Others benefit from observing a nightmare and realizing it's not waking reality. In some cases, this is because the dreamer can control and alter nightmares. On the flip side, lucid dreaming may be successful in reducing the number and severity of nightmares. Finally, persons suffering from mental disorders that make it difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality may find lucid dreaming worsens the condition. Others feel 'dream claustrophobia' from being able to observe a dream but not control it. A person may become more aware of sleep paralysis, a natural phenomenon that prevents the body from harming itself during dreams.

Some people find lucid dreaming frightening.

There are excellent reasons to seek lucid dreams and equally good reasons you may wish to avoid them. Regardless of how they work and whether they are truly 'dreams,' people who experience lucid dreams are able to observe their dreams, recall the waking world, and sometimes control the direction of the dream. Skeptics of lucid dreams believe these perceptions take place during a brief period of wakefulness rather than a stage of sleep. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) indicate lucid dreaming starts during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) state of sleep, but different parts of the brain are active during a lucid dream than during an ordinary dream. A 1985 study by Stephen LaBerge at Stanford University revealed that, unlike in most dreams, time perception in lucid dreaming is about the same as in waking life. While scientists and philosophers have long understood the practice of lucid dreaming and its benefits, the neurology behind the phenomenon has only been examined in the 20th and 21st centuries. The physician Galen of Pergamon used lucid dreaming as part of his medical practice. It is part of the ancient Hindu practice of yoga nidra and the Tibetan practice of dream yoga. The term 'lucid dream' was coined by Dutch writer and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden in 1913 in his article 'A Study of Dreams.' However, lucid dreaming has been known and practiced since ancient time.

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