Is lucid dreaming real, and is it safe? What the research shows
Knowing you are dreaming and sometimes steering it is real and surprisingly common, and it can be trained. But deliberately inducing it may carry a mental-health cost for some people.
Sleep paralysis: why you wake up unable to move
For a few seconds to a couple of minutes you are awake but frozen, sometimes with a sense of a presence in the room. It is REM sleep intruding into wakefulness — common, frightening and, on its own, harmless.
What causes nightmares in adults — and what actually helps
Nightmare disorder affects about 4% of adults. The treatment with the clearest backing is not a drug but a rehearsal technique that rewrites the dream while you are awake.
Is sleepwalking dangerous? What the evidence shows in adults
Childhood sleepwalking is usually harmless and outgrown. In adults it is rarer but a different proposition — one clinic series found most had done something violent during an episode and one in six had been injured.
Acting out dreams: what REM sleep behaviour disorder predicts
Physically acting out dreams is one of the strongest known early signs of Parkinson's and related diseases. In a 1,280-patient cohort, most converted within 12 years — but it is a risk marker, not a verdict.
Prazosin didn't beat placebo for PTSD nightmares in its largest trial
In a 304-veteran trial, prazosin matched placebo on trauma nightmares and sleep quality. Sleep medicine's one recommended treatment for nightmare disorder is a behavioural therapy, not a drug.
Insomnia flagged a disputed parasomnia in Ukrainian combatants
In 99 men hospitalised for stress-related disorders, roughly four in five met probable criteria for trauma-associated sleep disorder — a condition that is not yet a recognised diagnosis.