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Lucid Dreaming in Children: the UK Library Study

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Lucid Dreaming in Children: the UK Library Study Lucid dreaming in children I J o D R Lucid dreaming in children: The UK library study Michael Schredl1, Josie Henley-Einion2 and Mark Blagrove2 1Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany 2Department of Psychology, Swansea University, United Kingdom Summary. The term lucid dream designates a dream in which the dreamer, while dreaming, is aware he or she is dream- ing. Whereas lucid dreaming has been studied in adults, large-scaled surveys in children are scarce. The sample here included 3579 children for the ages from 6 to 18 who completed a brief questionnaire distributed in UK libraries. 43.5% reported having had at least one lucid dream. As hypothesized, incidence of lucid dreams was most strongly associated with the preference for reading fantasy/science-fiction. Whether lucid dreaming might be beneficial for children in skills training or coping with nightmares are interesting topics for future research. Keywords: Lucid dreaming, Children, Book preferences 1. Introduction experiences and after several steps in cognitive develop- ment (around the age of 9 or 10), the child understands that The term lucid dream designates a dream in which the dreams are internally produced images during sleep. More dreamer, while dreaming, is aware he or she is dreaming recent studies (Wilson, 1991; Meyer & Shore, 2001), howev- (Tholey, 1983; LaBerge & Rheingold, 1990). In student sam- er, showed that most five-year olds do perceive dreams as ples, the percentage of people who report having had at internal mental processes. Yet the concept of lucid dreaming least one lucid dream in their lifetime ranges from 57.5% might be more difficult to understand: a study in preschool (Gackenbach, 1991) to 73% (Blackmore, 1982) and 82% children (4 to 6 years) found that most children believe that (Schredl & Erlacher, 2004). In two representative surveys, in dreams there might be a specific form of controlling the the figures were lower: 26% (N = 1000; Stepansky, Holz- action – while being aware that it is an ongoing dream (Qin- inger, Schmeiser-Rieder, Saletu, Kunze, & Zeitlhofer, 1998) mei, Qinggong, & Jie, 2006). The only large-scaled survey and 51% (N = 919; Schredl & Erlacher, 2011). Although the (N = 611) on the frequency of lucid dreams in children have percentage of people who report ever having had a lucid been carried out by Lapina, Lysenko, and Burikov (1998). dream is high, the actual frequency of lucid dreams – as The percentage of children reported having lucid dreams measured by keeping dream diaries – is relatively low; less ranged from 5% (10 years) to about 50% in (12 to 14 years); than 1% of dreams (Barrett, 1991; Zadra, Donderi, & Pihl, very high rates (80-90%) were found in 15 to 18-year olds. 1992). These authors found that a six-week training in different lu- Lucid dreaming research in children is scarce; even cid dream induction methods like MILD (Mnemonic Induc- though anecdotal report of lucid dreaming can be found in tion of Lucid Dreams; LaBerge, 1985), reality checks (Tholey the literature (Kimmins, 1973). Armstrong-Hickey (1988), for & Utecht, 1987) or re-dreaming (Garfield, 1988) in thirteen example, reported that she was a frequent lucid dreamer 10 to12-year-old children resulted in a high rate of lucidity between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Hickey (1988) studied (92% of the children had at least one lucid dream). four children (age range from 10 to 12 yrs.) who were trained The present aim was to examine lucid-dream frequency in lucid dreaming in the sleep laboratory (each child for four in a large sample of children. Furthermore, the effects of non-consecutive nights). She obtained six eye-signal veri- age and gender, and associations of dream recall frequen- fied lucid dreams reported by two of the children (Hickey, cy and nightmare frequency with the occurrence of lucid 1988). The proficient lucid dreamer can carry out pre-ar- dreams was studied. In addition, the book preferences of ranged eye movement patters within the dream and these these children were studied as possible associates of the can be detected by the electrooculogram (EOG) because occurrence of lucid dreaming. We hypothesized that read- the muscle atonia characteristic for REM sleep does not af- ing fantasy and science-fiction stories could be associated fect the eye muscles (Hearne, 1978; LaBerge, 1979). So, with lucid dreaming because children who are interested in REM lucid dreaming can found in children. bizarre stories might recognize bizarre elements in dreams, One problem studying this type of dream in children is which could trigger lucidity, or their interest in alternative the child’s understanding of dreams. Piaget (1978) found worlds might be associated with an ability to recognize they that young children tend to think that their dreams are real are dreaming. Corresponding address: 2. Method Prof. Dr. Michael Schredl, Sleep laboratory, Central Institute of Mental Health, PO Box 122120, 68072 Mannheim, Germany. 