Presenting: Science Vs. - Lucid Dreaming: The Bonkers World Inside Our Minds

Summary

Hyperfixed Podcast: Presenting Science Vs. - Lucid Dreaming: The Bonkers World Inside Our Minds

Release Date: December 12, 2024

In this special episode of Hyperfixed, host Alex Goldman collaborates with Wendy Zuckerman, the host of the popular podcast Science Vs, to delve into the intriguing and surreal world of lucid dreaming. This detailed summary captures the essence of their engaging discussion, exploring the science, techniques, and personal experiences surrounding lucid dreaming.

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1. Introduction to Science Vs. and Lucid Dreaming

Timestamp: [03:19] – [07:18]

Alex introduces Wendy Zuckerman, highlighting the distance between their locations—Australia and the United States—as a humorous segue into discussing Australia’s notorious wildlife. The conversation shifts to Wendy's podcast, Science Vs, which critically examines popular myths and misconceptions using scientific research.

Wendy explains the premise of Science Vs:

"We take ideas that are in the zeitgeist... and interrogate them with a ridiculous amount of scientific research and humor to give you the facts." ([05:13])

The focus then narrows to the episode on lucid dreaming, a phenomenon where individuals are aware that they are dreaming and can sometimes control their dreams. Wendy describes a lucid dream as:

"A dream that you can sort of control certain elements of it, in some cases, all of the elements of it." ([07:13])

2. Personal Experiences with Lucid Dreaming

Timestamp: [10:11] – [27:19]

Wendy shares testimonies from her Science Vs episode, featuring individuals who have experienced lucid dreaming. These accounts highlight the vivid and immersive nature of lucid dreams, where dreamers can perform extraordinary feats like flying or accessing heightened senses.

Archer recounts his experience:

"I flew around in big loop de loops. It felt like unlocking something super magical." ([10:15])

Wendy also introduces Denham, a psychologist who has personally benefited from lucid dreaming by escaping chronic pain through vivid dream adventures:

"In a lucid dream, I decided to summon a penis... It was a part of a healing process for me." ([12:30])

3. Techniques to Induce Lucid Dreaming

Timestamp: [26:14] – [35:22]

The discussion transitions to methods for inducing lucid dreams. Denham's exploration of reality testing—performing specific checks during waking hours to identify whether one is dreaming—initially yielded disappointing results. Despite extensive practice, Denham found little improvement in his ability to lucid dream:

"Reality testing didn't seem to really make that much of a difference." ([20:21])

Contrastingly, Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD), a technique involving setting strong intentions and visualizing becoming lucid before sleep, showed promising results. In Denham’s study, approximately one in six participants successfully lucid dreamed using MILD:

"People were roughly three times more likely to have a lucid dream after doing this." ([23:11])

4. Scientific Research and Findings

Timestamp: [35:32] – [39:55]

Wendy delves into the scientific underpinnings of lucid dreaming, referencing studies conducted by Dr. Bashak Turka and others. A pivotal method used in research is the BAT signal, where lucid dreamers move their eyes in a specific pattern to indicate lucidity. This technique allows scientists to monitor brain activity during lucid dreams.

Key findings include:

• Enhanced Brain Activity: Lucid dreaming activates the prefrontal cortex, an area typically subdued during non-lucid dreaming, enabling dreamers to recognize and manipulate their dream environment.

"The prefrontal cortex is more awake, allowing you to detect anomalies in your dream." ([39:55])

• Hybrid Consciousness State: Lucid dreaming represents a unique state between wakefulness and sleep, offering insights into the elusive nature of consciousness.

"Lucid dreaming is this hybrid state of consciousness between being asleep and awake." ([40:07])

5. Benefits and Limitations of Lucid Dreaming

Timestamp: [45:05] – [47:34]

The conversation explores the therapeutic potential of lucid dreaming, particularly for individuals suffering from nightmares and PTSD. Psychologist Brigitte Holzinger shares her experiences using lucid dreaming techniques to help patients confront and alter distressing dream scenarios:

"Some would wake themselves up, others would turn around and face the monster." ([47:01])

However, the effectiveness of lucid dreaming as a therapeutic tool is nuanced. While some individuals report relief and reduced nightmare frequency, others find minimal benefit or even increased anxiety:

"Only three out of more than 30 US veterans with PTSD felt relieved to know they were dreaming. Many just felt anxious." ([41:33])

6. Practical Attempts and Success Stories

Timestamp: [49:15] – [51:32]

Back on Hyperfixed, Wendy and her team embark on their own lucid dreaming experiment using the MILD technique. Despite initial setbacks and humorous recounts of failed attempts, Wendy finally achieves a lucid dream:

"I just had a lucid dream. It felt like my hair... it felt like that I did it." ([50:19])

This success serves as a culmination of the episode’s exploration into the science and practice of lucid dreaming, demonstrating both the potential and the challenges inherent in mastering this elusive state.

7. Conclusion and Reflections

Timestamp: [51:32] – End

The episode concludes with reflections on the journey of understanding and experimenting with lucid dreaming. Wendy emphasizes the importance of patience and persistence, likening the process to learning a new skill:

"It's like learning how to skate. You have to get your balance." ([47:34])

Alex and Wendy encourage listeners to share their lucid dreaming experiences and continue exploring the boundaries of human consciousness.

