Practice

Is lucid dreaming safe?

Lucid dreams themselves haven’t been shown to harm your health (Cleveland Clinic, 2025). Among 489 people surveyed online, most of them lucid dreamers, having lucid dreams more often wasn’t linked to poorer sleep (Stumbrys, 2023). The concerns raised so far are mainly about the methods used to bring them on, above all the broken sleep. We found no trial built to test for harm.

Last updated: 2026-11-06.

Are lucid dreams themselves bad for you?

The studies we found show no clear harm from the dreams themselves. In a lucid dream, you become aware that you’re dreaming while sleep carries on (Baird et al., 2019), and by one estimate, 55% of people have had one or more (Saunders et al., 2016).

A survey looking for possible harms asked 489 people online, 94% of whom had lucid dreams (Stumbrys, 2023). Those who had them more often reported no worse sleep quality and no more dissociation, and greater mental well-being. Their lucid dreams were mostly pleasant, and most of the dreamers saw no bad effects from them. About 10% of the dreams had a negative tone, though. The author notes that studies following people over time are needed to show cause.

A study of 187 psychology students at one Israeli university reached a similar answer (Aviram & Soffer-Dudek, 2018). How often students had lucid dreams was unrelated to their mental health symptoms. Students whose lucid dreams came with more control and more positive feelings reported fewer symptoms.

Can trying to have lucid dreams hurt your sleep?

Methods that wake you in the night can cost you sleep. That is where most of the caution sits. Two sleep researchers argue that methods built on night wakings break sleep up, change its structure and shorten it (Vallat & Ruby, 2019). In their view, the health effects of lucid dreaming, and of practicing those methods, are unknown and little studied.

A five-week diary from a lucid dream study pulls the dream and the method apart (Schredl et al., 2020). Its 149 participants felt slightly more refreshed after a night with a lucid dream. One group used a planned waking, a method called wake back to bed. They were asked to do it once a week and chose nights with time to sleep in. Once their longer sleep was taken into account, they felt less refreshed after those nights.

In an international home study of 355 people, sleep was rated better on nights a technique worked than on nights it failed (Adventure-Heart, 2020). So a failed try may cost you sleep. The Cleveland Clinic (2025) warns that waking yourself to bring on lucid dreams can leave you sleep deprived, which can bring problems with alertness, memory and stress.

Can lucid dreaming affect your mental health?

In the two studies above, frequent lucid dreams weren’t tied to worse mental health. Trying to bring them on was, in one study of students, and that study can’t settle which causes which. Among the 64 students who had tried induction techniques, those who used them more often reported more dissociation, schizotypy, depression and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, along with more sleep problems (Aviram & Soffer-Dudek, 2018). In theory, dissociation and schizotypy are both tied to a blurred line between dreams and reality (Soffer-Dudek, 2020).

Of all 187 students, 78 answered the questions again two months later (Aviram & Soffer-Dudek, 2018). In that group, bringing on lucid dreams on purpose more often went with a later rise in dissociation and schizotypy. For the link at one point in time, the authors offer two readings: scheduled night wakings might disturb sleep, or people who already have some of these symptoms might be more drawn to try the techniques. The rise over two months can’t be put down to differences between people, they write. All the measures were self-reports, and many of the analyses were single snapshots, which can’t show cause.

A later call for caution leaves open whether frequent induction harms sleep, and whether any risk falls on people already high in dissociation (Soffer-Dudek, 2020).

Can lucid dreaming cause sleep paralysis?

Lucid dreams and sleep paralysis tend to go together, but a survey can’t show that one causes the other. In an online survey of 1,928 people aged 18 to 82, those with more lucid dreams also had more episodes of sleep paralysis, most clearly episodes with feelings of floating or moving (Denis & Poerio, 2017).

In that survey, dissociative experiences were the one shared predictor of both. Beyond that, the two parted ways: poor sleep quality, anxiety and life stress went with sleep paralysis, while vivid imagery and a positive style of daydreaming went with lucid dreams.

