Dr. Matthew Walker, All Things Sleep Continued — The Hidden Dangers of Melatonin, Tools for Insomnia, Enhancing Learning and Sleep Spindles, The Upsides of Sleep Divorce, How Sleep Impacts Sex (and Vice Versa), Adventures in Lucid Dreaming, The One Clock to Rule Them All, The IP Addresses of Your Memories, and More (#654)

Simply exquisite. Great conversation, great ideas to critically think about.. ty.

Hi Tim, you asked about tips for lucid dreaming. I was hoping to be able to email you, but I guess this works too. I have been lucid dreaming regularly since I was about six. There’s a lot I could say. Here are my top things I would lead with, we are all body, soul, and spirit, and yet only our bodies do not go with us in our dreams. I believe it is my connection to my spirit and imagination that leads to lucid dreaming. Before going to bed I imagine a place and story (mostly pick one or a few nice safe places). This leads to when I wake up my imagination is reminded I am asleep yet still can move around the dream world freely. This would be my number one tip, I believe it’s a strong imagination that practices walking between the waking and dream world. Secondly, my spirit can sense when I am in a hotel room if there is a demonic presence, this leads to me dreaming of demons. Over the years I have had to learn how to engage my spirit to fight off, overcome, or wake myself up. Your spiritual awareness and connection in the waking world may help you with lucid dreaming, even reading books about angels. Lastly, on a practical side, I sleep better with balanced hormones or in sun a few hours.
Better sleep leads to more lucid dreaming time. I would encourage anyone interested in lucid dreaming to eat healthy for balanced hormones and to stay away from drugs or alcohol. They disrupt your hormones and can keep you from getting quality sleep. Oh, lastly, I do believe lucid dreaming takes away from feeling rested if done for too long in one setting. Hope this helps!
Becky

Tim, Thank you for your excellent podcasts with Dr. Walker.
Here are some notes from research I gathered on 12/16/2020.

Tibetan sleep yoga, bardo, lucid dreams; see Wikipedia for information about bardo, an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth.

During a lucid dream, the dreamer becomes aware they are dreaming and may gain some amount of control over the characters, narrative, and environment. The experience has been recorded since ancient times. Cultivating the dreamer’s ability to be aware that they are dreaming is central to both the ancient Indian Hindu practice of yoga nidra and the Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream yoga. The cultivation of such awareness was a common practice among early Buddhists. Dream yoga can progress to sleep yoga where one maintains lucidity during dreamless sleep.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama writes:
“In order to train in the path that would allow us to transform death, the intermediate state, and rebirth, we have to practice on three occasions: during the waking state, during the sleeping state, and during the death process.
To gain the proper experience during sleep and the waking state, I think it is crucial to become familiar, by means of imagination, with the eightfold process of dying, beginning with the waking conscious state and culminating in the clear light of death.” “It is important to realize that there are many forms of meditation. These issues are not even discussed in the lower three classes of Buddhist tantra, only within Highest Yoga Tantra. Dream yoga is a discipline all unto itself (p. 45, Sleeping Dreaming and Dying, An Exploration of Consciousness with HHDL, edited and narrated by Francisco J. Varela, 1997).

Early references to lucid dreaming are found in ancient Greek writing. Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote: “often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.”

In 1968, Celia Green wrote that lucid dreams were a category of experience distinct from ordinary dreams and they are associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.

In 1985, Stephen LaBerge at Stanford University performed a pilot study that showed that time perception while counting during a lucid dream is about the same as during waking life. LaBerge’s results were confirmed in 2004.
In 2018, a study was conducted to see if it were possible to attain the ability to lucid dream through the drug galantamine. It was given to 121 patients in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, the only one of its kind. Some participants found as much as a 42% increase in their ability to lucid dream, compared to self-reports from the past 6 months, and 10 people experienced a lucid dream for the first time. It is theorized that galantamine allows acetylcholine to build up, leading to greater recollection and awareness during dreaming.

In 2016, a meta-analytic study by David Saunders and colleagues on 34 lucid dreaming studies, taken from a period of 50 years, demonstrated that 55% of a pooled sample of 24,282 people claimed to have experienced lucid dreams at least once or more in their lifetime. For those that stated they did experience lucid dreams, approximately 23% reported to experience them on a regular basis, as often as once a month or more.

A 2015 study by Julian Mutz and Amir-Homayoun Javadi showed that people who had practiced meditation for a long time tended to have more lucid dreams. The authors claimed that “Lucid dreaming is a hybrid state of consciousness with features of both waking and dreaming” in a review they published in Neuroscience of Consciousness in 2017.

Mutz and Javadi found that during lucid dreaming, there is an increase in activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the bilateral frontopolar prefrontal cortex, the precuneus, the inferior parietal lobules, and the supramarginal gyrus. All are brain functions related to higher cognitive functions including working memory, planning, and self-consciousness. The researchers also found that during a lucid dream, “levels of self-determination” were similar to those that people experienced during states of wakefulness. They also found that lucid dreamers can only control limited aspects of their dream at once.

This 2-part series was absolutely riveting and so rich with information and advice. I’m a big fan of Tim having been a first year reader of The 4 Hour Body, lost 45lbs, completely corrected my high cholesterol and blood pressure, and have given away 30 copies of the book and recommended it to dozens more. I’m a bit of a Coach on the boo.
I was a little surprised that Tim and Dr. Walker didn’t explore the convergence of lucid dreaming and time – “oscillation” – a time speed change in dreams or “when time slows down” – or whatever they called it. I have generally read about the concept of “time travel” or being in 2 places at one time in Carlos Casteneda wrtitings, Spalding’s “The Life and Teachings of the Master of the Far East” and “How to Change Your Mind” regarding the use of psychelics.

Thank you Tim and Matt for the excellent interview!!

I am lucid dreaming almost every night. Pretty sure it is the gabapentin. The first two nights I took 100 mg I had unbelievably detailed dreams. I am not taking it for that effect but for sleep in general. REM time per Oura ring is around 2 hrs each night.

Other meds I take for sleep that have been hugely beneficial (due to work schedules and chronotype I have had a TERRIBLE relationship with sleep in the past but am now VERY much improved- 2 hrs deep and 2 hrs REM per Oura)

1. Orexin antagonist- I prefer Dayvigo for longest duration

2. Clonidine elicits sedative and anesthetic properties by activating G-proteins in the brainstem, which results in inhibition of norepinephrine release. I take 0.1 mg immediate release for spring initiation and 0.1 mg extended release for sleep maintenance.

3. Magnesium Threonate. Tried glycinate for almost a year. First night with threonate was a totally different experience, much more effective for improving sleep.

Thanks again Tim and Matt!