During dreams, bizarre scenes you encounter can seem as tangible as reality; you feel as though you’re really flying through the sky or being chased through a jungle of bright-purple trees. But in special cases, people realize they’re in the midst of a dream as it’s unfolding.
Called lucid dreaming, this phenomenon occurs when we suddenly regain our capacity for metacognition, or thinking about our own thoughts, in the middle of a dream. Lucid dreamers can sometimes even control the content or trajectory of their dreams. Now, researchers claim that they’ve found a way to “train” people to lucid dream by having them meditate and complete virtual-reality-augmented exercises while they’re awake.
