Lucid Dream Masks – Do They Work?

Within a lucid dream, you might be conscious that you are dreaming1 and may well even be able to control diverse aspects of one’s dream. Lucid dreaming occurs throughout fast eye movement (REM) sleep2, the stage of sleep in which considerably of your dreaming occurs. About 20% of people experience lucid dreaming once a month, as well as a compact number of people manage to have lucid dreams numerous occasions per week. As much as half of people never ever experience a lucid dream. Get additional info about lucidity dream mask

Some researchers propose lucid dreaming as a tool that can improve your well-being, boost self-confidence and creativity, and help you attain ambitions and solve problems inside your waking life – although the proof for these benefits is debatable3. Early study suggests lucid dreaming may perhaps also have therapeutic potential4 for people who experience nightmares on account of post-traumatic strain disorder.

For a lot of people, lucid dreaming is actually a pleasant experience they would like to have extra often. Nevertheless, since dreams take place even though you might be asleep, it takes practice and work to accomplish so. Enter lucid dream masks, a brand new tool that may possibly make the process a lot easier.

What Are Lucid Dream Masks?
Most lucid dream masks look similar to a traditional sleep mask. They are produced from soft components that really should feel comfy on your face even though you sleep. Where they differ is their technologies. Lucid dream masks consist of built-in sensors that monitor your sleep stages and options that gently alert you if you reach REM sleep, helping you come to be aware of the opportunity to begin lucid dreaming without completely waking you up5.

How Do Lucid Dream Masks Work?
Lucid dream masks use timers or movement sensors to estimate when the dreamer is in REM sleep. Then, according to their particular feature set, lucid dream masks alert the dreamer using audio, visual, or tactile cues:

Audio Cues: Audio cues may incorporate sounds, or voice messages recorded by the dreamer themselves.
Tactile Cues: This kind of cue may perhaps consist of a pattern of vibrations.
Visual Cues: These cues often involve a series of flashing lights, delivered through LED lights constructed in to the mask.
These signals are meant to be stimulating adequate to alert the dreamer, without the need of being so disruptive as to rouse them from sleep. Because the individual is dreaming, the cue could come to be a part in the dream environment. For example, the visual cues could show up as lights in the dream, or the audio signals may perhaps sound like a phone ringing.

Most lucid dream masks permit you to adjust the intensity of the dream cues, either straight on the device with an adjustable switch or digitally through an app or website. Regardless of whether the mask emits light, audio, or tactile cues, it is as much as the dreamer to recognize the signals and realize that they’re experiencing a dream.

How Do Lucid Dream Masks Know You will be in REM Sleep?
The simplest lucid dream masks use a timer to estimate once you have entered REM sleep. However, the timing of REM sleep can vary from individual to individual, according to their age and if they drink alcohol6, take drugs, or have a sleep disorder7, which usually overlaps using a neurological or psychiatric disorder. A lucid dream mask that relies solely on a timer could provide light cues in the course of a non-REM stage of sleep, disturbing the person’s sleep excellent in place of helping them lucid dream.

Other lucid dream masks use infrared sensors to identify REM by monitoring alterations inside your eye movement. Through REM sleep, your eyes move swiftly from side to side, a key function of REM that differentiates it from other stages of sleep.

Other lucid dream masks include EEG electrodes to monitor adjustments in brainwave activity and an accelerometer to monitor physique movements. These types of masks use brainwave and body movement activity to recognize REM. Your brain waves speed up for the duration of REM, as well as your brain temporarily paralyzes your body to prevent you from acting out your dreams.

Do Lucid Dream Masks Really Trigger Lucid Dreams?
Wearing a lucid dream mask will not assure you might experience a lucid dream, specifically when you are new to lucid dreaming. Even with standard practice, lucid dreams are rare8. Once a person has mastered regular lucid dreaming tactics, a lucid dream mask might increase their likelihood of experiencing one. Lucid dreaming techniques9 include things like:

Reality Checks: Throughout the day, someone repeatedly asks themselves if they’re awake. This aids them get in the habit of having the ability to distinguish no matter whether they are awake or asleep.
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD): Along the same lines, someone also learns to distinguish in between dreams and reality when they are sleeping. They might sleep for 5 hours, then wake up and say anything like, “Next time I’m dreaming, I’ll recall I am dreaming,” to encourage lucid dreams in the course of their next stage of REM sleep.
Wake-up-Back-to-Bed (WBTB): WBTB works hand in hand with MILD. It refers to purposeful sleep interruption in which the individual wakes up and goes back to sleep within 30 minutes to two hours.
The last two methods in unique, WBTB and MILD, have been shown to improve the frequency of lucid dreams, even amongst novices. A person’s likelihood of experiencing a lucid dream triples soon after WBTB. Immediately after practicing these procedures for 5 weeks, 50% of newbies were able to experience at the least one lucid dream.

When used in tandem with these strategies, a lucid dream mask may perhaps make an individual much more likely to experience a lucid dream. One early study had participants put on a lucid dream mask through sleep, which sent light cues once they entered REM sleep. To test against a potential placebo effect, the participants knew the mask was a lucid dream mask, but they did not realize that it had been programmed to only send the light cues every other night.

When participants reported lucid dreams on nights the dream mask sent light cues also as on nights it didn’t, they had been far more than twice as probably to possess a lucid dream on nights the mask sent cues. They had been also significantly extra probably to say they noticed the lucid dreaming cues on nights the mask was on, leading researchers to conclude that the light cues were efficient in increasing the person’s likelihood of lucid dreaming.