Lucid Dreaming: The Bonkers World Inside Our Minds

Some people can control their dreams. While they're fast asleep: they fly, create new worlds, live other lives. But Wendy isn't one of them. So in today's episode, Wendy and the Science Vs team find a scientifically approved method to try to lucid dream. We test it out — and bizarre things start happening. We also explore how scientists are trying to harness the strange powers of lucid dreaming to help people, as well as to crack huge scientific mysteries, like: What is consciousness? And what exactly goes on in all of our heads when we're asleep? To do all this and more, we talk to psychologists Dr. Denholm Adventure-Heart and Dr. Brigitte Holzinger, as well as cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Başak Türker.

Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsLucidDreaming

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Let's Fly!

(04:24) Does Reality Testing Work?

(11:30) Does the MILD Technique work?

(14:10) Wendy and the Team Try to Lucid Dream

(17:37) Can Drugs or Masks Help You Lucid Dream?

(19:28) Inside the Mind of a Lucid Dreamer

(26:24) Strange Windows of Consciousness 

(27:58) The Lucid Dreaming Brain

(34:53) Can We Use Lucid Dreaming to Help Us?

(38:32) Did the Science Vs team have a Lucid Dream?

This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman, with help from Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, Joel Werner, Meryl Horn and Ekedi Fauster-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Sam Bair. Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka, So Wiley, Peter Leonard and Emma Munger. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to including Dr Karen Konkoly, Dr Benjamin Baird, and Professor Ken Paller. Also thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson.

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