Feasibility of a Mental-Health Intervention Based on Contemplative Sleep Practices

Overview

This is a feasibility study to test whether it is possible to deliver a program inspired by Tibetan Dream Yoga in a modern, accessible way. Dream Yoga is a set of contemplative practices that combine mental exercises during the day with techniques for becoming aware of dreaming within a dream (lucid dreaming) and engage in certain dream activities. The purpose of these practices is to help people explore and loosen rigid patterns of thought and behavior. In this study, the investigators are developing and testing a program that includes guided imagination, meditation, and lucid-dreaming practices, supported by virtual-reality experiences and home-based sleep-monitoring technology. Participants are randomly assigned to either the Dream-Yoga-inspired program or a comparison program focused on general health and sleep education. Because this is a feasibility trial, our main goals are to see whether people are willing and able to take part, whether they find the program acceptable, and whether the investigators can deliver it as planned. The investigators will also explore early signals of change in sleep, dreaming, and thinking. The long-term goal of this research is to determine if such interventions could be beneficial for supporting psychological well-being, improving sleep, and enhancing creativity and flexibility of thought.

Recent methodological advances enable novel scientific explorations of dreaming activities. Whereas the science of dreaming suffered historically from inadequate strategies, a new era has dawned driven by innovations in physiological sleep monitoring, two-way communication during the dream state, and lucid-dream induction. New opportunities for dream research emerged with the demonstration that dreamers can accurately perceive spoken questions and deliver coded answers to those questions while remaining in REM sleep verified with standard polysomnography. Subsequent studies confirmed the viability of these methods and used them to explore outstanding questions about dreams. The method the experimenters use to produce lucid dreaming in the sleep laboratory, Targeted Lucidity Reactivation (TLR), was substantiated with the published demonstration that 50% of participants tested achieved a lucid dream, and now extended to the home environment based on at-home strategies previously used for slow-wave-sleep Targeted Memory Reactivation. Building on this foundation, we can use lucid-dream induction and interactive dreaming in both lab and home environments to investigate contemplative sleep practices. Over centuries, Tibetan-Buddhist contemplatives developed and documented techniques for spiritual insight. One portrayal of insight in this context is to deconstructed conventional reality, noted that ordinary waking experience is like a dream in that people tend to grasp onto perceptual objects, thoughts, or ideas without understanding their interdependent, impermanent, and mentally constructed nature. The Buddhist literature on Dream Yoga includes manuals describing recommended practices, descriptions of benefits that can be achieved, such as enhanced cognition and emotional flexibility. The progressive exercises of Dream Yoga, including waking imagination and activities during lucid dreams, enable the dreamer to gain control over dream content, creating a platform to alter deeply ingrained habits and work to deconstruct ordinary conceptualizations. Based on traditional wake- and sleep-based practices, we have developed an accessible strategy for personal insight, capitalizing on modern virtual-reality and sleep technology to supplement dreaming experiences. People spend a third of their lives asleep, usually oblivious to the opportunities that sleep offers. Excessive pressure in people's lives makes some consider sleep a waste of time. Yet, sleep has untapped value for mental and physical health, as increasingly acknowledged due to steady advances in the science of sleep. Today's orthodox view nevertheless holds that, although people can constructively control the context of sleep with proper habits of Sleep Hygiene, there is little control after placing a head on the pillow-sleep either goes well or it doesn't. We propose that advanced contemplative practices during sleep may hold powerful opportunities. There is a glaring worldwide need to optimize sleep. Poor sleep is associated with many psychiatric and neurological disorders. The high prevalence of insomnia and suboptimal sleeping also contributes to other problems (e.g., low work-productivity, depression, and suicidal tendencies). A new orientation known as sleep engineering makes use of methods such as strategic sensory stimulation and sleep-and wake-based mental exercises, which can be guided by contemplative insights to enhance psychological health and well-being. Sleep is crucial for memory, emotional regulation, and numerous aspects of health. Methods for producing transformative dream experiences and reliably provoking lucid dreaming may hold promise for reducing depression and anxiety. A randomized controlled trial was designed to test whether the intervention produces changes in sleep and waking neurophysiology, cognitive flexibility, creative insight, and self-referential focus. The intervention includes practices during dreaming and waking, whereby people learn to cultivate specific skills, aided by virtual-reality experiences and wireless sleep-technology in their own homes. As an initial step, this randomized controlled trial is designed to examine feasibility, acceptability, tolerability, and potential outcomes.