2-Minute Neuroscience: Lucid Dreaming

In this video, I discuss the neuroscience behind lucid dreaming, which occurs when someone who is dreaming becomes aware they are dreaming. Learn more on my website: https://neuroscientificallychallenged... If you're looking for accessible and entertaining ways to learn more about the brain, check out my books: 📚Your Brain, Explained: What Neuroscience Reveals About Your Brain and its Quirks: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Exp... 📚Bizarre: The Most Peculiar Cases of Human Behavior and What They Tell Us About How the Brain Works: https://www.amazon.com/Bizarre-Peculi... TRANSCRIPT: Lucid dreaming occurs when someone who is dreaming becomes aware they are dreaming. In some cases, people report being able to make decisions and manipulate the content of their dreams during a lucid dreaming episode. While there has historically been some skepticism about lucid dreaming, researchers have confirmed the occurrence of lucid dreaming through various methods. For example, one approach involves instructing individuals to make specific eye movements upon entering a lucid dreaming state. Using this method, scientists have observed lucid dreamers making the specific eye movements as instructed, even though their brain activity indicated they were asleep. These types of methods have helped to verify lucid dreaming as a real sleep phenomenon. Neuroscientists, however, are still investigating what happens in the brain to allow lucid dreams to occur. Most episodes of lucid dreaming happen during rapid eye movement, or REM sleep. Some evidence suggests that lucid dreams can occur when the brain becomes highly activated during REM sleep—leading to threshold levels of awareness—even though overall brain activity remains within levels that are consistent with sleep. Although the research is preliminary, neuroimaging evidence suggests areas of the brain that are highly active during metacognition, or the awareness of one’s own thinking, might also be more active during lucid dreaming. Researchers are exploring ways to induce lucid dreams in order to make them easier to study, and one method that has shown some promise is the use of drugs that increase levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, specifically a type of drug called an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. The mechanism by which these drugs might facilitate lucid dreaming is still unclear, but researchers hope to uncover it with further studies. REFERENCES: Ableidinger S, Holzinger B. Sleep Paralysis and Lucid Dreaming-Between Waking and Dreaming: A Review about Two Extraordinary States. J Clin Med. 2023 May 12;12(10):3437. doi: 10.3390/jcm12103437. PMID: 37240545; PMCID: PMC10218966. Baird B, Mota-Rolim SA, Dresler M. The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2019 May;100:305-323. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.03.008. Epub 2019 Mar 14. PMID: 30880167; PMCID: PMC6451677. Baird B, Tononi G, LaBerge S. Lucid dreaming occurs in activated rapid eye movement sleep, not a mixture of sleep and wakefulness. Sleep. 2022 Apr 11;45(4):zsab294. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsab294. PMID: 35167686.