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Notable Quotes

• Alex Goldman:

  "I would love to be able to do it." ([07:18])

• Wendy Zuckerman:

  "It's a sugar pill of science. They're giving you like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down." ([05:50])

• Denham:

  "It was a part of a healing process for me." ([12:30])

• Brigitte Holzinger:

  "To me, it is like learning how to skate. You have to get your balance." ([49:53])

Final Thoughts

This episode of Hyperfixed offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of lucid dreaming, intertwining scientific research with personal anecdotes. By featuring experts like Wendy Zuckerman and psychologists such as Denham and Holzinger, the discussion provides valuable insights into the mechanics, benefits, and complexities of lucid dreaming. Whether you’re a seasoned lucid dreamer or a curious newcomer, this episode equips listeners with a deeper understanding of the fascinating interplay between science and the subconscious mind.

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For more in-depth information and to explore the scientific studies mentioned, listeners are encouraged to visit the show notes and access the comprehensive transcript with 99 citations.

Transcript

[Alex]

Hey, this is Alex. I'm appearing on the top of the show in what would be an ad slot to tell you about the Radiotopia annual fund drive. And look, I know this is a little weird because for one, I'm already asking you for money. I'm asking you to become a Hyperfixed member at the end of every episode. And two, my show just started and now I've asked you for money two different ways. I'm very sensitive to that. But let me explain why I am doing this. Just getting this show off the ground has taken almost two years, and it has been frustrating and sometimes exhausting. At my lowest point, I was applying for communications and public relations jobs at tech companies. Can you imagine? I am, like, way too unhinged for that. But a huge part of actually getting the show in production was Radiotopia. And being a member of the slate of shows on Radiotopia means a lot to me. It's not like I just say this show's a proud member of Radiotopia in the credits because they tell me to. I mean, they do tell me to. But it's also true. I am on a network with Ear Hustle, Song Exploder, the Memory palace, the Kitchen Sisters, shows that I have always looked up to as inspiration. And even though I remain independent and the owner of Hyperfixed, Radiotopia helps me with things that I absolutely couldn't do on my own. Ad sales, marketing, tech stuff. The other day, Radiotopia executive producer Audrey Mardovich helped me find an engineer to mix the first couple of episodes of Hyperfixed. It's not even really her job. She was just being cool. What I'm trying to say is that this show would not function without Radiotopia. And they are able to function in large part because listeners like you support them during their annual fundraiser. And that money gets shared directly with all the shows in the network. We have a goal right now of reaching 2024 donors by the end of this year, and we can't get there without you. Every gift makes a difference and is a vote of confidence in our independent model, which I truly believe is the only way forward for shows like Hyperfixed. So please head to Radiotopia fm. Donate and seriously, thank you so much. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hey, everybody. This is a special episode of Hyperfixed, because it's not actually an episode of Hyper Fixed. My friend Wendy Zuckerman, she is the host of a podcast called Science Versus, and we are going to be playing you an episode of the show. And Wendy is actually here with me, not in the studio, because she lives in Australia and I live in the United States. So she is about as far from the studio being my basement as she can be. But. Hi, Wendy, how you doing?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hi. I love that you said she's in Australia as if it was Mars. Guys, guys, can you believe this?

[Alex]

I have only recently learned about the volume of deadly animals in Australia, and I have always wanted to visit. It sounds so amazing. And I'm now very scared. The spider thing is like, the spiders are too big. I'll be honest.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

No, no. I mean, you guys have snakes in America. You have dangerous political leaders. I mean, I really feel like Australia is safer at this point.

[Alex]

So you probably know about this as a science person, but maybe not. There is an invasive species, but it's like a harmless invasive species of spider called a joro spider that has been introduced in the United States. And it is slowly making its way northward. And it's about. They average about and a half inches. And when they get here, I'm fucking out of here. I don't care where I'm going, I'm going to an island.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I mean, I have such a soft spot for any animal that has been able to survive this concrete, terrible landscape that we've created for them. A pigeon, we just. Any animal that's like, okay, I can deal with this. Am I on a ship right now? All right, I guess I'll survive. Oh, I'm now in Ohio. Yeah, I can handle that. I mean, it's amazing. I'm like, go get em. Go get em, spider. You live your best life.

[Alex]

Apparently, they also, like, are totally chill in cities and we should be expecting them to just like, make huge cobwebs in the middle of Manhattan. And I'm just like, this sounds too much like a horror movie. I can't handle it. I've gotta go somewhere. It's the Arctic Circle for me. That's the only place I can go.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The only place they haven't reached just yet. Just yet.

[Alex]

Spoken like a real science person. Get out of here with that crap. Um, speaking of science, can you tell us a little bit about your show?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah, yeah. So the show is called Science Versus. And so what we do on the show is we take ideas that are in the zeitgeist. Whether it's about a brand new diet, how much protein you need to eat, what's going on in your mind as you're dreaming. Is the pill, the contraceptive pill. Dangerous? Just did an episode about that. Cause there's lots of new fears around what the pill is doing to our bodies and our brains. So we just take these ideas that are rolling around the Internet and then we're kind of interrogate them with this ridiculous amount of scientific research and we try and put a little bit of humor to it so you don't realize how much research we've done. And we just give you the facts.

[Alex]

Yeah, it's a sugar pill of science. They're giving you like a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Exactly, exactly.

[Alex]

And one of the things that I like about the fact that it is so zeitgeisty is like every time I have a real question, I feel like within six months it is a science versus episode.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, that's great. That's great. I mean, I really. The show having gone for so long, I did not think it was gonna survive this long. I mean, when we first met Alex and I was thinking of, well, what kind of episodes we got. We got climate change. Cause back then people were still wondering, is that real? We got a couple episodes on vaccines. Surely the we'll tick them all off. But in fact, the Internet over the last 10 years has just been minting more and more mythology, garbage, pseudoscience than ever. And so unfortunately, or fortunately, I think this show's gonna be running for quite some time.

