45 years of scientific research has seen lucid dreaming transfrom from a 'new age' myth most academics doubted even existed to an empirically verified psychologial phenomena. In this time, the first rigorous lucid dream induction techniques have been developed, participants have demonstrated the ability to communicate with researchers from inside the dream state, and lucid dreaming has been deiscovered to be an effective treatment for psychological conditions likes PTSD.
When compared with the majority of scientific disciplines, many of which have been investigated for centuries, lucid dreaming research is still in its infancy. But with growing interest in the area, new devleopments are being made all the time, uncovering more effective ways to induce lucid dreams, and discovering the many uses and benefits of being a lucid dreamer.
Follow the links below to see a summary of the research and their findings.
The German research team collected together the results of 30 different studies into lucid dremaing to compare the effectiveness of different lucid dream inducton techniques. They identified the most effective approach was by combining elements of the different tehcniques together, such as Tholeys combined technique
The seminal paper from Dr LaBerge, which for the first time demonstrated the existence of the lucid dreaming state within a laboratory environment. The results have gone on to be confirmed by many other researchers and lucid dreaming is now widely accepted as a psychological phenomenon by most academic researchers.
This robust study, with 121 participants, tested galantamine vs placebo at two different doses (4mg and 8mg) on consecutive nights. Between the two nights, 57% of participants were successful in inducing a lucid dream.
