Dissociative Disorder and Lucid Dreaming

Dissociative disorders are characterized by involuntary escape from reality, mainly by a disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness, and memory (NAMI). This may be due to a traumatic event such as abuse or military combat. Indicators may include a significant loss of specific people or events; out of body experiences; other mental health problems like anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide; sense of detachment from emotions; and a lack of self identity (NAMI). There are three types of dissociative disorders: dissociative amnesia, depersonalization disorder, and dissociative identity disorder (NAMI). They can affect any gender or age, but are generally higher in women (NAMI). They can develop from fear or concern over food and weight related issues (NAMI).

Lucid dreaming would negatively impact this type of disorder (Timperley).

People who experience dissociative disorders have a hard time because in reality, lucid dreaming won’t help. Karen Kalkony, a PhD researcher in psychology at a Northwestern University in Illinois agrees that lucid dreaming can be used to help people with mental disorders similar to PTSD and clinical depression, but believes it’ll worsen disorders that involve hallucination and questioning reality (Timperley). Kalkony said “It kind of causes you to think about reality, question reality. That might be unhelpful for those who are already having issues thinking about what reality is.” (Timperley). A study in 2016 in Brazil concluded that lucid dreams “further empower deliria and hallucinations, giving internal reality the appearance of external reality” (Timperley).

Picture by Joel Rodrigues