Bizarreness of Lucid and Non-lucid Dream: Effects of Metacognition

Abstract

Dreams are usually characterized by primary consciousness, bizarreness and cognitive deficits, lacking metacognition. However, lucid dreaming (LD) is a type of consciousness state during which the dreamer is aware of the fact that he or she is dreaming, without leaving the sleeping state. Brain research has found that LD shares some common neural mechanisms with metacognition such as self-reflection. With a different metacognition level, the bizarreness of LD would also change. However, the difference in bizarreness between LD and non-LD was seldom explored, and individual differences were often neglected. In the present study, considering LD prevalence in Asia was rarely studied and related results in China and Japan were very different from each other, we first investigated the LD frequency of China in a standardized way. On that basis, we collected dreams of subjects who had relatively higher LD frequency and compared bizarreness density (BD) of LD and non-LD. Moreover, to explore the relationships of metacognition traits and BD, we also measured self-reflection and insight trait by Self-Reflection and Insight Scale. We found that 81.3% of subjects have experienced LD once or more, which is similar to findings in some western countries. Besides, BD was significantly lower in LD than in non-LD. Self-reflection and insight were inversely associated with dream bizarreness. These findings indicate that self-consciousness traits extend from waking to LD and non-LD state. As a particular consciousness state, LD may shed light on the research of consciousness and dream continuity. Future research on dream bizarreness is suggested to take dream types and metacognition differences into consideration.

Exploring the range of reported dream lucidity

“…Lucid and nonlucid dreams might be similar in bizarreness (Voss et al, 2013), yet when rated by external judges, non-lucid dreams show higher bizarreness (Yu & Shen, 2020). Our results suggest that increased dream bizarreness is related to increased dream lucidity.…”

Charles Dickens' Hypnagogia, Dreams, and Creativity

“…REM sleep and dreams are linked even more to creativity (Llewellyn and Desseilles, 2017 ). This association was reinforced by the Franco-Italian study of patients with narcolepsy, characterized by falling asleep directly in REM sleep and, among several symptoms, a high frequency of dream recall and also lucid dreams, when a person becomes aware that he is dreaming while remaining physiologically asleep and immersed in a dream (Yu and Shen, 2020 ; Mota-Rolim et al, 2021 ). These results highlight a greater creative potential in these individuals and further support the role of REM sleep in creativity (Lacaux et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Another issue in Dickens's life was hypnagogia, referring lato sensu to fleeting perceptual experiences during the transition from wakefulness to sleep, with the common occurrence of involuntary and imagined experiences, hypnagogic hallucinations, and from sleep to wakefulness, hypnopompic hallucinations (Waters et al, 2016 ). Dreams themselves are expressed by varying degrees of emotional intensity, bizarreness, visual vivacity, and narrative complexity, but without metacognition (Yu and Shen, 2020 ; Scarpelli et al, 2021 ).…”

Orchestration of dreams: a possible tool for enhancement of mental productivity and efficiency

“…From curbing nightmares [ 8 – 10 ] to skill enhancement, problem-solving to creativity and mood upliftment to wish fulfillment [ 11 ], people have been reported to use LD as a tool to cope up with stress and eventually understanding the higher virtue of life [ 12 , 13 ]. Dreams are truly based on personal experiences and temperaments, hence it holds the key to decipher a customized approach in healing the person, which would be more productive in recovery and restoration of his/her sound mental health effectively [ 14 ].…”

“…LD, the term coined by Van Eeden in 1913, described as a “ dreaming state in which the person is aware of the fact that he/she is dreaming without withdrawing from the state of sleep ” [ 42 , 46 , 47 ]. In this stage, the bizarreness of dreams are very high [ 13 ]. It has been reported that a person can have partial to full control over the ongoing vivid dreams [ 2 ].…”