Lucid Dreaming as a Learnable Skill: A Case Study

Abstract

The author was the subject in an investigation of the feasibility of learning to dream lucidly, i.e., while knowing that one is dreaming. During the 3-yr. study, the subject recorded a total of 389 lucid dreams and developed a mnemonic technique for the voluntary induction of lucid dreams (MILD). Without using any induction procedure, the subject reported less than 1 lucid dream per month. Using auto-suggestion resulted in a range of 1 to 13 lucid dreams per month ( M = 5.4), with at most 2 per night. MILD yielded 18 to 26 lucid dreams per month ( M = 21.5), with up to 4 per night.