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“You could argue that REM sleep is a neglected resource,” he says. Benjamin Baird, a researcher in human cognition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “What if we could use this situation for when people really have control over their thoughts and actions and can decide what they want to do? The state could potentially be used for fun and creative problem solving, learning how memory works, and all sorts of different things. [neuroscience]”

Baird thinks that a particularly interesting application for lucid dreaming might be in the arts. “One technique from visual artists I’ve met is to find an ‘art gallery’ in their lucid dreams and look at the painting hanging in the gallery,” he says. “Then they wake up and paint what they see. The same can be done similarly to hear musical notes. It’s like someone else is creating it, but it’s your own mind.”

A small but growing number of scientists led by Baird and other sleep labs around the world hope to learn more about how lucid dreaming works, how it’s triggered, and whether the average person can be taught how to do it on a regular basis. By examining individuals who can remember what happened to them in their dreams, these researchers can relate what cognitive processes occur in the mind as the brain and physiological activity are measured and observed. For example, how does the brain perceive certain objects or physical tasks that occur only in the mind? How does it react to images that aren’t really there? How does it imitate parts of consciousness without actually being fully conscious?

Some researchers, for example Martin DreslerA cognitive neuroscientist at Radboud University in the Netherlands suggests that lucid dreaming may even be used to combat recurrent nightmares or clinical disorders like PTSD. “I think if you realize during a nightmare that it’s not real, that obviously takes away a lot of the pain of the nightmare,” she says. You can train yourself to wake up and end the dream, or you can overcome very vivid feelings of fear and dread by telling yourself it’s a dream.

In an unforgettable dream, I played cards with my grandmother, who died years ago. The experience helped me understand my feelings for him in a way that I could never have done as an ordinary 13-year-old boy.