EP65: Lucid Dreaming Insights from Dr. Tadas Stumbrys

Dr. Tadas Stumbrys is a lecturer and a researcher in dreams, consciousness, mindfulness, and transpersonal psychology, with a particular interest in lucid dreaming. he has a PhD in Sports Science in which he conducted doctoral research on applications of lucid dreams in sports. In this episode, we talk about some of his interests in research and experiences with dreams.

Are dream characters a part of our psyche, or can they be independent beings? What research needs to be done to study the nature of lucid dreaming properly? Who is currently studying this? Let's talk about it.

Dr. Tadas Stumbrys Website

Key publications
Stumbrys, T. (2021). The luminous night of the soul: The relationship between lucid dreaming and spirituality. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 40(2), 64-74.

Stumbrys, T. (2018). Bridging lucid dreaming research and transpersonal psychology: Toward transpersonal studies of lucid dreams. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 50(2), 176-193.

Stumbrys, T., Erlacher, D., & Malinowski, P. (2015). Meta-awareness during day and night: The relationship between mindfulness and lucid dreaming. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 34(4), 415-433.

Stumbrys, T., Erlacher, D., Schädlich, M., & Schredl, M. (2012). Induction of lucid dreams: A systematic review of evidence. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1456-1475. 

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;27
Speaker 1 (amina)
Welcome back to the Dreamworld podcast, your favorite interdimensional podcast that bridges dreams, science and spirituality. If you're new to lucid dreaming and you want to learn how to get into it, you should really check out our online course Linked in the description. Because 100% of our students have increased their frequency of lucid dreams, we also have a discord and a bunch of other ways to get involved in the community.

00;00;23;02 - 00;00;43;21
Speaker 1
One of my favorite things about this podcast is talking to researchers whose publications and studies I've been reading about for years, and now I get to pick their brains about the things they've been studying. Today's guest is Dr. Stephen Breeze, who is a lecturer and researcher in the Field of Dreams Consciousness Mindfulness and Transpersonal psychology. He has a particular interest in lucid dreaming.

00;00;43;25 - 00;01;01;20
Speaker 1
He has a PhD in Sports Science in which he conducted doctoral research on the application of lucid dreaming in sports. In this episode, we talk about some of his interests within the research and experiences with lucid dreaming. So please welcome my wonderful guest, Dr. Stephen Breeze.

00;01;01;23 - 00;01;24;27
Speaker 2 (Tadas Stumbrys)
Thanks for inviting me. I'm very pleased to be here to share a bit about myself and maybe about my research. Well, I had that interest in dreams and consciousness and the unconscious mind for quite a while, but the modern, natural and lucid dream I have maybe some flashes of lucidity during my adolescence. Like, you're having a nightmare.  I need to wake up from that. That was not the full blown lucidity, and I got into lucid dreaming when I started out my masters in consciousness and transpersonal psychology, and it was back in 2008. So far more of its inception and so on. So there was not that much information about this dream. And at the time I was looking for some topic to do research and looking into that it was topics and I somehow came across lucid dreaming.
 
I never heard about it before and I got really fascinating. Wow. Is it possible to become aware and dream? And I decided to give a try. And what's interesting to me, maybe it was beginner's luck, I got lucid on my very first time. But I try it and I use the WILD technique when you are transitioning without losing your conscious awareness in between.

So right from the beginning I was lucid and one of the things what I just tried to do in that my first lucid was just to play with my senses. So that's things like there was a table and it stood and it looked like an ordinary wooden table. So then they shouted, I have my wires. And then also they said some food.

They found some dried fruits and and it is just like the real thing. So I was really blown away by that because generally the following have a live stream experience. It may look like our dreams are not as real as our waking reality. But then your own eyes think that it's just as real and gives you some insights about your waking perception, your waking planet.

00;02;55;00 - 00;03;20;23
Speaker 2
And then as long as once I woke up from that, my very first lucid dream, I was very clear that that's something that I wanted to do research on so that my master's research on lucid dreaming and creativity that I wanted to extend. That's all I would why I could do research on lucid dreaming and then I found the place to work and Germany and my supervisor was a sports scientist.

