Question: how do lucid dreams work ?

Alex Reid answered on 7 Nov 2018:

Hi thank you for your great question. So as a memory researcher this is not 100% my area but I can give you my best understanding of what lucid dreaming is. Sleep is a really active state and your brain goes through different stages which have different types of brain activity. Roughly speaking the stages go from wakefulness all the way down to deep sleep (when you are really conked out). Although your brain cycles through these stages (a bit like a car changing gears) sometimes the transition is not completely smooth and you can end up with hybrid sleep stages. Lucid dreaming may be one such situation, and it may be a partial combination of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and wakefulness. It is probably no coincidence that lucid often dreaming occurs the most at the end of your whole sleep cycle, right before you wake up, and this is also the point when you get the most REM sleep.