The international home study gave every participant information and advice about sleep paralysis, and it turned away anyone who’d had it twice or more in the past 6 months (Adventure-Heart, 2020). Our guide to what sleep paralysis is and when it needs a doctor covers the episodes themselves.

What is a lucid nightmare, and how common is it?

A lucid nightmare is a frightening dream you know is a dream, often without being able to change it. In a survey of 634 people, 574 of them with lucid dream experience, fewer than half of the lucid dreamers had ever had one (Stumbrys, 2018). Lucid nightmares came once a week or more for 1%.

When they happen, lucid nightmares seem to be as distressing as ordinary nightmares, the same survey found. Lack of control over the dream and intense fear were among the most common features, followed by violent dream characters acting on their own and being unable to wake up. They were more likely for women, for people who have nightmares, for frequent lucid dreamers and for people whose lucid dreams come on their own.

If frightening dreams come often, lucid or not, our guide to nightmares says when to get help.

Who should not try to bring on lucid dreams?

The international home study turned several groups away, and if you’re in one, leave the night alarm off and ask a doctor or a sleep specialist before you start. Its reasons for turning people away were these (Adventure-Heart, 2020):

• a mental health, sleep or neurological disorder, whether diagnosed or only suspected
• a traumatic or highly stressful event that is getting in the way of sleep
• ongoing insomnia, or no regular sleep routine
• sleep paralysis twice or more in the last 6 months
• finding it unpleasant to think about your dreams
• being under 18

Telling a lucid dream from reality may be harder for people with conditions that bring delirium or hallucinations, such as psychosis (Cleveland Clinic, 2025). Lucid dream practice might even feed hallucinations in people with psychosis, two sleep researchers caution (Vallat & Ruby, 2019). If that applies to you, talk to your doctor before you try, and never change a medicine without your prescriber.

Our 7-night dream recall plan needs no alarm. If none of the cautions above applies to you, the beginner’s guide to lucid dreaming compares the techniques, and our MILD guide teaches one.

Sources

1. Adventure-Heart, D. J. (2020). Findings from the International Lucid Dream Induction Study. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1746. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01746
2. Aviram, L., & Soffer-Dudek, N. (2018). Lucid dreaming: Intensity, but not frequency, is inversely related to psychopathology. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 384. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00384
3. Baird, B., Mota-Rolim, S. A., & Dresler, M. (2019). The cognitive neuroscience of lucid dreaming. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 100, 305–323. doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.03.008
4. Cleveland Clinic. (2025, July 23). Lucid dreams: What they are and why they matter. health.clevelandclinic.org/lucid-dreams
5. Denis, D., & Poerio, G. L. (2017). Terror and bliss? Commonalities and distinctions between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking life experiences. Journal of Sleep Research, 26(1), 38–47. doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12441
6. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. (2025, February 25). Brain basics: Understanding sleep. National Institutes of Health. ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-understanding-sleep
7. Saunders, D. T., Roe, C. A., Smith, G., & Clegg, H. (2016). Lucid dreaming incidence: A quality effects meta-analysis of 50 years of research. Consciousness and Cognition, 43, 197–215. doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2016.06.002
8. Schredl, M., Dyck, S., & Kühnel, A. (2020). Lucid dreaming and the feeling of being refreshed in the morning: A diary study. Clocks & Sleep, 2(1), 54–60. doi.org/10.3390/clockssleep2010007
9. Soffer-Dudek, N. (2020). Are lucid dreams good for us? Are we asking the right question? A call for caution in lucid dream research. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13, 1423. doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.01423
10. Stumbrys, T. (2018). Lucid nightmares: A survey of their frequency, features, and factors in lucid dreamers. Dreaming, 28(3), 193–204. doi.org/10.1037/drm0000090
11. Stumbrys, T. (2023). Dispelling the shadows of the lucid night: An exploration of potential adverse effects of lucid dreaming. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 10(2), 152–163. doi.org/10.1037/cns0000288
12. Vallat, R., & Ruby, P. M. (2019). Is it a good idea to cultivate lucid dreaming? Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2585. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02585