[Alex]

So we are going to be running an episode of your show on our feed today, which is the lucid dreaming episode. Can you tell me a little bit about this episode? Like, what was the question you were.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Trying to answer with lucid dreaming? I mean, it's funny. It's a topic that either fascinates people or Alex, perhaps you have this reaction. I don't want to hear about your dreams. I don't want to hear about your lucid dreams. Where do you fit on the spectrum of fascination with lucid dreaming?

[Alex]

Oh, no, the idea of lucid dreaming is really fascinating to me. Like, I would love to be able to do it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah, I think it's very fascinating. The science behind it is super interesting. For those who don't know, a lucid dream is a dream that you can sort of control certain elements of it, in some cases, all of the elements of it. And scientists really, since the 70s have been wondering if we can harness this to understand ourselves better, to understand dreaming better, consciousness better. And it's kind of this strange vessel to just understand the human mind because it's in such a weird state. You're asleep, but you can control things. And you can only control certain things. So something we don't really talk about too deeply in the episode is when I would speak to all these people who would have lucid dreams. And you can read some academic papers about it. Some people would have these lucid dreams where they would find themselves in this really fun environment. The Eiffel Tower is right there. There's a beautiful garden. And then they would talk to someone, but they couldn't control the person they were talking to. And the person would do certain weird things. And so from a scientific perspective, that's really interesting. Why can you control some things and not other things? Cause ultimately it is all your brain. There's nothing else there. It's all you. And so why can you control certain things? What is happening in the brain of a lucid dreamer? We just sort of had all of these questions, and in today's political climate, it just felt like such a beautiful space to live in for a moment, just in our dreams rather than in reality.

[Alex]

I feel like I've had like moments once or twice in my life where I've realized, like, oh, I'm dreaming, I wonder if I can control something, and then woken up before I've had the chance. I feel like that was just me regaining consciousness. Yes, it's not the same as being able to actually control my dreams.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It is classified as a lucid dream, but it's not the fun stuff. Right. You want. It's step one. It's sort of step one as you as listeners will hear about how to get. Cause that was. Is. Oh, I don't wanna spoil that. But that is. That was exactly me. I have had a few moments like that and then I'll wake up or go back to sleep. But I kind of wanted to see if I could do it for real, for. In the fun, fun, controlling sense.

[Alex]

Awesome. Well, I am excited to listen to this, as I have not yet. Full disclosure. Can you tell people how they can find you and anything else they should know about the show?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yes. To find us, you can just search for Science Versus, which is Science Versus on any podcast platform or on Spotify, Apple, and come and say hello. We're on all the social media stuff. Give us an idea if you've heard some nonsense or maybe not nonsense on the Internet and you want us to fact check it, let us know.

[Alex]

Awesome. All right, thank you so much. And for everybody listening, please enjoy the Lucid dreaming episode of Science Versus.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Whoa.

[Archer]

This is incredible. And I, like, flew around in, like, big loop de loops. I'm up high. I'm looking down at the trees. I'm feeling the wind in my hair and just totally going for it. I felt like I'd unlocked something, like, super magical. And I really did have the sensation. I was like, this feels to me like what it would feel like to be flying in the sky.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus. Today on the show, we're pitting facts against flying as we swoop into the world of lucid dreaming. There are people that have a superpower where they know that they're dreaming and sometimes can even control what happens next. And in their dreams, people all over the world are saying, okay, great, let's fly.

[Denham]

And that's what I did. I was just flying up and down the staircase.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

I found myself flying through a beautiful landscape, I guess similar to New Zealand.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And the insanely almost magical thing about lucid dreaming is that people who do this will tell you that it feels real. It's not like closing your eyes and imagining that you're flying or doing whatever. You're really there.

[Blythe Terrell]

It feels so real. You're like, how is this possible? It feels so real.

[AC]

And, like, you can hear, you can smell, you can even taste, you know? I've had lucid dreams where I've just gone to a banquet and just tried all the different foods on the table. I could also have superpowers and go on epic missions into outer space. And it was just this, like, playground in your own mind.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

A playground to be whoever you want to be. And for some folks, this isn't just a bit of fun. They're also trying to use lucid dreaming to improve their mental health, overcome fears, and to understand themselves better. That's how my friend Archer used lucid dreaming. He's the guy going flying down the staircase. Archer is a trans man. He wasn't born with a penis. And for years now, he'd wished that he had one.

[Denham]

So in a lucid dream, I decided to summons a penis. And then the penis appeared. I made one in a dream.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

How did it feel?

[Denham]

A bit underwhelming. So I tried it out in a dream. I used it in a sexy way, and it was like, this is fine. But it wasn't amazing. You know, not this great thing that I needed to complete my body and then I would be a happy, healthy guy out in the world.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

How big was this for you?

[Denham]

How big was.

[Blythe Terrell]

How big was the moment?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Arg.

[Denham]

That was one part of a healing process for me. And now I'm in a place where like, oh, actually now I don't really want a penis anymore. That's just for me. Obviously it's really important for some people.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Have you since practised lucid dreaming for any other kind of sexy dreams?

[Denham]

Yeah, I mean, I'm only human.

