Tadas Stumbrys

Vilnius University · Institute of Psychology

This article reports the first systematic study on lucid nightmares—terrifying lucid dreams with a lack of dream control. An online survey was completed by 634 participants, of whom 574 had had previous lucid dream experience. According to the reports of lucid dreamers, less than half of them had experienced a lucid nightmare, and only 1% of them c...

Lucid dreams—dreams in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming—are generally positive and empowering experiences, for which a variety of benefits have been demonstrated, for example, alleviating nightmares and insomnia, improving motor skills, contributing to creativity and personal growth. Recently, however, certain concerns were raised...

The present study explored the relationship between lucidity in dreams (awareness of dreams while dreaming) and mindfulness during wakefulness, also considering meditation as a possible moderating variable. An online survey was completed by 528 respondents, of whom 386 (73.1%) had lucid dream experiences. The reported frequency of lucid dreams was...

Motor practice in lucid dreams is a form of mental rehearsal where the dreamer can consciously rehearse motor skills in the dream state while being physically asleep. A previous pilot study showed that practice in lucid dreams can improve subsequent performance. This study aimed to replicate those findings with a different task (finger-tapping) and...

Lucid dreams, in which the dreamers are aware that they are dreaming, can be a source of spiritual and mystical experiences. This empirical study aimed to explore the relationship between lucid dreaming and spirituality, taking into account the role of mystical lucid dream experience, in an online sample of 471 respondents, 95% of whom had lucid dr...

In a previous questionnaire study with German professional athletes, we showed that the prevalence of lucid dreaming in athletes is 57% and that about 5% of athletes use their lucid dreams to practice sport skills while asleep. The present study applied a Japanese translation of the same questionnaire to a Japanese sample of college athletes to exp...

Lucid dreamers, who become aware within their dreams that they are dreaming, are able to use this state of consciousness for self-exploration and self-development, including the possibilities of therapeutic work. Preliminary evidence suggests that lucid dreaming may contribute to mental health. This explanatory sequential mixed methods study explor...

Anecdotal evidence that lucid dreaming might contribute to mental and physical health has been widely reported in the literature. Empirical research, though, is scarce. A brief questionnaire eliciting self-perceived benefits of lucid dreaming on mental and physical health had been completed by 386 participants who had lucid dream experiences. About...

Lucid dreaming, the fact that one knows that they are dreaming while dreaming, provides a unique paradigm for the study of the distinctive psychophysiological state of dreaming and consciousness. Unfortunately, frequent lucid dreamers are rare and techniques should be established to reliably induce lucid dreams. Here the induction of lucid dreams w...

Lucid dreaming offers many opportunities to study consciousness processes. However, laboratory research in this area is limited because frequent lucid dreamers are rare. Several studies demonstrated that different methods of induction could increase the number of lucid dreams. In four field studies, a combination of a wake-up-back-to-bed (WBTB) sle...

Despite the fact that lucid dream research and transpersonal psychology have common grounds, overlapping interests and a great potential to contribute to each other, the two fields over the recent decades evolved rather separately. The present article aims to renew the mutual dialogue by introducing the recent advancements of lucid dream research t...

Dreaming is a very creative state of mind. Lucid dreamers – who can become aware in their dreams that they are dreaming – have an advantage of directly tapping into the creative potentials of the dreaming mind. This study explored the relationship between lucid dreaming and creativity. Twenty lucid dreamers were asked to accomplish a creative gener...

In lucid dreams, the dreamer is aware that one is dreaming; however, this does not necessary imply that the dreamer has complete control over the ongoing dream narrative. The present study explored the extent to which the lucid dreamers are able to control their dreams, as well as underlying factors. An online survey was completed by 528 respondent...

Lucid dreamers may encounter not only friendly but also threatening dream figures in their lucid dreams. The present study of German-speaking lucid dreamers explored the frequency of threatening dream figures in lucid dreams and how lucid dreamers responded to them. An online questionnaire was completed by 528 respondents, of whom 386 had lucid dre...

