We usually can only tell the difference between dreams and reality when we’re awake—yet every so often, we may find it possible to distinguish between the two while asleep. This occurrence is known as a lucid dream, and happens when a dreamer separates part of their awareness from the context of the dream, allowing them to realize that they are dreaming.
Over half of the population experiences a lucid dream at least once in their lifetime, but only about 20 percent report having them regularly. Regardless of whether or not one can achieve lucid sleep spontaneously, researchers believe that all individuals are capable of inducing it. Instigating lucid dreams may be in everyone’s best interests, as they can result in beneficial side effects.
Dr. Patrick Bourke, a senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln in Lincoln, UK, and Hannah Shaw, a University of Lincoln student and Dr. Bourke’s research assistant, found that lucid dreamers are more adept problem-solvers during their waking hours. In their study ‘Spontaneous Lucid Dreaming Frequency and Waking Insight’ which was published the journal Dreaming, researchers divided 68 participants into three groups based on the frequency of their lucid dreams. The subjects took a test designed to measure insight, which the study defines as “a clear and sudden understanding of how to reach a problem’s solution… thought to occur when a person forms novel connections between concepts.”
Researchers then administered what is known as the Remote Association Test, which provides participants with three unrelated words and asked them to find a fourth word that would connect them. For example, if the three words were “aid,” “rubber,” and “wagon,” the solution would be “band.” On average, frequent lucid dreamers accurately solved 25 percent more of the test problems correctly than others, indicating that there is a link between lucidity and better mental functions.
“The ability to make outside-the-box associations is also the process that allows them to overcome the habitual response of accepting the dream world as reality,” Shaw explains.
Previous studies have shown frequent lucid dreamers to do better at selective attention, decision making, taking risks, and being creative. It is also believed that lucid dreamers are field independent learners, meaning that they are more analytically perceptive, less affected by criticism, function more autonomously, and are better at seeing details separately from the whole.
Bourke and Shaw suggest in their study that “there may be perceptual or cognitive strengths that predispose people to spontaneous lucid dreaming,” and that the development of a cognitive skill may lead to increased lucidity. The results of another study published in Sport Psychologist show the converse to be true, finding that those who practiced motor skills while dreaming were better at doing them while awake. If there is indeed a symbiotic relationship between lucidity and cognitive ability, as the data indicates, perhaps we can all try to assist one by working on the other.
Attempt lucid dreaming, and see what problems you can solve now that you couldn’t before!
Methods to induce lucid dreams include:
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming (MILD) | Wake Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD) | Wake Back to Bed | Diamond Method Mediation