New research suggests that lucid dreaming may help people reduce their fears by allowing them to face phobia-related situations in a safe, dream-based environment. In a study published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, participants who encountered the object of their fear in a lucid dream often reported less fear after waking up—especially when the fear had been intense beforehand.
Lucid dreams are a type of dream in which the sleeper becomes aware they are dreaming. Unlike typical dreams, lucid dreams often allow the person to consciously observe or even control what happens during the dream. This heightened awareness makes it possible for some people to confront challenging emotions or experiences in a vivid, immersive way without any physical risk.
Although lucid dreaming has long fascinated scientists and the public alike, research into its therapeutic applications is still emerging. Earlier studies have shown that lucid dreaming can help people improve motor skills, relieve nightmares, and reduce pain. In this study, researchers wanted to explore whether facing one’s fears during a lucid dream could help reduce fear in waking life.
The study was conducted by Zhanna Zhunusova, Michael Raduga, and Andrey Shashkov at REMspace and the Phase Research Center in Novorossiysk, Russia. The researchers focused on how the intensity of fear before and during a lucid dream influenced how people felt after the experience. Their main question was whether encountering a fear in a lucid dream could change how frightening it felt after waking up—and whether that effect depended on how scared someone felt beforehand.
To test this idea, the researchers recruited 76 people with prior experience in lucid dreaming through online channels. Each participant was asked to intentionally face a personal fear while lucid dreaming. After the dream, they completed a report describing what happened, how scared they felt in the dream, and how their level of fear had changed—if at all—after waking up.
The researchers filtered the reports to ensure that only detailed, valid accounts were analyzed. In the final analysis, they included 55 reports in which participants had clearly described their experiences and evaluated their levels of fear before, during, and after the lucid dream.
A little over half of the participants (51 percent) said they felt less fear after the lucid dream. The remaining 49 percent said their fear stayed the same. None of the participants reported an increase in fear after confronting their fear in a dream.
The researchers found that people who were more afraid to begin with were more likely to feel better after the dream. Among those who reported strong fear before entering the dream, 62 percent said their fear had gone down afterward. In contrast, only 25 percent of those who started with mild or average fear reported a decrease in fear after the dream. This difference was statistically significant.
Interestingly, the level of fear participants felt while they were actually in the dream did not seem to affect the outcome. Whether they had intense fear or barely any fear during the lucid dream, their level of improvement afterward stayed the same. That finding suggests that the act of encountering a fear in a dream—regardless of how scary it felt at the time—might be enough to shift the way someone feels about that fear in waking life.
The researchers also looked at whether factors like gender, level of lucid dreaming experience, and the method used to enter the lucid dream played a role in the results. None of these factors showed any meaningful connection to the change in fear after the dream. Similarly, the way the dream ended—whether by waking up naturally, on purpose, or due to outside disturbances—did not appear to influence the outcome.
The researchers drew connections between their findings and existing psychological treatments for anxiety and phobias. In particular, they noted similarities with exposure therapy, a method used in cognitive behavioral therapy where people confront their fears in a gradual and safe way. Lucid dreaming, they argue, may offer a unique way to simulate these experiences in a controlled, internal environment. It may also align with elements of gestalt therapy, which emphasizes awareness and facing one’s emotions directly.
They also speculated about possible links between lucid dreaming and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, a therapy often used to treat trauma. Because lucid dreams occur during rapid eye movement sleep and involve vivid emotional experiences, they may share some of the same neural mechanisms as this form of therapy. These similarities could help explain why confronting fear in a dream might lead to lasting emotional shifts.
No participants in the study reported increased fear after the experiment, which the researchers view as a promising sign for the safety of this approach. Lucid dreams allow for immersive simulations of frightening scenarios without the risk of physical harm, which may make them well-suited for therapeutic uses in the future.
The study does come with some limitations. Since all reports were submitted online, the researchers had to rely on self-reported experiences, which cannot be independently verified. They could not objectively measure how intense the dreams were or whether participants truly faced the specific fears they described. The sample size was also relatively small, and most of the participants had prior experience with lucid dreaming, which may not reflect the general population.
Despite these limitations, the findings point to intriguing possibilities. The researchers suggest that future studies should explore whether talking to the object of one’s fear in a lucid dream could lead to even greater benefits. They also recommend testing whether simply having a lucid dream—without confronting any fear—could reduce anxiety. Additional research might also examine the connections between lucid dreaming and established therapy techniques, such as those involving imagery or eye movements.
The study, “Overcoming Phobias by Lucid Dreaming,” was authored by Zhanna Zhunusova, Michael Raduga, and Andrey Shashkov.