In lucid dreams the dreamers are aware that they are dreaming and can use this state for a variety of different purposes. In an online survey, 528 respondents, of whom 386 were lucid dreamers, were asked how often have they used different applications of lucid dreams lately and how did this influence their mood upon awakening. According to the repo...

Dreaming plays a role in all major world religions, so it was expected that dream recall frequency was positively related to a measure of spirituality (“Transpersonal Trust”). The findings of the online survey (N = 528) indicate that there is a relationship between spirituality and dream recall, possibly mediated by mindfulness skills. Two factors...

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore the potentials for motor learning in a special state of consciousness – so called lucid dreams (dreams in which the dreamers are aware that they are dreaming): its prevalence among athletes, facilitating methods and effectiveness. The contents of this dissertation are structured in the followi...

Two exploratory online experiments were carried out to investigate the interaction between dream characters and the dream ego in lucid dreams. Lucid dreamers were recruited via an Internet page (http://klartraum.de). In Experiment 1, 15 participants (26.5 ± 10.2 years; 4 female, 11 male) provided 27 dream reports in which they asked dream character...

In lucid dreams the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. Although such dreams are not that uncommon, many aspects of lucid dream phenomenology are still unclear. An online survey was conducted to gather data about lucid dream origination, duration, active or passive participation in the dream, planned actions for lucid dreams, and other phe...

It has been suggested that the ability of lucid dreaming is positively associated with both mental health and physical fitness, which in turn seem to also be interrelated. The present study of a sample of sport science students (N = 72) investigated the relationships between lucid dream frequency, mental well-being and physical self-concept. Marsh’...

The relationship between time in dreams and real time has intrigued scientists for centuries. The question if actions in dreams take the same time as in wakefulness can be tested by using lucid dreams where the dreamer is able to mark time intervals with prearranged eye movements that can be objectively identified in EOG recordings. Previous resear...

Lucid dream and nightmare frequencies vary greatly between individuals and reliable instruments are needed to assess these differences. The present study aimed to examine the reliability of eight-point scales for measuring lucid dream and nightmare frequencies. The scales were administered twice (with a four-week interval) to 93 sport students. A r...

This book by a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and practitioner aims to integrate two approaches to dream practice – lucid dreaming and dream yoga. Wallace introduces methods promoting lucidity from both traditions and fosters further dialogue between East and West. Wallace, B. A. (2012). Dreaming Yourself Awake – Lucid Dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga fo...

Lucid dreams – dreams in which the dreamer is aware that is dreaming – most frequently occur during REM sleep, yet there is some evidence suggesting that lucid dreaming can occur during NREM sleep as well. By conduct- ing a sleep laboratory study on lucid dreams, we found two possible instances of lucidity during NREM sleep which are reported here....

The notions of continuity and discontinuity are discussed in relation to the phenomenon of lucid dreaming (awareness of dreaming while dreaming). Lucid dreams seem to be more dreamlike than non-lucid dreams, both in terms of their content and REM sleep physiology, and are thus more discontinuous with our waking experience. They also seem to represe...

In dreams we usually interact with other dream characters that seem to talk and behave logically. Lucid dreamers, who are aware that they are dreaming during the dream, can have deliberate conversations with their dream characters and ask them to accomplish specific tasks. Previous studies have shown that dream characters can be creative and ingeni...

Mental practice is the cognitive rehearsal of a motor task in the absence of overt physical movement. A different and rather unknown kind of mental rehearsal is practice in lucid dreams. Within lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to control the ongoing dream content and for athletes it is possible to use the dream state to deliberately practice sport...

Both historical accounts and modern research suggest that dreams may contribute to creativity and problem solving, however no research has been done to investigate creative problem solving in lucid dreams – in which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. This pilot and exploratory study explored the feasibility of such research. It was al...