Inducing Lucid Dreaming Based on a Contemplative Practice of Compassion

Lucid dreaming-dreaming with the awareness that one is dreaming-has been explored from many perspectives, including those of cognitive neuroscience and various ancient cultural traditions. Lucid dreaming appears within the Tibetan-Buddhist literature together with dream yoga, a set of contemplative practices aimed at cultivating lucidity during dreams along with other qualities such as visual imagination, somatic awareness, and cognitive flexibility. These practices include deity visualization, which is the practice of bringing to mind a detailed image of a being whose qualities the practitioner wishes to cultivate. We examined whether it is possible to induce a lucid dream of Chenrezig, the ultimate embodiment of compassion in a Tibetan-Buddhist context.

Five participants slept in the sleep laboratory for 7 overnight sessions with polysomnographic recording and auditory reminders to visualize Chenrezig during REM sleep.

Lucid dreams were reported by two participants. A frequent lucid dreamer with no prior Tibetan-Buddhist training experienced a lucid dream that included a visualization of Chenrezig following auditory cueing during REM sleep. A monastic participant with no prior history of lucid dreaming reported their first-ever lucid dream on the night following their laboratory session.

This exploratory study illustrates, via collaborative research including monastic scholars trained in neuroscience, that dream content can be intentionally shaped using an approach that integrates contemplative visualization practices with modern techniques of dream engineering.