SynthesisSleep medicine reviews2024
Influencing dreams through sensory stimulation: A systematic review.
Synthesis in Sleep medicine reviews, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Individual traits and experiences predict the content of dreams.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Immersive NREM2 dreaming preserves subjective sleep depth against declining sleep pressure.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Bodily stimulation during rapid eye movement sleep: effects of muscle and vestibular cueing on lucid dreaming.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2026Article
- Targeted dream incubation at sleep onset can influence later dream content in REM sleep: a pilot study.Frontiers in sleep · 2026Article
- Article
- Creative problem-solving after experimentally provoking dreams of unsolved puzzles during REM sleep.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Investigating dreams by strategically presenting sounds during REM sleep to reactivate waking experiences.Neuropsychologia · 2025Article
- Article
- Relationship and personality factors predict longitudinal changes in dream content.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Heartbeat-related activity in the anterior thalamus differs between phasic and tonic REM sleep.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- The individual determinants of morning dream recall.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Memory, Sleep, Dreams, and Consciousness: A Perspective Based on the Memory Theory of Consciousness.Nature and science of sleep · 2025Article
- Lucid dreaming of a prior virtual-reality experience with ego-transcendent qualities: a proof-of-concept study.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- New strategies for the cognitive science of dreaming.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2024Review
- Impact of Pre-Sleep Visual Media Exposure on Dreams: A Scoping Review.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Consciousness and sleep.Neuron · 2024Review
- An update on recent advances in targeted memory reactivation during sleep.NPJ science of learning · 2024Review
- Hybrid sleep-wake states in psychosis: Examining a comprehensive array of unusual sleep and dream experiences in patients with psychosis compared to non-clinical controls.International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHPArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sleep is typically considered a state of disconnection from the environment, yet instances of external sensory stimuli influencing dreams have been reported for centuries. Explaining this phenomenon could provide valuable insight into dreams' generative and functional mechanisms, the factors that promote sleep continuity, and the processes that underlie conscious awareness. Moreover, harnessing sensory stimuli for dream engineering could benefit individuals suffering from dream-related alterations. This PRISMA-compliant systematic review assessed the current evidence concerning the influence of sensory stimulation on sleep mentation. We included 51 publications, of which 21 focused on auditory stimulation, ten on somatosensory stimulation, eight on olfactory stimulation, four on visual stimulation, two on vestibular stimulation, and one on multimodal stimulation. Furthermore, nine references explored conditioned associative stimulation: six focused on targeted memory reactivation protocols and three on targeted lucid reactivation protocols. The reported frequency of stimulus-dependent dream changes across studies ranged from 0 to ∼80%, likely reflecting a considerable heterogeneity of definitions and methodological approaches. Our findings highlight a lack of comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms, functions, and neurophysiological correlates of stimulus-dependent dream changes. We suggest that a paradigm shift is required for meaningful progress in this field.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.