2.1. Participants Email: [email protected] The sample included 3579 children (2196 girls, 1383 boys) with the mean age of 12.0 ± 1.9 yrs. The sample sizes for Submitted for publication: February 2012 the ages from 6 to 18 are depicted in Table 1. Accepted for publication: April 2012 94 International Journal of Dream Research Volume 5, No. 1 (2012) Lucid dreaming in children I J o D R 2.2. Dream questionnaire For testing the association of age, gender, dream recall frequency, nightmare frequency and book preference on lu- The questionnaire entitled “Dream lab: The big library ex- cid dreaming, logistic regressions was computed using the periment” was devised by the Library Association (United SAS 9.2 for Windows software package (SAS Institute Inc., Kingdom) and Mark Blagrove. The first section of the ques- Cary, NC, USA). Due to missing values, sample sizes vary tionnaire included a question about types of book that the slightly. child likes to read. The following instruction was given: ‘Please put a tick in the box next to any of the following types of books that you like to read for leisure, that is, not 3. Results for school’. The categories of books were as follows: fiction In Table 1 and Figure 1, the lucid dream frequency is depict- (novels and stories), scary stories, history books, poetry, ed for each age group. Of the total group, 43.5% reported fantasy/science-fiction, arts and crafts, nature and science, having had at least one lucid dream. Many children checked religious books, other fact books, puzzles/joke books, sport the “Don’t know” category (32.7%), whereas 23.9% of the and hobbies. The first question of the dream section cov- children clearly stated that they never had experienced a lu- ered dream recall frequency, using a five-point format: How cid dream in their life. The percentage for boys (45.2%) was often do you wake up and recall a dream? 4 = 4-7 times per slightly higher than for girls (42.4%) – a significant difference week, 3 = 1-3 times per week, 2 = 1-4 times per month, 1 (see Table 2). The mean of the dream recall frequency scale = 1-11 times per year and 0 = less than 1 time per year, or was 2.61 ± 1.25 (n = 3522), for nightmare frequency scale never. The same scale was given for measuring nightmare 1.47 ± 1.20 (n= 3554). frequency including a brief definition for nightmares: “A The logistic regression showed a significant increase with nightmare is a vivid dream that is frightening or disturbing, age in having had lucid dreams and a significant gender and which you can remember clearly and in detail when you effect with boys reporting more often that they had lucid wake up. How often do you have such a nightmare?” dreams than girls (see Table 2). As expected, dream recall The question about having lucid dreams was formulated frequency was related to having had a lucid dream, as was as follows: “Have you ever had a dream during which you nightmare frequency, although to a lesser extent. knew that you very dreaming? Yes/ No / Don’t know. Ad- In the second logistic regression, the book preferences ditional definitions about lucid dreams were not given. For were included (see Table 3). This analysis with threshold of the purpose of the analysis of whether participants had ever p corrected in order to correct for multiple testing (p < .005) had a lucid dream, the category Yes was used, and the cat- found significant associations with reading fantasy/science- egories No and Don’t know were combined. fiction books and also fiction. The association between having had a lucid dream and fantasy/science fiction book 2.3. Procedure preference could not be accounted for by any relationship between this book preference and age: The correlation be- The dream lab questionnaire was distributed in libraries all tween age and preference of reading fantasy/science fiction over the United Kingdom. The text explicitly stated that one books was non-significant (r = -.006, p = .738, n = 3579). does not have to remember dreams, go to a library or read regularly to fill in the questionnaire: this was in order to mini- mize possible selection effects. The completed question- Table 1: Percentage of children with lucid dreams naire could be returned to the library or sent to the Library (N = 3540) Association anonymously. For the present analysis, ques- tionnaires completed by children from 6 yrs. to 18 yrs. were included. Age group Sample size Frequeny Figure 1: Percentage of children who have ever had a lucid dream 6 yrs. 17 29.4% 7 yrs. 35 34.5% 8 yrs. 93 40.9% 9 yrs. 185 46.0% 10 yrs.
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