[Blythe Terrell]

Yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

This is a magical power you have. So today on the show, we are going to teach you how to lucid dream. That's right. Scientists have studied the best way to get this superpower and we will reveal their peer reviewed secrets. We'll also explore how researchers are trying to harness the strange powers of lucid dreaming to help people through trauma and depression and to crack these huge scientific mysteries like what is consciousness and what exactly goes on in all of our heads when we're asleep. When it comes to lucid dreaming, there's a lot of let's fly and then there's science. Science versus lucid dreaming is coming up just after the breakfast. Welcome back. Today we are flying into the dream world, or at least we're trying to. And if we want to channel lucid dreaming to improve our lives, the first step is to learn how to do this. Because for many of us it doesn't come easy. I mean, studies find that around half of us will have had at least one lucid dream in our lifetime. But not all lucid dreams are created equal. For me, the best I've gotten is that I'll realise I'm dreaming for a moment and then I either wake up or go back to regular sleep. And my lacklustre lucid experience is pretty common. One study reckoned that only around a third of people who lucid dream can manipulate what they're doing in their dreams. So how can we up our game and learn how to become gods in the dream world? For this we need Dr. Denham adventure heart, a psychologist in Brisbane, Australia. Denham lives with sciatica, which can cause this nasty pain throughout his body. And several years ago, things got really.

[AC]

Bad when it was at its worst. It was so limiting that it was, you know, it was, it was very difficult and painful to even take the bins out at night.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

There were some days when he could barely get out of bed. Well, unless he was lucid dreaming. Every now and then Denham would find himself in a lucid dream and there he could escape his illness.

[AC]

I could do anything, you know, I could. Not only could I get up and run and, you know, explore and go to new worlds and whatever my imagination could conjure, it actually really helped my quality of life because it gave me something to be excited about.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The problem was that Denham couldn't play in this playground very often. He'd go to sleep and night after night, no running, no new world, and he'd wake up still stuck in bed, in pain. So Denham decides that he's going to train himself to get better at lucid dreaming. And he gets really into this thing called reality testing, or reality checks. And these are huge in the lucid dreaming world. I mean, just ask Christopher Nolan about it. It was an inception. So to understand how this could work, it's helpful to know that often people will spontaneously have a lucid dream because they'll be stuck in the middle of a dream and something really weird will happen that makes them think, what? This has to be a dream. And voila, they're lucid. And so reality testing is all about trying to hack that process. So here's what Denim would do while he was awake. He'd close his mouth tightly and then try to inhale through his mouth. Wait, I want to try it. So you got your mouth closed? Yeah.

[AC]

And then try to inhale.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah.

[AC]

With your lips closed. And it doesn't work. Right.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

If you think you're doing this, you're actually breathing through your nose. So the fact that you can't do it tells you that this is not a dream. You are awake and listening to this podcast. But Denham had read that in dreams you can breathe through a closed mouth, and that was true for him.

[AC]

It almost always will feel different. You can feel this sense of closed lips, but at the same time, you can feel the air just entering your lungs and breathing in through your mouth at the same time.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Really?

[AC]

Yeah. It's really bizarre.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Another super popular reality test is trying to poke your finger straight through your palm. Obviously while you're awake, it doesn't work. But in the dream world, people say that your finger does go through your palm. And so the idea here is that you will do these reality checks tons of times throughout the day. And because most dreams are reflections of the stuff that we're doing throughout our day, you hope that then in. In a dream, you will also do a reality test. And when you feel that air moving through your closed mouth or you see your finger slip through your palm, then you'll realise this is a dream and you'll be Lucid.

[AC]

And so it's almost like trying to prime yourself to accidentally discover that you're dreaming. You realize, ah, I'm in a dream. That's the moment of lucidity.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So Denim is sick at home, and he's doing these reality tests a lot.

[AC]

Oh, geez. I went pretty overboard with it. I probably was doing it hundreds of times a day at some of those periods.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But it was strange because he wasn't having that many lucid dreams. And so was it frustrating?

[AC]

Super frustrating. I know how amazing these experiences are, and I know that I can access them, but they're just not coming as often as I would like. So it was incredibly frustrating.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So Denham starts thinking, what's going on here? Is it just me and being a scientist? He decides to study it. He sets up an experiment recruiting more than 350 people from all around the world, making this the largest study I could find on inducing lucid dreams. To get a baseline for seven days, everyone would record how many dreams they were having and how many of those were lucid. Then Denim puts everyone into different groups. Some are told to practice reality testing. They do it for seven days, and guess what?

[AC]

Reality testing didn't seem to really make that much of a difference.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That's very interesting, because even then, I have spoken to quite a lot of lucid dreaming academics and asked them all, how should I do this? And they've all said, you should try reality testing. Like, it's so embedded in the zeitgeist around lucid dreaming. And yet your study found it actually didn't work.

[AC]

Oh, it was very surprising because like you said, this is like the common wisdom is do reality testing, and the more the better. And it's not even like doing it 100 times is better than 10. It just didn't actually seem to matter that much. And so it kind of goes against the grain of what most people will tell you.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Other, smaller studies have found this too. On average, we can't see a statistical link between reality testing and having a lucid dream. And one reason for this could be because reality tests can fail in that even in your dream, you still can't put your finger through your palm, which makes perfect sense. We know that dreams are super subjective, unlike what you might read on a lucid dreaming Reddit post. There's no physics or biology in the dream world. That means your hands are made of putty. But in Denham's study, he was testing other lucid dreaming techniques as well, and he did find something that worked. It's called Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams. And in Denham's study, on average, about one in six times that people tried this method, they had a lucid dream. One in six. Wow. That's a pretty good rate, right?

[AC]

It's a very good rate.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Here's what you've got to do. You set your alarm clock.

[AC]

Yeah. So it goes off at about five hours after you've gone to sleep.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That's rubbish. Five hours.