So I also had to accommodate. That's what my PHD was about, applications of lucid dreams in sports. And we also looked at various ways how we can facilitate the lucid dreaming and efficacy of different techniques and so on. I've been in that lucid Dreamer research field form for the last 15 years. One of my major areas of interest perhaps is that more applied science or what are the potential of lucid dreaming and how can we use that for our development, our growth Self-Transcendence on all other things?

00;03;57;05 - 00;04;19;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's wonderful. I love how you had that moment of becoming lucid and realizing like how amazing and how much potential there is there. So in your applications of lucid dreaming in sports, how is this mental practice inside of a lucid dream? Cause more effective performance in waking life. What's happening in our brains that allows us to use our lucid dreams to practice skills and such.

00;04;19;10 - 00;05;01;00
Speaker 2
So our brains, some talent and physiology of our processing actions when we dream in a very similar way as we actually will physically do the action. So the same motor areas of the brain that activate it and then that are also reflecting changes, for instance, in our breathing and the heart rhythm and and so on. So in essence, it's a very physical, physiological state, whether you're doing something in the lucid dream or whether you're doing like an actual physical practice, one of the ways which perhaps can explain why the practice induced dreams can be efficient and then obviously it can give you much more flexibility so you can slow down time or also you can do that inspirations. You can look into yourself like from a third person's perspective on the natural answer, on the that of different things. And that's it's a great place for explorations and trying things a slightly different way.

00;05;15;05 - 00;05;21;23
Speaker 1
What type of athletes have you found through your studies that have benefited through using lucid dreams to practice?

00;05;21;25 - 00;05;46;17
Speaker 2
Well, we did this like a one watch survey where we looked into athletes from various sports and we asked whether they have lucid dreams, whether they practicing sports and lucid dreams. And one of the findings was that it's not very popular. Why? You have like rates of lucid dreaming in professional athletes just about the same as in general population, but on a few percent of them trying to practice their sports and lucid dreams.But the vast majority of those who practice, they do feel that the performance improves because of that practice. And those dreams.

00;05;54;15 - 00;06;17;11
Speaker 1
Make sense to me. The more we do something like a hobby or a sport, you know, if we're dedicated to it, chances are we're going to dream about it. So if you become lucid, we can really use that for practice because there's some visualization research on how visualizing things can help you practice. And in my opinion, lucid dreaming is like visualizing times ten because you're feeling it as well and experiencing it.

00;06;17;13 - 00;06;27;21
Speaker 2
It really gives you like a virtual reality way full embodied virtual reality with all your dream body. And it feels, as I said, it wasn't just just the real thing.

00;06;27;23 - 00;06;45;06
Speaker 1
It's actually even better because, you know, when you're lucid, I can't hurt myself. So I can do this hard stunt or this trick or whatever. And even if I fall, I'm not actually going to have the consequences of falling and messing up in waking life. What other questions have you explored in your research that fascinate you?

00;06;45;13 - 00;07;14;12
Speaker 2
Quite a lot. I love the idea that's always fascinated me in that creative science of lucid dreaming. And we also have some that it would be such. One fascinating topic for me was always those dream characters, those other people, and now dreams and lucid events. You can go and talk with them and obviously while you can notice that there are different types of of those dream characters and some looking a bit like they're like just a part of dream scene that sometimes I'm calling them like zombies slides.

00;07;14;12 - 00;07;37;02
Speaker 2
But then there are some dream figures that they're really knowledgeable. And then as my first thought on creativity was that we ask lucid dreamers, ask those known as little looking dream figures, those dream gods for some insight answers to either logical puzzles or more creative tasks, and seems that those dream figures can really give you a very creative answer.

