Right now, the scientific research on lucid dreaming isn’t very strong.
There haven’t been many solid, well-checked studies, and there aren’t many new discoveries being made. Not enough scientists are studying it, which can lead to problems, like only sharing results that sound exciting or researchers mostly citing each other. Because of this, there’s no clear agreement in science about how lucid dreaming really works.
Scientists agree that lucid dreams exist, but that’s about it. They don’t have scientifically proven, reliable methods to make people have them, and they don’t fully understand what causes them or what happens within them. Science doesn’t have good answers yet, unfortunately.
What’s the purpose of relying on _academic_ science?
Lucid dreaming is amazing, also because you can do experiments at home with no equipment. Most of the existing practical knowledge about lucid dreams has been discovered that way.
The real problem is that the lucid dreaming community is in a deep decay. People switched to the social media such as reddit, discrods or g-d forbid tiktoks. These are absolutely unsuitable for maintaining long meaningful discussions and building a community with shared knowledge. So I’m not surprised that no discoveries has been publicly made and shared.
I’m personally just doing my research on the interesting approaches on my own. It’s slow, highly empirical with n=1, but steadily moves forward. It’s not bad, honestly. Just very meditative.
Well, I currently don’t rely on these academic scientific experiments because the state of research is poor.
There are many benefits of lucid dreaming I know to be 100% true, but because there are no widely agreed-upon academic scientific studies, I have to be more conservative with my claims when talking to others.
‘Lucid dreaming is great, it has x, y, z benefits!’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’m the source. Trust me!’
It makes scammers indistinguishable from legitimate people.
A set of agreed-upon, rock-solid, uncontroversial knowledge means we don’t have to rely solely on the claims of Mr. Doe.
It can give us a more solid foundation to build on.
Do you dislike the state of current academic science because you feel it disregards non-materialist and more spiritual perspectives?
I currently don’t rely on these academic scientific experiments because the state of research is poor
But what research do you miss exactly?
‘I’m the source. Trust me!’
Absolutely valid claim. If you’re just sharing your experience, you aren’t required to provide any strong evidence. If you want to recruit people, then there are already articles about treating ptsd or improving real-life performance.
I am, personally, not interested of advertising lucid dreaming. Except for a certain class of people like me, for whom it’s not about “scientifically-proven” benefits, but rather a question: ok, I actually have an integrated VR with root access to my psyche, what opportunities can hidden there?
Do you dislike the state of current academic science because you feel it disregards non-materialist and more spiritual perspectives?
Rather because academic science is inefficient and sluggish.
Fun fact: I could potentially do the academic research you miss. My speciality is quite close. I was interested in lucid dreaming in the uni. However, I didn’t even think of doing PhD. Because being a boring coder provides much-much better opportunities than belonging to a society that posesses the best knowledge of the world. It fails to use the knowledge to improve their own society, so they lose competition to the systems created by clueless office workers like me. It feels like there’s some cryptonite burried there.
And yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if some “spiritual and non-materialist perspectives” turn out to be true, with different explanations, though. Like academia ignores the amazing field of lucid dreaming, like they found (the full structure of) clitoris only in 2005 (my favorite story for now). They could ignore a lot of wonderful stuff as well.
I get it. Academia is slow, and some of the deepest truths are learned only through personal experience. My journey with lucid dreaming reflects that, so I agree.
But in the Western world, it’s risky to make medical or therapeutic claims without solid, widely accepted research. If you say lucid dreaming cured your PTSD, that’s meaningful. But without shared evidence, it can’t be verified, scaled, or protected from misuse.
And that’s the problem. No common baseline means scammers and sincere seekers sound the same. Anyone can sell “lucid enlightenment in 7 days” because there’s no clear standard to challenge them.
I’m not against personal practice. I’m for building infrastructure: reliable methods, measurable results, open verification. We need real evidence, not just to convince science but so we can be taken seriously by therapists, doctors and even each other.
Until then, we’re stuck between dismissal and hype, while the actual potential gets lost in noise.
I still dream. I still believe. But I want us to be taken seriously, not only as mystics, but also as people exploring something real and powerful within the mind.
No common baseline means scammers and sincere seekers sound the same. Anyone can sell “lucid enlightenment in 7 days” because there’s no clear standard to challenge them.
Oh yeah. The misinformation in the lucid dreaming community is quite high.
Or sometimes I don’t even know if a claim is false, true, or it just depends on person.
People take lucid dreaming as an opaque “do techniques @ enter the dream”, however there are a lot of variables such as age, levels of stress, dopamin-/ACh-ergic system, proneness to SOREMPs that influence everything.
What helps is that I find my own personal truths on how my own body/mind work. Yes, it takes considerably longer. However, it turns into a quite useful (long-term) journey of self-discovery instead of mindlessly applying "scientifically proven” approaches.
But I want us to be taken seriously, not only as mystics, but also as people exploring something real and powerful within the mind
But lucid dreaming is already a scientific field. So if a person doesn’t believe in it, or its approaches, you can show the legitimate scientific articles. Just the first ones that popped in my head: