The Breathing Into Dreaming study aimed to research if a certain 12-minute-long simple breathing exercise consisting of alternating deep breathing, breath holding, and hyperventilation carried out before falling asleep has lucid dream inducement effect. The intention of the study was to find a relatively simple lucid dream inducement technique, that requires no device or any administered supplement, and can be learned relatively quickly and carried out regardless of any circumstances. The motivation of the study was based on my personal experiences.
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The cross-sectional between subject experimental design including the requirement to fill in one pre-questionnaire and 22 experimental questionnaires, while following the individual experimental schedule timed along the Fibonacci numbers to determine when to carry out the breathing task or the counting task, required quite a high commitment – approximately 20 minutes daily for 22 days long - form the participants. This experiment web site and my daily support were intended to help the participants, as well as a participant lottery to promote participation and maintain the participants' persistence. Following the recruitment process 25 participants started the experiment overall, although 19 participants completed at least 11 days of the experiment, whose data was statistically analysed.
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The results of a paired t-test concluded that there were no significant differences in lucid dream appearance frequency regarding the evening task (t 18) =798, p=.22, M(V5) =.17 (SD=.28), M(V6) =.14 (SD=.26), which translates that the direct strict effect of the breathing task alone on the lucid dream frequency increase was not confirmed. However, the comparison of lucid dream appearance frequency pre-experiment and during the experiment with the Wilcoxon test came to the result, that there was a difference pre-experiment and during the experiment regardless the evening task in lucid dream experience (z= -2.39; p=.02) showing that lucid dream frequency in total was higher during the experiment than before.
It raised the question of possible conscious and unconscious applications of known lucid inducement methods and supplements.
Filtering out the possible unconscious and admitted conscious applications of lucid dream inducement from the answers of the experiment questionnaires made the originally small sample even smaller both regarding sample size and the experiment days, given it was almost unavoidable not to think of the experiment or dreams during the participation in the study, leading to the possible unconscious application of the suggestive method. The decrease in sample size and experiment data could also affect the reliability of the statistical analysis. Additionally, the data filtering might be considered a bit strict, - but methodologically necessary - as it is uncertain that any of the potential already known methods - which was quite rarely known or used, almost none and never amongst the participants based on their answers on the pre-experiment questionnaire - were applied indeed, or if it was the breathing exercise what resulted the changes, or the breathing exercise and the counting task together with their stress relieving, anxiety reducing effect on the individuals, as multiple instances confirmed these in participants' comments. It was also challenging to deal with those few night when participants practiced meditation. It was unknown how deep they were into meditation, what brain waves they evoked, and for how long. It certainly could put them into a relaxed state, which, - together with calmness and a positive emotional state, - were described along the participants' comments as the main features of their experiences during the participation in the experiment.
Furthermore, it is almost impossible to filter out the effect of the suggestive method from any lucid dream inducement study if one is part of such an experiment especially if it requires daily tasks twice to complete. In this regard it is almost unavoidable to think about dreams and dreaming.
When filtering out the possible unconscious and admitted conscious applications of dream inducement from the answers of the experiment questionnaires, the Wilcoxon test revealed that there was no difference pre-experiment and during the experiment regardless of the evening task in lucid dream appearance frequency if the participants did not consciously or unconsciously apply any known dream inducement method (z= -1.07; p=.29).
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Future advancement possibilities
If more resources were given, - for instance in a sleep laboratory - applying EEG to measure the brain waves generated by the breathing exercise, and measure the cortisol level, blood oxygenation, pulse, breath count and body temperature, it could be worth making it to be a longer, mixed experiment. A possible broadening of the experiment could entail also qualitative interviews or diaries on the dream content and on their daily life events to reveal eustress distress changes in daily life and compare it to the changes in dream vividity and lucidity, and to investigate if their daily life has an effect on their dreams and lucid dreams or vice versa.
All in all, the breathing exercise of my experiment had an anxiety reducing effect, that I assume can help to open the mind to be receptive of triggers for lucid dreaming.