The mystery of dreams and especially lucid dreams continues to baffle scientists. People who have the ability to lucid dream can experience awareness during their dreams by “re-awakening” some functions of their waking consciousness. Some of the lucid dreamers can even take control and change the course of a dream with intention in the dream world. During lucid dreams, the person becomes aware that they are dreaming while remaining physiologically asleep. They are completely immersed within a dream environment that often appear strikingly realistic to them. A study in 2018 led by Dr Benjamin Baird, a researcher at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had found that frequent lucid dreaming is associated with increased functional connectivity between the anterior prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal association areas, regions that are normally deactivated during sleep. The secrets of lucid dreaming continue to intrigue scientists who believe that a deeper understanding of the phenomena can unlock information about human consciousness.

Speaking to The Guardian, Baird said that there is a grouping of higher-level features, which seem to be very closely associated with what we think of as human consciousness, which comes back in that switch from a non-lucid to a lucid dream. Baird said that there is something to be learned in looking at that distinction.

A 2009 study published in the Sleep journal had suggested that lucid dreams involve an increased level of self-awareness and reflection. The experience provides a better sense of agency and an ability to think about the more distant past and future. It provides a significantly different mental experience from the typically passive state of non-lucid dreams. The data collected by the scientists showed that lucid dreaming constitutes a hybrid state of consciousness with definable and measurable differences from waking and from REM sleep, particularly in frontal areas.

Hence, it is believed that further studies of lucid dreams may bring in important insights that could help scientists to distinguish the specific regions involved in heightened self-awareness and agency. However, the challenge remains for scientists, since it is not so easy for a subject to experience lucid dreaming inside a noisy MRI scanner.

Can Lucid Dreaming Help Unravel Mysteries of the Human Brain?

The secrets of lucid dreaming continue to intrigue scientists who believe that a deeper understanding of the phenomena can unlock information about human consciousness.