Summary: get used to wake up, to tighten your lips and inhale (reality check)

wake up for a few minutes after five hours of sleep and then go back to sleep after being repeated several times: "Next time I'll be dreaming, I will remember that I am dreaming" (exploits the prospective memory, the ability to pin mentally-do in the future)
keep a diary
The reality check tests, by themselves, have instead led to significant results.

Full text: To exercise a degree of control of their dreams (and maybe be able to drive them towards a certain outcome) can turn into a pleasant experience or hell, depending on who populate them. But having a lucid dream, that is, a nocturnal story which one can direct the plot, it is extremely difficult, especially if you want to get "on command." That's why the theme is still little studied from a scientific point of view.

A little help. Now an Australian study seems to have found a way to more easily become aware that you are dreaming while you're doing it. Researchers at the University of Adelaide have asked 170 volunteers to experience one of three different techniques to facilitate this experience.

This a dream? The first consisted in introducing small control test of reality during wakefulness, in the hope of triggering a habit to resume during sleep. The volunteers were asked, for example, to get used to, while awake, to tighten your lips and inhale, if during the night they felt the same position of the facial muscles, they would have thought for a few moments of being awake.

Post it in the brain. The second technique involved to wake up for a few minutes after five hours of sleep and then go back to sleep; the third to do the same thing, but after repeated several times: "Next time I'll be dreaming, I will remember that I am dreaming." The method called MILD (mnemonic induction of lucid dreams), exploits the prospective memory, the ability to mentally note down the things to do in the future.

Unity is strength. Before the experiment, the participants kept a diary for a week on their dreams, and only 8% of those reported was glossy type. So the volunteers were divided into three groups, which in the second week, respectively, have experienced a) only the first technique, b) only the first and the second or, c) all three together.

The combination of the three methods gave the best results: Who was finished in the last group - the one where you used all three methods - a lucid dream reported in 17% of cases.

The most effective. In particular the addition of the MILD technique to that of staying awake five minutes and then go back to sleep led to an increase of 46% of lucid dreams than just "wake up and go back to sleep." The reality check tests, by themselves, have instead led to significant results. One last note: the lucid dream experience did not seem to affect the quality of sleep of the subject.

What is it for? To refine this technique could one day be used to exploit the lucid dreams in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder or sleep marred by nightmares. Meanwhile, it will use to increase the amount of these experiences "on command", to be studied for research purposes.

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