00;07;37;02 - 00;08;11;05
Speaker 2
But we struggle a little bit with logic, and then we also did another study where we ask those dream figures and lucid dreams just to do math. And the performance was so-so. It was like, I don't know, but I was full. Children also. They were quite struggling with a lot of metrics. But on the other hand, I mean, what's also interesting, looking for instance, for that research with Lucid, we must we asked the dream figures to guess like a number and that dream and thinks about and usually we use like fingers dream of hands to the fingers and the back and then asking the dream characters to guess.

00;08;11;05 - 00;08;33;29
Speaker 2
And then we'll also trying to reverse that situation where Dream character thinks about a certain number and then dream up, tries to guess that number and what that research shows. That is why the strong overlap between, let's say, a mind of dream ego, that's your dream character, right? And the dream and other than character. So that's where the chance to guess a number was about 10%.

00;08;34;06 - 00;09;05;10
Speaker 2
So the guess at the 6% percent success rate. So it was much higher than chance and it worked in both directions. And then there was another interesting study when other researchers looked into thinking, because, you know, if you're trying to kill yourself, it doesn't relate to what someone else did was more goals. What they also tried to do that they knew something was just asking too much to tickle themselves and then other characters and while that difference in self-dealing and thinking of other what's present than waking sleep was not present in the elusive dream.

00;09;05;10 - 00;09;31;29
Speaker 2
So that distinction between yourself and the other dream character is not that clear. Even if it looks like those characters have their own personality and then they can act in some unpredictable ways, and then different those other characters, the like parts of yourself. What's also interesting, for instance, and one of the things we looked into are not those friendly characters that tickle you, but the threatening dream characters a dream.

00;09;31;29 - 00;09;57;17
Speaker 2
And then we look, what are the strategies? How do Dreamers deal with those threatening characters? Because that's some are just running away, flank away, or sort of trying to escape that unpleasant situation while others are more engaging in a more constructive behavior. So they face that certain character, try to resolve the issue or talk for them. If you try something, then you can see that in many cases that character will no longer be threatening.

00;09;57;17 - 00;10;19;01
Speaker 2
But that maybe they just want something to shift. And what was interesting and that's the did that an interesting pattern emerge that those lucid dreamers who are more proficient ones, they tend to approach those dream characters with a more constructive way. So they will engage in dialog and trying to solve that situation and they will have a much lower proportion of those threatening dream characters and their dreams.

00;10;19;02 - 00;10;47;26
Speaker 2
On another one, those people will have more frequent nightmares. They are usually trying to escape from those situations. And then we also have models threatening dream characters in their dreams. So one of our hypothesis is that perhaps those threatening dream characters, we have some representations of your in POV, some of your inner conflict, and if you are trying to escape them, write them, dissertations try to repeat, and those dreams might become more nightmarish.

00;10;48;03 - 00;11;11;07
Speaker 2
On the other hand, if you're trying to engage with them and try to understand that that is a particular message that they want to see to you. So in this case as well, then you can resolve in a conflict within the lucid dream space, even without bringing it into your conscious awareness, what exactly was that part? What the start of my inner conflicts.

00;11;11;10 - 00;11;21;27
Speaker 2
But maybe I can just hug them. I have to make peace with that part of myself. So that's another very interesting topic for myself, those dream figures and lucid dreams.

00;11;21;29 - 00;11;40;05
Speaker 1
And I also love interacting with dream characters and dream figures and asking them questions and things like that. It's so fascinating to me and I've noticed that some dream characters are clearly parts of me, and some of them feel like they're just their own separate entity aside for me, and they're so intelligent. So it's an interesting area of study.

00;11;40;06 - 00;11;50;14
Speaker 1
How easy or difficult is it to find lucid dreamers that are capable of doing these tasks and math problems and answering these questions successfully from within the dream?

00;11;50;21 - 00;12;11;08
Speaker 2
It is challenging, obviously depends what type of research I do. If you're doing research in a sleep, number one, you want to bring someone suddenly, for instance, can confirm that they're lucid with eye movements. Then it's always true because if you look at the general population, those people who can reduce dreams multiple times per week that are just about 1% of them.

