv Preprints July 10, 2026 preprint
Dreaming is a universal phenomenon, yet the ability to recall dream content varies among individuals and most dreams are forgotten quickly after waking up. Such dream amnesia seems paradoxical given the proposed adaptive functions of dreaming. It has been theorized that dream amnesia might serve an evolutionary adaptive function, protecting against cognitive disruptions such as dream-reality...
SLEEP Advances July 8, 2026 Emma Peters, Xinlin Wang, Johanna Heitmann et al.
Abstract Study Objectives Sensory stimulation during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep has been proposed as a method to induce lucidity, yet most approaches rely on distal sensory modalities such as light and sound. We explored whether bodily stimulation targeting the muscle and vestibular systems differentially influences dream incorporation and lucid awareness during REM sleep. Methods 28...
Annals of Medicine and Surgery July 1, 2026 correction
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1097/MS9.0000000000004741.].
PsyArXiv Preprints June 25, 2026 preprint
Sleep-related out-of-body experiences (OBEs) occupy an ambiguous position between sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. OBEs are often considered part of the vestibular-motor component of sleep paralysis, but they also share features with lucid dreaming, including vivid internally generated experience, heightened awareness, and perceived agency. Here, we examined whether the emotional composition...
Frontiers in Sleep June 24, 2026 Iñigo Saez-Uribarri
Introduction: The return to normal life following the COVID-19 pandemic was evaluated in terms of anxiety upon awakening, sleep quality indicators, and dream characteristics. Methods: The sample comprised 394 women and 107 men who completed an online self-report questionnaire between August 15, 2022, and December 8, 2022 about their sleep and dream experience from the previous night....
Frontiers in Sleep June 24, 2026 Adam Haar Horowitz, Karen R Konkoly, Michelle Carr et al.
Targeted dream incubation (TDI) is a highly effective method for eliciting hypnagogic dreams related to specific topics through the presentation of verbal prompts and serial awakenings at sleep onset. In this pilot study, we tested whether TDI at sleep onset can effectively direct dream content in subsequent rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. We allowed participants a daytime nap opportunity...
Quality in Sport June 20, 2026 Arkadiusz Adam Psiuk
Background: Motor learning in competitive sport relies not only on physical practice but also on the offline reorganisation of memory traces during sleep. Waking motor imagery is a recognised ergogenic adjunct, while recent work suggests that mental rehearsal may be extended into the sleeping brain through lucid dreaming, a state in which the dreamer becomes aware of dreaming while remaining...
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 12, 2026 Patrick Mcnamara
.I study what is known about the extent to which group minds shape the content of dreams and suggest we can interact consciously with some group minds during the lucid dreaming state. Typical dreams are thoroughly social, typically depicting dreamer interactions with characters that represent the group minds he/she is a member of.
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research June 12, 2026 Sabine Rabourdin, Damien Roy, Claude Berghmans
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are phenomena in which a person perceives their consciousness as separate from their physical body. Although these experiences have been reported for centuries in spiritual traditions, they are attracting increasing interest in the fields of neuroscience, psychology and anthropology. This study aims to take stock of the issue through a literature review by...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) June 9, 2026 Bin Lin preprint
This paper documents a multi-year self-observation project on lucid dreaming, systematically recording and analyzing the characteristics of dream flow, consciousness control, and subjective experience during the lucid dream state. The work provides a first-person phenomenological analysis of lucid dreams, exploring patterns in dream clarity, stability, and volitional control. This paper...
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) May 22, 2026 Somayeh Ataei, Mahdad Jafarzade Esfahani, Nikolai Axmacher et al. preprint
Abstract Dream recall varies substantially both between individuals and from night to night within the same individual. Although nocturnal awakenings are thought to facilitate the encoding and later retrieval of dream experiences, it remains unclear whether dream recall is shaped primarily by awakening frequency or by more specific awakening characteristics, including duration, sleep stage, and...