Lucid dreaming — in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming and can sometimes influence the dream's trajectory — is a skill that can be honed, a new study finds. And the researchers found that doing this is surprisingly easy, after training participants to do exactly that using virtual reality (VR) twice a week for just one month.

The study's results could have practical benefits, said Daniel Morris, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University who studies dreams and was not involved with the work. "Lucid dreaming can benefit people with nightmares by allowing them to transform their nightmares into positive dreams and feel greater agency in their dreams," Morris told Live Science in an email.