Lets start form beginning:
First we want to know difference between dream and LD
Neural Correlates of Lucidity
Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-Lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study
Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-Lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study
Notes:
Activity related to lucid dreaming. Color coded clusters represent areas significantly activated during lucid epochs in REM sleep (pFDR < 0.005): left hemisphere (A), right hemisphere (B), midline view (C). Predicted (green) and fitted (black) fMRI data of the peak activation in the right precuneus, showing combined analysis of two independent lucid epochs in a single subject (boxed) (D).
DISCUSSION
Neuroimaging studies have shown that human REM sleep is related to characteristic patterns of regional brain activity: During REM sleep, neural activity in the brain stem, thalamus, amygdala, and extrastriate temporo-occipital cortices increases, while, e.g.,
the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the precuneus show deactivation.1 This specific pattern of neural activity has been proposed to reflect the visual hallucinations, emotional intensifications, and cognitive abnormalities typically experienced in dreams.2 In contrast, lucid dreaming is characterized by a regaining of higher cognitive capabilities, eventually leading to the awareness of the dreaming state. Recent quantitative EEG data have shown that this wake-like
intellectual clarity is paralleled by neural activations in frontal and frontolateral regions.3 Likewise, PET data show cognitive control in dreams to be associated with activation of frontal cortex components.8
Here we present neuroimaging data showing lucid dreaming to be associated with neural activations in a specific network of cortical regions. In line with the study of Voss et al.,3 during lucid dreaming we observed increased activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is thought to underlie a wide range of higher cognitive capacities, as evidenced also by the dysexecutive syndrome seen in patients with lesions in this region.9 In particular, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with self-focused metacognitive evaluation.10 While in normal dreams, working memory is strongly impaired,2 activation in the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in combination with parietal lobules, which we also found to be activated during lucid dreaming, may reflect working memory demands related to task performance in our study.11 We further observed increased activation in bilateral frontopolar areas, which have been related to the processing of internal states, e.g., the evaluation of one's own thoughts and feelings.12
The strongest increase in activation during lucid compared to non-lucid REM sleep was observed in the
precuneus, a brain region that has been implicated in self-referential processing, such as first-person perspective and experience of agency.13 While in normal dreams, attention is often hyper-associatively driven by the (pseudo-)external dream scenery, lucid dreaming is—by definition—characterized by a reflection on one's own state of mind.
*precuneus
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Lucid dreaming and ventromedial versus dorsolateral prefrontal task performance
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0010001492
Notes:Participants who exhibited a greater degree of lucidity performed significantly better on the task that engages the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex