Gamma oscillations in the frontal cortex and lucid dream induction success

Poster Session C - Sunday, April 14, 2024, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Abigail Roman¹, Remington Mallett^1,2; ¹Northwestern University, ²University of Montreal

Lucid dreaming, characterized by the dreamer’s awareness of dreaming while asleep, offers promising scientific and clinical applications, including nightmare treatment. Despite its potential, the reliable induction of lucid dreams in controlled settings remains a significant challenge, limiting progress in the development of such applications. Current strategies, including the use of audio-visual cues played during sleep to trigger dream awareness, have shown limited success. This study aims to enhance the understanding and methodology of lucid dream induction by identifying neural predictors of cue efficacy. We re-analyzed EEG data from a previous experiment that employed audio-visual cues to induce lucid dreams, focusing on the comparison of brain activity preceding successful and unsuccessful lucidity cues. Specifically, we investigated the patterns of oscillatory activity within high-frequency (gamma) and low-frequency (delta) bands across frontal and occipital regions. Our findings reveal a pronounced increase in gamma power in the frontal regions preceding successful lucidity cues, suggesting that elevated frontal gamma activity represents an optimal neural state for the induction of lucid dreams via auditory cues. This insight not only advances our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying lucid dreaming but also holds potential for improving the effectiveness of lucid dream induction techniques, thereby unlocking new possibilities for therapeutic and creative explorations. The specificity of our findings to frontal gamma activity underscores the importance of targeted neural states in enhancing cognitive awareness during sleep.

Topic Area: METHODS: Other