00;12;11;08 - 00;12;34;19
Speaker 2
So how to get them in? Even if you will get them to a sleep laboratory, then that is also maybe not that high success rate that they will continue to dream and then they will do what they are asked to do. So it is difficult. It's it's a bit easier of more those field online studies where just you are asking people to do a particular type of task at their home in that usual environment.

00;12;34;19 - 00;12;50;26
Speaker 2
And then obviously you are not that geographically constricted because it might be like a global state. And that's one of one of the ways of how we're doing this research. Just on carbon access to larger proportion of Dreamers across the world.

00;12;50;28 - 00;13;07;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, the online stuff is great. I participated in the ones you sent me and it's been super interesting. I love seeing more people take interest in this research. I have quite a few lucid dreams per week, so I realize that that's more frequent than most people. And you know, I've been lucid dreaming my whole life and I dedicate my life to it.

00;13;07;27 - 00;13;17;07
Speaker 1
So obviously my frequency has increased over the years. How many research labs across the world in general like our actually focusing on lucid dreaming?

00;13;17;12 - 00;13;42;26
Speaker 2
There are not that many labs, and especially for talking about that more sleep laboratory research. There is one quite active lab in the US and Northwestern University by Ken Banner and his colleague Benjamin Barratt, another dream researcher. And the other thing is that right now at University of Texas, these two are on that side of of the Atlantic and then there are a few laboratories in Europe.

00;13;42;26 - 00;14;14;26
Speaker 2
So Martin Dressler is also quite active in the Netherlands Radboud University, my old good supervisor, her and in Switzerland we feel the shadow in Germany. But but there are just just basically only a few places which which is a bit sad because general dream research in itself, it's not that popular field. It's somewhere kind of a bit on the outskirts, but the lucid dream associates, even within the outskirts of of dreamers, it's what.

00;14;14;26 - 00;14;51;05
Speaker 2
But I think nowadays there is that increase of interest because it's becoming a bit more cultural. Think all meditation and mindfulness becoming completely mainstream, which which wasn't the case for instance, let's see, 20 years ago, then 15 years ago, hopefully lucid dreaming will pick up. I mean, one of the issues of progression of scientific research and that popular availability is that we don't really have efficient techniques for facilitating lucid dreams because majority people what what our research hopes for Cavendish of dreams.

00;14;51;08 - 00;15;16;14
Speaker 2
Those like you will be a natural dream dream since the innocence and age and the we of dreams like on a weekly on a monthly basis. But those people like me write a not natural the lucid dreamers. They do need to have some efficient techniques and and right now, like the best ones, at least in a sleep laboratory, we can achieve about 50% of success rate.

00;15;16;14 - 00;15;25;21
Speaker 2
But it's a good lawyer if you are practicing those techniques and the whole environment. So that's that's another challenge for for them that it was a deep recession.

00;15;25;24 - 00;15;47;06
Speaker 1
I'm sure it will grow, like you said. So it's just a matter of time, I think before, like researchers and the academic field starts to take this on as something interesting, because as we want to know more about consciousness, I think dreams is going to be right there waiting for everybody to research on it. So what do you hope to see in terms of the future of what needs to be done, in terms of research in general?

00;15;47;06 - 00;15;50;26
Speaker 1
What type of technology, what type of studies do you hope to see?

00;15;50;28 - 00;16;27;29
Speaker 2
Well, that's a big question. I think. Well, there are perhaps several directions that are important. And so one, as I mentioned, that the entire field of lucid dream induction development of more efficient ways, how we can have lucid dreams and perhaps the future may lie in the combination of different methods. So maybe taking some supplements like go into mind and then using some cognitive techniques, maybe some stimulation and so on, and maybe combining those different approaches may yield the best success rate.

00;16;27;29 - 00;16;48;10
Speaker 2
And that's I think it's it's something that research needs to go into that direction. So we do have those tools. Another thing is that if you look, for instance, in the studies that we have on brain imaging during lucid dreaming that I want to just say harmful studies, that a small sample size is just one, two participants or so.

