Definitions with boundaries.
Terms can make a conversation clearer, but they are not diagnoses, measurements of certainty or promises about what will happen next.
Glossary
- Dream recall
The ability to remember some part of a dream after waking. Recall may be a scene, a feeling, a phrase or no more than a brief impression.
- Dream journal
A private record of dreams or dream fragments, often made after waking. It can include uncertainty rather than a polished narrative.
- Lucid dreaming
Awareness that one is dreaming while the dream continues. It does not require control of the dream and is not guaranteed by a practice.
- Non-lucid dream
A dream in which the dreamer does not recognise, while dreaming, that the experience is a dream.
Most remembered dreams are described this way; remembering one later does not make it lucid.
- False awakening
A dream in which it seems that waking has occurred, although the person is still asleep and dreaming.
- Hypnagogia
The transition into sleep, which can include changing thoughts, images, sounds or bodily sensations. Experiences in this period vary widely.
- Hypnopompia
The transition from sleep towards waking, when dream imagery or sensations may briefly remain present.
- Sleep paralysis
A temporary state around sleep and waking in which a person may be aware but find movement difficult. It can be frightening.
- OBE-like experience
A description for an experience that can feel detached from the body or unusually located in space, without settling its cause or interpretation.
- Dream signs
Details that feel unusual, recurring or inconsistent within a dream and may later be used as possible recognition cues.
A dream sign is not a reliable test of whether one is awake.
- REM sleep
Rapid eye movement sleep, a sleep stage associated with vivid dreaming among other features. Dreaming can also be reported from other stages.
- MILD
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams: a memory-and-intention exercise involving dream recall and mental rehearsal of noticing a dream.
- WILD
Wake-initiated lucid dream: a term for becoming lucid through the transition from waking into a dream. It describes an approach, not one standard routine.
WILD is about how lucidity begins, not a symbol, diagnosis or proof that awareness continued through every moment of sleep onset.
- DILD
Dream-initiated lucid dream: a term for recognising that one is dreaming after a dream is already underway.
DILD contrasts with WILD’s waking-to-dream transition; neither label settles the meaning or cause of a personal experience.
- WBTB
Wake Back To Bed: a planned awakening after part of the night, followed by a period awake and a return to bed. It is a schedule, not a complete mental technique.
- SSILD
Senses Initiated Lucid Dream: a relaxed cycle of attention through closed-eye vision, sound and bodily sensation before ordinary sleep resumes.
- Reality checks
Brief, harmless observations used in some lucid-dreaming practices to notice whether a scene has dream-like inconsistencies.
They are not proof of waking reality and should never involve risk, pain or restricted breathing.
- Prospective memory
The ability to remember to carry out an intention later, such as remembering to notice a particular question in a future situation.
- Self-report
Information a person gives about their own experience, such as a dream report, a sleep diary entry or a questionnaire response.
It is valuable evidence of what was reported, while carrying the usual limits of memory and interpretation.
- Sleep quality
A broad description of how sleep feels and functions, including restfulness, unwanted interruptions and daytime effects. It is not captured by a single experience or one morning.
