(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists have developed special psychological exercises that should allow the subjects to realize that they are sleeping and dreaming. This is what a lucid dream is. Scientists hope that such exercises will help fight nightmares.
Lucid dreams are not a myth, not a reality, because someone still managed to experience them. There is a possibility that lucid dreaming may have some mental health benefits, but here, scientists say, it is difficult to conduct a satisfactory scientific experiment.
New research into lucid dreaming suggests ways to maximize the chances of “waking up” while a person is still asleep.
Scientists report that only half of people have ever been conscious of being in a dream, and about a quarter managed to experience lucid dreams.
A team of scientists from the University of Adelaide in Australia have come up with some interesting tips on how to maximize your chances of inducing lucid dreaming.
Previous research has shown some success in preparing the brain for lucid dreaming, allowing test subjects to even signal to researchers in mid-sleep that they are experiencing a lucid dream.
New research
Australian scientists tested three different methods on a group of 169 volunteers. Each was given a questionnaire and a journal to record their dreams for a week. They were then given one or more of the three lucid dream induction techniques to practice the following week.
One technique required subjects to practice checking their reality while awake. The second method required participants to wake up after five hours of sleep and then go back to sleep, trying to capture the state between dream and reality.
A third method, called MILD (mnemonic triggering of lucid dreaming), involved repeating a specific mind-programming phrase while awake.
“The results of the study bring us one step closer to developing highly effective lucid dream induction techniques that will allow us to explore the potential benefits.
For example, the treatment of nightmares and the improvement of physical skills through rehearsals in a lucid dream environment, ” says Denholm Aspie, one of the authors of the work.
So, for example, the MILD technique works with “prospective memory”. That is, with the ability to remember what needs to be done in the future.
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