00;16;48;12 - 00;17;11;00
Speaker 2
So we don't fully know what's what's really happening in our brain. One, we have become inclusive and then so on that something also gets some attention. But it's challenging because during for example, I might be Ph.D. time, we did have an access to of MRI and, and I spent maybe about the nights there trying to capture a lucid dream.

00;17;11;00 - 00;17;43;12
Speaker 2
And then we had very frequent, lucid dreamers who came down that there was some who were having lost dreams of the night, but there were a lot of technological challenges and we just were not able to capture a lucid dreaming like an MRI scanner. So it's it's it's challenging. But but that might be another fruitful idea. And just to more understand what's what's happening in the brain, another direction which resonates for me on that application science, how can we apply those benefits and those potentials?

00;17;43;13 - 00;18;08;23
Speaker 2
And all this looks sports, this one field creativity is another field of research, but there are some other ones that resemble quite interested in looking into lucid dreaming as a part of spiritual practice. Or also right now, for instance, we are doing study looking into meditation in lucid dreams, because from my personal experience I felt quite a difference.

00;18;08;28 - 00;18;33;08
Speaker 2
If I'm meditating in the lucid dream course, well my mind's quite clear on that. Don't have that and funds for activities I would have if I meditate in my waking state. And there are many other potentials that that lucid dreaming can open up. So I think that's that's another fruitful inquiry. And the one that's that's a bigger one.

00;18;33;10 - 00;18;58;22
Speaker 2
It's not exploration of that state itself and just trying to go deeper once and quite many years ago, trying to start proposing the idea about state specific sciences. And they there's a long lines that right now we have that we can glance at from our waking state, which explains how our world works to the bigger or less extent.

00;18;58;23 - 00;19;23;28
Speaker 2
And usually the West perhaps that can be extended to other states of consciousness and that it could use that to build and to see that development of that state specific science of lucid dreaming. So then we can more investigate that state from the inside. And then let's see, other people can try to validate these results on books and science and just to do more understand.

00;19;23;28 - 00;19;50;23
Speaker 2
So what that is about. This idea, for instance, of dorsal root is to that distinction between that monotheistic understanding of 312 is just like an anthropologist of the balance of our Western society, primitive and monotheism. So we're just waking experience, cycles of the dream and all the dreams, all about the two state of consciousness. They're just some illusions, right?

00;19;50;25 - 00;20;18;24
Speaker 2
If you if you look local, what was different cultures? That is not more what defines it. Understand you've got three had it so there is one waking granite through that we perceive from the waking sleep. And then that is another our mode of being for instance, that we have in our dreams and with lucid dreaming, you can more explore and try to understand that mode of being and that other type of regard.

00;20;18;27 - 00;20;40;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's a big paradigm shift that's due in the world of science to start to look at these things from different perspectives. And I mean, we spend a third of our lives asleep and my dreaming life is just as real and vivid and important to me as my waking life. So I'm excited to see people, you know, start to treat that differently and, you know, adjust their methods in order to be able to understand that.

00;20;40;10 - 00;20;55;05
Speaker 1
I think that's important and I think it's going to happen. So that's very exciting. I've read a lot of studies about the prefrontal cortex and how it plays a big role in lucid dreaming. Can you tell me a little bit about that and what role have we found that it has shown?

00;20;55;05 - 00;21;23;25
Speaker 2
Because, for instance, if we look into our brain active them in waking sleep, comparing to our sleep, it functions slightly different. For instance, when we're transitioning into an REM sleep, our brain becomes less active in general and a bit slow in processing all information. But once we are transitioning into REM sleep in which we dream and then which is a dream, but of course there is some shift pattern of brain activity.

00;21;23;25 - 00;21;48;28
Speaker 2
So there are some brain areas that are becoming very active like amygdala, which is related to emotions and therefore so emotions are quite strong. But on the other hand, there are some brain areas that are more deactivated during REM sleep, and one of those areas is our prefrontal cortex, and that's the part of the brain which is involved in executive function.

