Lucid Dream Masks: Do They Work?

What Are Lucid Dream Masks?

Most lucid dream masks look similar to a traditional sleep mask. They are made from soft materials that should feel comfortable on your face while you sleep. Where they differ is their technology. Lucid dream masks include built-in sensors that monitor your sleep stages and features that gently alert you when you reach REM sleep, helping you become aware of the opportunity to begin lucid dreaming without fully waking you up Trusted Source American Psychological Association (APA) APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 121,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members. View Source .

How Do Lucid Dream Masks Work?

Lucid dream masks use timers or movement sensors to estimate when the dreamer is in REM sleep. Then, depending on their specific feature set, lucid dream masks alert the dreamer using audio, visual, or tactile cues:

• Audio Cues: Audio cues may include sounds, or voice messages recorded by the dreamer themselves.
• Tactile Cues: This type of cue may include a pattern of vibrations. This is sometimes called a haptic stimulus.
• Visual Cues: These cues often include a series of flashing lights, delivered via LED lights built into the mask.

These signals are meant to be stimulating enough to partially alert the dreamer, without being so disruptive as to rouse them from sleep. Since the person is dreaming, the cue may become a part of the dream environment. For example, the visual cues may show up as lights in the dream, or the audio signals may sound like a phone ringing.

Most lucid dream masks allow you to adjust the intensity of the dream cues, either directly on the device with an adjustable switch or digitally via an app or website. Whether the mask emits audio, tactile, or visual cues, it is up to the dreamer to recognize the signals and understand that they are experiencing a dream.

How Do Lucid Dream Masks Know You Are in REM Sleep?

The simplest lucid dream masks use a timer to estimate when you have entered REM sleep. This is roughly 90 to 120 minutes from sleep onset. However, the timing of REM sleep can vary from person to person, depending on their age, substance use, Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source or if they have a sleep disorder. Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source A lucid dream mask that relies solely on a timer could deliver light cues during a non-REM stage of sleep, disturbing the person’s sleep quality instead of helping them lucid dream.

Other lucid dream masks use infrared sensors to identify REM by monitoring changes in your eye movement. During REM sleep, your eyes move rapidly, a key feature of REM that differentiates it from other stages of sleep.

Other lucid dream masks contain EEG electrodes to monitor changes in brainwave activity and an accelerometer to monitor body movements. These types of masks use brainwave and body movement activity to identify REM. Your brain waves speed up during REM, looking much like wakefulness, and your brainstem temporarily paralyzes your body to prevent you from acting out your dreams.

Do Lucid Dream Masks Actually Trigger Lucid Dreams?

Wearing a lucid dream mask does not guarantee you will experience a lucid dream, especially if you are new to lucid dreaming. Even with regular practice, lucid dreams are rare Trusted Source American Psychological Association (APA) APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 121,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members. View Source . Once a person has mastered traditional lucid dreaming techniques, a lucid dream mask may increase their likelihood of experiencing one. Lucid dreaming techniques Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source include:

• Reality Checks: During the day, a person repeatedly asks themselves if they are awake. This helps them get in the habit of being able to distinguish whether they are awake or asleep.
• Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD): Along the same lines, a person also learns to distinguish between dreams and reality when they are sleeping. They may sleep for 5 hours, then wake up and say something like, “Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I am dreaming,” to encourage lucid dreams during 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 person wakes up and goes back to sleep within 30 minutes to 2 hours.

The last two techniques in particular, WBTB and MILD, have been shown to increase the frequency of lucid dreams, even among beginners. A person’s likelihood of experiencing a lucid dream triples after WBTB. After practicing these techniques for 5 weeks, 50% of beginners were able to experience at least one lucid dream.

When used in tandem with these techniques, a lucid dream mask may make a person more likely to experience a lucid dream. One early study had participants wear a lucid dream mask during sleep, which sent light cues when 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 know that it had been programmed to only send the light cues every other night.

While participants reported lucid dreams on nights the dream mask sent light cues as well as on nights it did not, they were more than twice as likely to have a lucid dream on nights the mask sent cues. They were also significantly more likely to say they noticed the lucid dreaming cues on nights the mask was on, leading researchers to conclude that the light cues were effective in increasing the person’s likelihood of lucid dreaming.

Are There Any Side Effects to Using Lucid Dream Masks?

Researchers have not yet studied lucid dream masks for potentially negative effects. However, it is possible the light and sound cues could reduce sleep quality. Exposure to electric light at night, even for short periods of time and in dim settings, can disrupt a person’s circadian rhythm Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source . Similarly, environmental noise exposure triggers a stress response Trusted Source National Library of Medicine, Biotech Information The National Center for Biotechnology Information advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information. View Source that can disturb sleep and lead to sleep deprivation the following day.

Researchers warn that regularly inducing lucid dreams has two potential drawbacks. It can blur the lines between fantasy and reality, and it may reduce your sleep quality. Lucid dreamers display increased prefrontal cortical brain activity during sleep. In normal sleep, activity in this brain area is inhibited. If someone partially awakens from REM sleep, they may experience sleep paralysis or sleep-related hallucinations and potentially a negative emotional state.

Ongoing Research on Lucid Dream Masks

Lucid dreaming researchers acknowledge that more research needs to be done on how to induce lucid dreaming, with or without a mask. The current body of research is limited, with many studies being either low-quality or having a small number of participants.

However, lucid dream masks may help make other techniques, such as MILD and WBTB, more effective. Beginners may want to start with these techniques before investing in a lucid dream mask.

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