[AC]

Yeah. Look, it's a bit of a necessary evil.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Unfortunately, you're waking up at around 4 or 5am because you're trying to catch yourself in REM sleep, which is where most of us have our lucid dreams. Okay. So once you wake up.

[AC]

Imagine yourself being back in a dream, ideally the one you were just in. Imagine yourself walking around noticing something like a pink elephant or something strange.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So you're trying to remember the dream that you were just in. You're visualizing yourself being back there. And what you're doing is trying to notice something unusual that might make you realize, hey, I'm dreaming. And as you're awake, repeat this mantra. Next time I'm dreaming, I want to remember that I'm dreaming.

[AC]

You keep doing it until you really are feeling into that intention, that next time I'm dreaming, I want to remember that I'm dreaming. Like that. That strength of intention's got to be strong. Once that's set, then you just go back to sleep as normal.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

In Denham's study, people were roughly three times more likely to have a lucid dream after doing this, compared to that week where they weren't doing anything special. And other studies have found that this technique works as well as a little tip. If you can go back to sleep quickly, within five minutes after doing all the mantra stuff, you up your chance of having a lucid dream even more. Plus, the people in Denham's study who had never really tried lucid dreaming before had a similar success rate to those who were more experienced.

[AC]

So it shows that even beginners can learn this quite quickly.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Do you think that everyone can have a lucid dream, like, if they really put their mind to it? Do you think we're all capable of this?

[AC]

I don't know for sure, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would say there probably are some people that could spend a lot of time on this and still not be able to lucid dream. But I would say for most people it's a learnable skill.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

A learnable skill.

[Archer]

You say, next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming Next time I'm.

[Rose Rimler]

Dreaming I will remember I'm dreaming Next.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Time I'm dreaming Next time I'm dreaming I will remember I will remember I'm dreaming I'm dreaming In Denham's research, people who were far from lucid dreaming ninjas could learn this in just one week. So my editor, Blythe Terrell, senior producer Rose Ribler, and I, we wanted to fly. Actually, for Rose, she had a very particular dream that she wanted to conjure up.

[Archer]

You know what?

[Rose Rimler]

Sometimes to relax, I imagine that I've become very, very small, and I'm like the height of a blade of grass, and I get to walk around and sit on a mushroom like a toadstool and use a dandelion as a umbrella and that kind of thing. So it'd be kind of fun if I could do that in my. In my dream, and then it would be really vivid and would be more real than just my awake imagination.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, wow.

[Blythe Terrell]

That's so cute, Rose.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So I explained how we were gonna do this, that we'd wake up five hours after going to sleep. We would try to remember the dream we were just in. We'd think about all the weird stuff that obviously makes it a dream, and then we'd say the mantra. It should take 5 to 10 minutes.

[Archer]

5 to 10 at 4 in the morning or whatever.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Yeah, man.

[Archer]

You guys have your work cut out for you. I'm glad I can already do this.

[Rose Rimler]

So you are just here to brag? Confirmed.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Astute ears listening to this podcast might notice that Blaidd was one of the voices you heard at the start of the show. She was flying in a lucid dream, doing those big loop de loops. But Blythe can't do this very often, so she wants to see if she can supercharge her superpower. And Rose and I are gonna find out if we can control things in our dreams for the very first time.

[Rose Rimler]

I'm excited. I'm pumped.

[Archer]

How are you feeling, Wendy?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I am not optimistic at all, in fact. For me. For me, but. No, but. I wish I.

[Archer]

But I've really tried to have a positive attitude.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

All right. Meet back in a week. Give ourselves a week.

[Archer]

Okay.

[Rose Rimler]

Okay. This is day one of the lucid dreaming experiment.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay. I just woke up. I don't remember what my dream is. Was. Okay, but. So I'll try to remember a different dream. I can't remember. Do you have any dreams?

[Archer]

I actually woke up during a dream where I was covered in ticks, like making these huge abscesses. On my legs. That's really gross.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Okay, next time I dream, I will remember I'm dreaming.

[Archer]

Did try. Did the mantra, but no outcome.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Well, spoiler alert.

[Rose Rimler]

It didn't work.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I did not. Lucid dream day. Whatever. It didn't work. It didn't work.

[Rose Rimler]

Another flop today.

[Archer]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It sucks. It's not for me, so it's not going great, but I'm not giving up. I'm too curious. I want to know what it feels like to walk around inside my own mind. And soon I start looking around online for things to help me. There's this drug that people talk about called Galantamine. It sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings, but we think it keeps you in REM for longer than normal. And researchers actually found that it can up your chance of having a lucid dream. But it's only really been studied by getting people to take the drug when they wake up at stupid o'clock anyway, while they're doing the technique that we're already doing. Plus, the drug has some side effects, so forget it. There are also masks that you can get for sometimes thousands of dollars, claiming that their lights or sounds can help you, quote, unlock the world of lucidity, where everything is possible. End quote. And the idea behind some of these masks is actually really interesting because there is research that shows that if you, for example, play someone a particular sound, like three beeps while they're awake and doing a set of instructions about becoming lucid when they're dreaming, and then you play that same sound when they're asleep, it could cue you to become lucid in that moment. But when it comes to these masks that you can buy online, very few have actually been tested or shown to work. After the break, we go deep inside the brain to find out how people can control things in their dreams. Welcome back. Today on the show, lucid dreaming. And now let's find out what is happening in our brains as we go on these grand adventures and have a lucid dream. So if you want to know what's going on in someone's brain as they're lucid, you first have to know the moment that that person who is fast asleep has become lucid. But they're asleep. Right? They can't tell you. Well, decades ago, researchers worked out a kind of bonkers way to do this, and I talked about it with Dr. Bashak Turka, a cognitive neuroscientist at Paracita University. So she told me that lucid dreamers will come into A lab tell them to sleep.