00;21;48;28 - 00;22;17;06
Speaker 2
So when we're making bad decisions, for instance, when we're trying to control our thoughts, control our behavior and our short term memory, and then it's long. So it's quite crucial. And it's one of those parts of the brain that it's constantly active one when we awake and that particular arena is deactivated during REM sleep. So therefore, usually we don't understand that we are dreaming, right?

00;22;17;06 - 00;22;47;24
Speaker 2
Because we don't have that insight, we don't have that connection with our episodic memory. But we just went to bed frightened that the moment you are somewhere on the seaside so that the activation preserves and that we are dreaming. But when we are becoming hallucinatory, what the research shows is that this particular area of the brain that we are turning on those metacognitive mechanisms and one of our and one of our most that's what we try to do in the sleep.

00;22;47;24 - 00;23;25;24
Speaker 2
Number two, we try to stimulate of that weak electrical stimulation, the prefrontal brain that is during REM sleep. And then we would awaken at people, ask for their dream reports and see whether there is an increase in it. And there were some small effects showing that these brain regions, the do participate in lucid dreaming. But as I said, while those other studies that we have on brain imaging and so on, it really help that a small but at the spend samples, it may be that it's not just that prefrontal cortex or some other, but in areas also crucial for lucid dreaming.

00;23;26;01 - 00;23;54;09
Speaker 2
During that study that I just talked about when we kind of stimulated and and we asked people that if you are lucid and please give us a signal where they're at with the net so that there was very strict protocol. So we had to awaken them from them sleep what they noticed that there were a couple of occasions when people were giving signal from non-REM sleep, like the loose Bubblicious was that I kind of had to stick to the protocol and I was not able to awaken them and to verify what was.

00;23;54;14 - 00;24;21;11
Speaker 2
So in two cases, when I awakened one person, they just didn't recall what what was happening, but another person, they recall them and they said that it was just darkness. And they then had that feeling that they're floating and they're okay. That must be a dream. And then the give a signal. So in essence, I think you said that during and the REM can can be pleasant, but it may be a bit more difficult.

00;24;21;11 - 00;24;46;07
Speaker 2
One like the button reduction that you have dreaming up, which is to say that the REM sleep in dream state and that is also sleep yoga, which is about becoming lucid time, long REM sleep. And then obviously what about non-REM sleep? You have different stages of long term sleep. So that is that deep sleep perhaps in which you need to be quite proficient to become aware of it.

00;24;46;09 - 00;25;14;10
Speaker 2
So it was like the sleep stage. So yeah, one interesting thing, one, we had those a couple of occasions and we also looked into look into the literature, what other researchers found. And then one thing, what we found that those and dreams seems to be better for just happening for a few seconds. And one of the ideas that I have is that usually if you're doing a sleep laboratory research, are you asking people to signal them to say that they were making eye movements?

00;25;14;10 - 00;25;45;21
Speaker 2
Because that is that correspondence between them gave some physical and during sleep our eyes are moving rapidly in a natural way. But during and REM sleep, it's not natural for our eyes to move because it's a report that mostly bright and then not in the eye movements. So perhaps when you're making those eye movements just to confirm that your dreams that might just come from that and REM sleep into wakefulness because it's not like natural is something that's happening to sleep.

00;25;45;23 - 00;25;54;06
Speaker 1
Gotcha. So when somebody is in REM and they're giving their eye signal, how can you detect it if their eyes are already moving back and forth?

00;25;54;08 - 00;26;13;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, because usually we are asking them to give a specific eye signal. So we are asking them to look as much as they can to the left side, then to the right side and to repeat that several times. And in that case, because generally if let's say you are in dreamland, wakefulness right, then if you want to look to the left, you will move your head to the left.

00;26;13;04 - 00;26;25;29
Speaker 2
And usually you don't count those like a bit of watch amplitude eye movements. But if you have to do those large amplitude eye movements, they are quite visible on a super clock. So you can see them quite clearly.

