Dreaming about knowing you are dreaming
Lucid dreaming is one of the few things in this entire database that has been demonstrated in a laboratory rather than inferred from reports. Sleepers have signalled from inside a dream with prearranged eye movements, on cue, while verifiably asleep.
Also searched as: lucid dreaming, realising it is a dream, becoming lucid, aware in a dream
The experience is a recognition rather than a change: nothing in the dream alters, and the dreamer knows.
The trigger is nearly always an inconsistency. A light switch that does nothing, hands with too many fingers, text that changes, a sky with two moons, a building that cannot be laid out.
Degrees vary enormously. Some dreamers know and can do nothing; some can act; a smaller number can direct the dream substantially.
Losing it is as characteristic as gaining it. Excitement at becoming lucid frequently ends the dream, which is one of the first things people discover.
Common associations
- Recognition rather than change, which is what dreamers describe.
- An inconsistency noticed, which is nearly always the route.
- Degrees, from knowing to directing.
- Fragility, since excitement ends it.
Positive readings
This is the most positively reported experience in the database alongside flying, and the two go together: many people who become lucid try to fly.
It is also learnable. Several induction techniques have real evidence behind them, and the reality-check habit costs nothing and works for a substantial number of people.
Difficult readings
The evidence on sleep quality is mixed rather than reassuring, and the honest position is that deliberately inducing lucidity frequently means fragmenting sleep, which has a cost.
The site's lucid dreaming lessons set that out properly and are not paywalled.
Psychological perspectives
The eye-signalling experiments are the foundation of the field: a sleeper in verified REM, asked in advance to move their eyes in a specific pattern on becoming lucid, does so. That established lucid dreaming as a real state rather than a claim.
What appears to happen is a partial return of the evaluative capacity that is normally quiet during REM, which is why noticing an inconsistency is the route in: the inconsistency was always there and the objection was missing.
Induction techniques vary in how well supported they are, and the review the site cites finds none with strong evidence of reliable effectiveness, which is why the site refuses to sell a potential score.
Cultural and historical
Deliberate dream awareness is a developed practice in Tibetan dream yoga, with an extensive body of instruction behind it and purposes quite different from the modern recreational one.
The modern Western literature begins in earnest with van Eeden, who named it, and the laboratory work follows much later.
The practice traditions are not early versions of the science, and the database does not present them as such.
What the sleep science says
Demonstrated in a laboratory: lucid dreaming, verified by prearranged eye signals from a sleeper in confirmed REM.
Well documented: reality checks and their basis in the instability of dream environments.
Mixed evidence: induction technique effectiveness, and the effect of deliberate induction on sleep quality.
Your own context
- What made you realise?
- Could you do anything, or only know?
- How long did it last?
- What ended it?
If this recurs
If this happens to you spontaneously, log the trigger every time. Dreamers who do this find they have one or two reliable personal dream signs, and knowing yours is worth more than any general technique.
Emotions often reported
- exhilaration
- excitement
- wonder
- calm
- awe
- surprise
Specific knowing you are dreaming dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- What tipped me off?
- Could I act, or only watch?
- What ended it?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
No sources are attached to this page yet. It has not been through editorial review. How we review material
Related records
- ActionFlyingFlying is the most positively reported dream experience there is, and the most strongly associated with lucidity. Many people who realise they are dreaming try to fly, and many who fly realise they are dreaming.
- SymbolHandsHands are the single most useful thing in a dream to look at, because they are the most unreliable thing dreams render. Extra fingers, missing fingers and hands that change on a second look are the classic reality check.
- SymbolSkyThe sky is the single best reality check in a dream, because it is large, always present, and almost never right. Dreamers who learn to look up report noticing more inconsistencies there than anywhere else.
- AnimalButterflyThe butterfly carries the most important thing ever written about dreaming: Zhuangzi, waking from a dream of being a butterfly, unable to establish whether he is a man who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming he is a man.
- ActionBeing chasedBeing chased is the most reported dream theme in most surveys. What matters is almost never the pursuer. It is that the dreamer is going away from something, and what happens if they stop.
- ActionBeing unable to speak or moveBeing unable to move or make a sound is extremely common, and it sits on the boundary between an ordinary dream and sleep paralysis. Working out which one you had is the single most useful thing this page can help with.