[Blythe Terrell]

And if they are having a dream that they're aware of, that a lucid dream, they can send us a signal.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And the BAT signal that researchers chose is that the lucid dreamers would move their eyes all the way to the left and then all the way to the right. And they do that a couple of times. And all the while they'd have sensors on their face and head to detect eye muscle movements and to make sure that they were sleeping.

[Blythe Terrell]

And with this idea, which is, for me, it's incredible, they actually managed to show that sleeping people were actually sending the eye signals to tell I'm having a lucid dream.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

With this bat signal, scientists can now probe what's going on in someone's brain while they're lucid. Which brings us to the story of Bashak and a lucid dreamer, who we'll call ac. AC has narcolepsy, which is a sleep disorder where you fall asleep randomly throughout the day. And for reasons we don't fully understand, it's linked with lucid dreaming.

[Blythe Terrell]

So this illness comes with a superpower. You also become a great lucid dreamer. So he was having a lot of lucid dream, and he would tell us about his adventures in the night.

[I]

I basically spent like one or two hours of my day lucid dreaming.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

This is ac, so for me, it's.

[I]

Like having a second life. So. And I don't usually talk about it because nobody wants to hear about it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Because no one wants to hear about your dream. AC had been involved in some lucid dreaming experiments where he had to do the BAT signal to indicate he was lucid. But he wanted to boldly take lucid dreaming science, where no one had gone before. And Bishak and her colleague were intrigued.

[Blythe Terrell]

So we thought, okay, that's great, so we can maybe do a little experiment on you.

[I]

It was in the afternoon, there was a room free, and it was like, okay, let's try something.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

The plan was simple. Bashak and her colleague would ask him, yes, no questions while he was fast asleep, but lucid. And he would try to answer them, smiling three times for yes and frowning three times for no. And this is something that for years, science had thought was kind of impossible. I mean, sometimes you might ask a partner in the middle of the night, hey, did you take the trash out? And they kind of respond.

[Blythe Terrell]

So they answer and they mumble. They're like. And sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. We call them microarousals. So your brain kind of wakes up.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

For a Second, so if you look at their brain activity, you can see that they're not asleep in that moment. You might have woken them up. We also know that in some of the earlier stages of sleep, you are aware of the awake world, but once you are conked out, dead to the world in deep sleep, or rem, you're not supposed to answer questions. So Bashak and her colleague put sensors all around AC's head and face to measure whether he's asleep and what his mouth muscles are doing. Bashak tells ac, nighty night or whatever scientists say to each other. And AC lays on the lab bed and goes to sleep.

[Blythe Terrell]

But I think we were still a bit naive about. We're like, yeah, let's try. But we didn't really, like. We were like, it might work, but it might not work.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

AC is in deep sleep and they could clearly see it on the senses. But in his dream, he was in an epic battle.

[I]

I was fighting goblins with a sword. Yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

He becomes lucid and signals to Bashak using the bat signal.

[Blythe Terrell]

And then we asked him, for example, some questions.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And here's where it gets weird. AC remembers hearing those questions from within the dream.

[I]

It's like a voice from above. You know, when you're in the station and there's an announcement, but you don't know where it comes from? Just like that.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Baak asks, do you like chocolate?

[I]

Do you like chocolate? And so I smiled three times. Yeah, I like chocolate.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And when Bishak sees the smile, she's not sure it's real.

[Blythe Terrell]

Is he really sleeping? And we were checking the brain activity. He is, but he's responding, right? And she's like, yeah, yeah, he's responding.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

She asks more questions, do you watch football?

[Blythe Terrell]

Do you speak Spanish?

[I]

And actually I was lucid enough to think about, okay, I can say a couple of words, but does that mean that I'm speaking Spanish? No, that doesn't make sense. I'm gonna say no.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So, and you're fighting goblins at the same time.

[I]

Yeah, that's quite epic.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And while AC is having a fine time, Bishak and her colleague were starting to freak out.

[Blythe Terrell]

We were like, do you see what I'm seeing? And she was like, yes. So it was crazy because we were communicating with someone who was dreaming and we were alone in this room and super excited and, you know, like half yelling with excitement and half shocked. I think it was one of the scientifically, the best moments of my life, I would say, when I saw that, no, I felt like we discovered a new element, you know, it felt so like we were so. I think I smiled for a week, nonstop. I was so happy.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And as Bichak is smiling about this discovery in France, other researchers in the U.S. germany and the Netherlands are having similar experiences. In one lab, researchers even asked a Lucid Dreamer, what's 8 minus 6? And while he was asleep and lucid, he responded using the bat signal to indicate 2. After Bishak saw this, she studied it in more lucid dreamers, who, by the way, all had narcolepsy. And she switched up the experiment a little bit. So this time, while they were asleep, they'd hear all of these fake words like ditza and then real words like pizza. And they had to smile three times for a real word and frown three times for a fake word. Now, sometimes they didn't respond at all, but a bunch of times they did, and they answered correctly. But then Bashak noticed something weird. At times, they would answer the question accurately, smile or frown while they weren't having a lucid dream.

[Blythe Terrell]

So we got a bit curious, confused, and excited at the same time.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So then she recruits 22 folks who couldn't lucid dream and also didn't have narcolepsy, and she repeats the experiment.

