Lucid Dreams

The App operates by Hearne’s induction technique, which depends on an internally generated dream anomaly. In a more natural way, the powerful known phenomenon of expectation, is utilized. After a set delay, the phone’s speaker will pronounce ‘This is a dream’. At some point, the dream-producing-process, flowing naturally, and guided by anticipation of the vocal message, will create the anticipated voice, and a ‘false-awakening’. The dreamer is already primed to analyse the sound device for anomalies that will show the experience is a dream – from which point lucidity may be ‘switched on’. Counter intuitively, the voice may not be played at that time, or at all in the sleep period. The voice is purely to cause an anticipation of it being played. Importantly, the App incorporates a special method to aid recognition that the possible false-awakening is indeed a dream. A ‘light-switch’ effect in dreams that was discovered by Hearne is utilised (it is frequently reported that it is often not possible to switch on a light in the dream scenery). A button on the phone’s App switches a white-light screen on/off (with an animation). The user must practise using this function several times in wakefulness – to observe its correct functioning. In a dream, though, there will probably be problems with the ‘virtual’ phone, because of consistent universal flaws in the dream-producing process. The anomaly is capable of triggering dream lucidity.

Dr Keith Hearne’s first historic lucid dream-machine operated on the principle that an external physical stimulus applied to the subject during REM sleep might be perceived and recognised as a ‘trigger’ to induce lucidity.