00;26;26;01 - 00;26;46;04
Speaker 1
Interesting. Yeah. You know, I feel like I have had lucid dreams in non-REM sleep, so I am ordering this headband that allows me to do it from home. It's like EEG readers that came out. I don't know if you know the Enchanted Wave had been so I'm going to try it out and see if when I get lucid, if I'm actually, you know, what my brainwaves are looking like.

00;26;46;04 - 00;26;53;20
Speaker 1
So I'm just going to experiment with that and see what happens. I think, you know, self experimentation is a good place to start, so we'll see what comes out of it.

00;26;53;22 - 00;27;21;27
Speaker 2
And it might be those small seeds. One, it's that might not be that much visual imagery. It might be because I've also got experience when it's just like a black eye, especially if you're doing more like a wild induced, lucid dreaming because then generally you should transfer fruit and the REM sleep to REM sleep. And then sometimes it is that feeling that just completely black ones, that the image of a spastic Vietnam that comes to mind to REM sleep.

00;27;22;03 - 00;27;29;29
Speaker 1
And what about your personal lucid dream experiences? How often are you lucid and what do you like to do when when you do get lucid?

00;27;30;01 - 00;28;04;28
Speaker 2
I'm not that frequent lucid dreamer. Unfortunately, it's because for me it really depends how much I'm engaged with that. It was dreaming techniques and I had some periods in my life when I was very engaged, so I had quite a few lucid dreams. But right now I just have once in a while. But generally, if I don't have a particular idea what they want to do or if I cannot recall a particular idea, because that's something also happens to my favorite activity and lucid dreams just flying because I really appreciate that sense of freedom.

00;28;04;28 - 00;28;28;22
Speaker 1
Yeah, flying is so much fun. It's just such a different feeling that you wouldn't get to experience anywhere else other than the Lucid dream. I love it when it comes to lucid dream induction methods. I know that a lot of you know, people are trying to find the best one and the most, you know, prove efficiently. Do you think that it's possible to say that like one or a group of methods is the most efficient for everybody?

00;28;28;22 - 00;28;37;00
Speaker 1
Or how much do you think personal practice and personal journey plays a role with it? Because I've noticed kind of different things might work for different people, right?

00;28;37;07 - 00;29;04;27
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, indeed. And there are some people who really are different and some are light sleepers and some are harder sleepers, and they need different approaches. But that's in terms of looking into the research. That's that's one of the challenging questions because we don't have that much research looking like the different characteristics and what type of people may benefit from one technique and what types might benefit from another.

00;29;04;27 - 00;29;31;28
Speaker 2
But as a general advice, I would suggest an inspiring, lucid dreamer. Just throw out different techniques and just see what works for them. General I mean, we do have some methods that for instance, a combination of weak back to bed with mild. If doing that one hour sleep interruption seems to be one of the most efficient ways, at least we found in the sleep laboratory with about 50% success rate just for for a student.

00;29;31;28 - 00;29;48;16
Speaker 2
Right. Who's not selected for their lucid dream abilities. Another study was done with the same procedure in home settings or something and dropped to 16 or 18%. So it's not that high.

00;29;48;19 - 00;30;11;21
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening. I appreciate you more than you know. Thanks to everybody. Support and donations. Melissa and I will be going to the SD conference in the Netherlands. That is the International Association for the Study of Dreams. So we will be reporting live on both of our podcasts, sharing different content, information, research studies and everything that we learn while there.

00;30;11;21 - 00;30;35;19
Speaker 1
We are really excited and we still need donations to make it happen. So feel free to support us. And if you can't donate, we still love you listening to the podcast, sharing, liking, commenting, whatever All of that has got us this far. So thank you so much for listening. Sweet Dreams. I know that my weekly posting schedule has been a bit all over the place, so I am sorry about that, but I'm doing my best.

00;30;35;19 - 00;30;50;04
Speaker 1
Okay, bye.