[Blythe Terrell]

It's crazy. But they were also able to do the task. So they were indeed asleep according to their brain activity, but they were able to respond, wait, they could.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So we could all. So if I went to sleep now and you started asking me, what's a word? Pizza or pizza? Chances are, I would respond, there are chances.

[Blythe Terrell]

It's not all the time, but it looks like there are some transient windows of opening, let's say, in which participants respond and then they stop responding.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But the thing is, the lucid dreamers were answering the questions a lot more often.

[Blythe Terrell]

Yes. So if you are lucid dreaming, you tend to respond way more.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So this tells us that even when people aren't lucid dreaming, there are these small windows where parts of our brain can listen to the outside world around us and can even figure out whether a word is real or made up, which upends what many of us had thought about what was going on while we were sleeping. But there was something particularly special about what was going on in the brain of someone who was having a lucid dream. And that meant that those windows where they could respond to the awake world, they were open more often. And in Bashak's study, she saw an important clue as to why this might.

[Blythe Terrell]

Be when you're lucid. In our study, what we see is that your Brain activity is more complex, more rich, and more rapid compared to when they were not lucid, but not.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

So rich that they woke up.

[Blythe Terrell]

Exactly. It's like, rich but not so rich.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Other research is helping us to explain how we can even have a lucid dream in the first place. We think a brain area called the prefrontal cortex is important. So normally, when you are dreaming and not lucid, the activity in this part of the brain winds down, which Bishak says might explain why weird things can happen in your dream. And that's fine.

[Blythe Terrell]

In a dream, you might have your mom that transforms to a cat, and you wouldn't be shocked. You'll be like, oh, yeah, my mom's a cat now. It's okay. It's because probably your frontal cortex is a bit deactivated, so you cannot. You don't get shocked by these.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But we think, based on limited evidence, that while people are lucidly dreaming, this critical area of your brain is more.

[Blythe Terrell]

Awake, which allows you to detect anomalies in your dream and be like, oh, this is a dream. Because this doesn't make sense. This wouldn't happen in everyday life.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And because lucid dreaming is this hybrid state of consciousness, you know, between being asleep and awake, researchers like Bashak now want to use lucid dreaming to help us understand what consciousness is at all. Which remains, according to one review, quote, one of the largest lacunas in scientific knowledge. And to save you the time, I Googled it, and lacuna means unfilled space. And just quickly. Some lucid dreams can actually be felt throughout your whole body. Like, if you ask lucid dreamers to hold their breath in a dream, you can see that air stops flowing through your nose and your blood oxygen levels drop just slightly. In another study, someone had an orgasm in their lucid dream, and researchers could measure more blood flowing to her vagina. So how close are we at science versus to having what she's having? A week has gone by, and by now have we unlocked this hybrid state of consciousness. Everyone say, yay. If you've had a lucid dream. One, two, three. Mm hmm. No luck? No luck?

[Rose Rimler]

No.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Blythe, you actually have this superpower. Has this supercharged your superpower?

[Archer]

Uh, zero percent supercharged. Like, I feel like it is actively draining my will to live.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, no. What's going on?

[Archer]

If I wake up in the middle of the night, it is very, very hard for me to go back to sleep. I feel like my brain, once it's awake, it's like, ooh, I'm awake. Would you like to think about 10,000 problems or like four weird things you said yesterday, maybe five. We can keep going. Inside my head, I am just like, yeah, no, I was like, I actually do not think this is probably worth it for me. Wendy, how have you. How has it been going for you?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Something strange happened. So let me tell you. I woke up and had been in the middle of this dream where me and my. Where there was this sort of creepy oval. I'll just jump in and spare you the pain of listening to too many of my dreams. So basically what happened is that I woke up from this dream where a bunch of bonkers stuff is going on. I was getting attacked by. And just as Denim study suggested, I tried to think of all of the wacky things that clearly made this a dream. But in that moment in the middle of the night, I couldn't think of any reason why it was obviously a dream. And then I went back to sleep. The next night, another dream. This time I'm in a tunnel on the beach about to drown, and I've got my laptop. I wake up and, well, as I told Blythe and Rose and the same thing happens. What about this was clearly a dream. And I'm like, well, there could be a tunnel. I could. I could have brought my laptop to the beach. And the second time it happened, I realized maybe I was sleeping the whole time.

[Rose Rimler]

What do you mean?

[Archer]

Like, you think you were trying to lucid dream as part of your dream? Like in your dream you were happy?

[Alex]

What?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

I think. I think maybe both times I didn't actually wake up.

[Archer]

You just dreamt that you woke up and you dreamt that you tried to lucid dream.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Well, does it still matter if I was asleep the whole time? This is known as a false awakening. And curiously, academics have actually written about this phenomenon where your dreams try to convince you that they're actually not dreams. AC says for him this happens all the time. It's the people in his loop lucid dreams who tell him this is not a dream.

[I]

Like, what the. This is ridiculous. And I don't understand why the dream tries so hard to convince me that it's reality.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And Denim and Bashak told me that when you think about the neuroscience of lucid dreaming, in a weird way, this kind of makes sense.

[AC]

The state of the brain is firing in when you're in a lucid dream. It's like a tightrope walk between normal waking consciousness and normal non lucid dreaming. But that's a difficult state for the brain to maintain. It almost like it wants to tend towards either just waking up or falling into non lucidity.

