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“Netflix” for Lucid Dreams: can preselected narrative cues during REM guide lucid dream content?

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Claudia M. Gonciulea¹ (claudia.gonciulea.gr@dartmouth.edu), Jeremy R. Manning¹; ¹Dartmouth College

Lucid dreaming, or the conscious awareness of being in a dream state, provides an avenue for dream content to be externally influenced with the dreamer’s awareness of this influence. We present a mobile application that we designed to investigate whether consciously experiencing narrative content during sleep influences (a) dream content and/or (b) subsequent waking cognition and well-being. Our application detects sleep stages using audio analysis and wearable sensor data, and delivers lucidity induction cues during REM sleep. The cues are self-selected, by participants, from a library of "dream stories." Narratives include strategic pauses to encourage creative elaboration while maintaining a guided structure. Prior to using our app, participants complete baseline assessments, including knowledge mapping tasks, mood and anxiety inventories, health self-assessments, and a battery of cognitive performance measures. They then use the app nightly for several weeks, maintaining daily logs of app usage, lucid dream occurrences, and subjective sleep quality. Post-intervention, participants repeat all baseline assessments and provide qualitative feedback on their experiences. This design allows us to examine which cognitive and affective domains are sensitive to lucid dreaming practice, whether effects depend on dream success frequency or sleep quality changes, and how individual differences predict outcomes. We suggest that our application may serve as a platform for studying the impact of guided lucid dreaming on mental health and cognitive performance.

Topic Area: METHODS: Other