[Blythe Terrell]

So maybe it's a way your brain to get back to this natural state. But yeah, I don't know. That's very insane that your dream characters would tell you this.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Exactly. It's completely insane. Okay, our next question. Can we use lucid dreaming to help us in our lives to be happier people? Well, in one survey, many folks said that having a lucid dream helped them when they were feeling depressed or low. One person said that after a lucid dream, they could have this happy and beautiful experience that would stay with them for days. Another said quote, it can kickstart your day and keep you warm. And a small study found that the day after people had lucid dreams, on average, they felt less stressed. But be warned, if you're waking yourself up in the middle of the night to try lucid dreaming, we know that messing with your sleep can be bad for your mental health.

[Archer]

Just remember, Blythe, inside my head, I am just like.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

And curiously, some research has actually found a link between being depressed and having more lucid dreams. We're not sure why and just quickly, the last thing we want to look into is whether lucid dreaming can help people who have horrendous nightmares, which if this happens to you regularly, it can be awful, making you anxious, having difficulty sleeping. And so there's been this idea for a while now that if you can have a lucid dream, it's like, of.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

Course, yeah, with a lucid dream you have a nightmare, you can do things, change it, order, transform it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Brigitte Holzinger is a psychologist at the Medical University of Vienna, and she has studied this herself. She's recruited people who were having terrible nightmares about being assaulted, run over by a train, hunted by a monster. She'd teach them how to lucid dream. And she told me that it really did help some of her patients.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

Some woke themselves up, others would turn around and face the monster.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

There was one person who used to have these really frightening dreams of being chased where they had to escape. But after learning to lucid dream, they told Geeta, now that I know that.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

I'm dreaming, I would be stupid if I would stop this or change it. It's much better than every James Bond movie I've ever.

[Blythe Terrell]

Oh, wow.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Now they could have fun with it. Now that there's true realization, it's just a dream.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

Yeah, that was all very impressive and.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Wonderful, but unfortunately, the evidence that lucid dreaming can help loads of people conquer their nightmares, it isn't so impressive and wonderful. We now have several rather small studies, including Geeta's. And there's a new one that's been making headlines that show that after getting people to try lucid dreaming, they do report fewer nightmares. But these studies combine lucid dreaming with intensive therapy, and it's really hard to tease out what's doing the heavy lifting here. Plus, surveys find that even when people become lucid in their nightmares, they often can't change what's happening. So they'll be stuck in this terrifying dream. And just knowing this is a dream, it's not real. That isn't necessarily that helpful. In fact, in a survey including more than 30 US veterans with PTSD who could lucid dream, only three said that they felt relieved to know that they'd been dreaming. Many just felt anxious about it. So even this superpower has its kryptonite, its limitations. But despite that, just like Superman, I still wanted to fly. I switched up the lucid dreaming method a little bit just so I could sleep better, but kept trying. And still the closest I'd gotten is realizing that I'm in a dream, but then getting too excited and waking up before I could do anything. I talked to Geeta about it, who gave me one final piece of advice.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

Almost everybody experiences that. You get so exhilarated. Oh, my God, this is now happening.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Boom.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

And you get up, you wake up.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

Yes, I know. Of course, I had those as well. To me, it is like learning how to skate. You have to get your balance. Eventually, you will be able to keep. Keep that balance and ride that wave. Just be patient and persistent.

[Blythe Terrell]

All right? All right.

[Brigitte Holzinger]

But it'll happen if you keep doing it.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Blythe Rose, it's the end of the episode. Everyone say yay. If you had a lucid dream. One, two, three. Yay. Really? Wow.

[Rose Rimler]

It worked.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

You did. I had one. Oh, my God.

[Archer]

Wendy.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

What? I know. I did it. I did it.

[Archer]

Oh, my God.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Do you wanna hear the voice message I made straight after? Yeah.

[Archer]

Yeah.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

Oh, my gosh. I just had a lucid dream. I just did it. I just did it. I just did it. I was just having a nap, and I just went to sleep. And in the dream, I was lying on my bed and my entire ponytail came off. And I was looking at it going, ew. And then I was like, no, wait, this is a dream. Ponytails don't just pop off. This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream. And then I put the ponytail down on the bed, and I just felt it like how everyone says you just feel because feel things feel so real. And it did. And it did. And it did. And it felt. It felt like my hair. It felt like my hair. All the little strands, all the little.

[Blythe Terrell]

The little bits of hair.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It felt like that. It felt like that I did it. Aw.

[Archer]

How did you feel when you woke up?

[Wendy Zuckerman]

It felt awesome. It felt awesome.

[Archer]

I do love that the lopped off ponytail was enough of the like unreality dream world, you know, like it was. The chopped off ponytail was like weird enough.

[Rose Rimler]

Yeah. Not taking your laptop into it. Cave on the beach, that was par for the course.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

But a haircut?

[Rose Rimler]

That would never happen.

[Wendy Zuckerman]

That's Science Verses this episode has 99 citations. So if you want to read more about the sides of lucid dreaming, then you just need to go to our show notes and click on our transcript and there's a link and you'll see all that wonderful science there awaiting you. If you want to tell us about your lucid dreaming experiences, I would love to hear it. You can find us on Instagram. We're at ScienceBS and I'm on TikTok. Wendy Zuckerman this episode has been produced by me, Wendy Zuckerman with help from Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, Joel Werner and Akedi Foster. Keys we're edited by Blythe Terrell Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard Mix and sound design by Sam Baer Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka so Wiley, Peter Leonard and Emma Munger. Thanks to all of the researchers that we spoke to for this episode including Dr. Karen Conkerly, Dr. Benjamin Bard and Professor Ken Paul. Also a big thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you are listening on Spotify then follow us and tap the bell icon so you'll get notifications when new episodes come out. And if you like the show, please give us a five star review. It really helps people find the show. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time. Radiotopia from PRX.