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I am sitting in a lavish four-poster bed adorned with drapes and sipping on herbal tea. The scent of lavender hangs in the air. I am wearing pyjamas – and a VR headset. I breathe deeply, in and out. In front of my eyes, flowers morph from yellow to red before their petals dissolve into clouds. The clouds slowly turn into pillows, which drift through the air before shapeshifting into gently rippling bed sheets. A soothing voice speaks: “You are now entering the hypnogogic state.”
I am not being hypnotised. I am trying Kimpton Fitzroy’s “Room to Dream” experience, a world-first initiative designed to help guests lucid dream from the comfort of one of its glorious bedrooms. For the uninformed, a lucid dream is one in which you are aware that you are asleep and can control your actions. It might not sound that alluring, but it’s an area increasingly of interest for scientists, having been shown to help reduce symptoms of anxiety and PTSD, increase creativity, enhance learning and myriad other perks.
“Anything that can be treated with hypnotherapy can be worked through with lucid dreaming,” says Charlie Morley, a lucid dreaming teacher, researcher, and the architect behind the experience. He has used lucid dreaming to help people move forward from post-traumatic stress disorder, tackle confidence issues, move past phobias and even boost their athletic ability.
And it’s not just researchers that are interested in its benefits. On TikTok, the #luciddreams hashtag has over 1.4 billion views. Over on Reddit’s r/luciddreaming sub, you’ll find 494k subscribers busily sharing tips and experiences. Lucid dreaming is going mainstream.
Lucid dreaming as wellness
In this era of sleep tourism, it’s no surprise that hotels are starting to take notice. An ever-increasing number of programmes are being developed at top hotels to help guests enjoy a good night’s kip, and thus reap the benefits of the improved sense of wellness so closely linked with quality sleep.
Book into the Carillon Miami Wellness Resort and you can rest on a lounger with headphones and a mask in a glowing purple room, before enjoying a spell in a meditation pod. Six Senses Ibiza runs a comprehensive three- to seven-night regime comprising a consultation with the property's resident sleep doctor, 45-minute general wellness screening, yoga nidra, massages, fitness classes, sleep amenities and sleep tracking. In London, The Cadogan has partnered with a Harley Street hypnotherapist on a Sleep Concierge service to help you nod off blissfully, which includes a sleep-inducing meditation, pillow menu, use of a weighted blanket and a house-designed bedtime tea.
But Kimpton Fitzroy’s initiative marks the first time a hotel has attempted to help guests achieve consciousness during sleep. I’m intrigued – as far as I can recall, I’ve never lucid dreamed. But like many people Charlie has worked with, I mostly tend to recall negative dreams upon waking. “There's a wonderful quote from Rick Hanson, one of the mindfulness meditation pioneers,” says Charlie. “He says the human mind is like Teflon for positives and Velcro for negatives.”
Indeed – for years I’ve recurrently dreamed I am repeatedly, exasperatedly asking my mother a question that she refuses to answer. I always felt it was an indicator I need more therapy – but perhaps all that’s required is the healing power of shut-eye?
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A bedtime ritual
If I’m going to lucid dream anywhere, it’ll be at the Kimpton Fitzroy. After dark, the floor-to-ceiling marble interiors that surround you as you hop from lobby to bar to restaurant already gives the space a dreamlike aesthetic; dimmed lowlights making moody gothic vignettes in every aesthetically-pleasing nook. Soon I’m tucked up in the drapery-adorned confines of my king-sized four-poster. It’s time to get to work.
The ritual involves drinking a calming tea spiked with a few drops of mugwort tonic, with a couple more under the tongue for good measure. Mugwort is an ingredient known for increasing the likelihood of lucid dreaming. Next, a spritz of pillow spray and some lavender-fragranced balm on my pressure points, and it's into the VR headset for the immersive five-minute lullaby. The whole experience is as bonkers as it is soothing. I scribble down my intentions in the dream journal. There’s additional space to record your dream in the morning – if you give these notes to the staff, they’ll send them off to AI artist Sam Potter to create an illustration based on the imagery shared, which somehow makes things feel even more bonkers.
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Nonetheless, I do feel very relaxed. Whether it's down to the inordinately comfortable bed, the ritual, or perhaps the wine at dinner, I’m asleep in seconds. That night, I dream I’m at a house party. It’s loud and busy, so I leave the furore and emerge onto a field; a vast stretch of vividly green grass. The sun is shining and the sky is a piercing blue. My friend joins me in the field. He tells me that he had to end his relationship because his partner wasn’t putting in enough effort. He was sad but resolute: it’s the right decision. Since then, things have started to look up – he’s even been given £140! I congratulate my friend – good for him! – before, bizarrely, going off to do a fitness class in a nearby gym.
The morning after
So, the big question: did I lucid dream? Sadly, although it was incredibly vivid and memorable, it wasn't a lucid dream. It was perhaps a tall order – Charlie runs a selection of retreats from five nights up to seven weeks to help those interested gain the right mindset to achieve this state – and I’ve never been the suggestible type that falls under the spell of the pub hypnotist. But I was struck by how positive my dream was.
In my usual recurrent dream, I am angrily seeking answers that I’m clearly not going to get, over and over again. This time, I witnessed someone simply accepting they’re not going to get their desired outcome and confidently move forward regardless.
I mention this to Charlie. “Congratulations,” he says. “You had a resolution dream.”
Apparently, the cessation of a recurrent nightmare is a sign that the trauma, whatever it is, has been confronted and integrated in the psyche; something, unsurprisingly, associated with improved wellbeing. A dream in which the nightmare finally ends differently tends to precede this. It means, if the studies are correct, I should no longer have any more fruitless arguments with my mum during sleep.
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I can’t say for sure whether that’s true or not, especially as it wasn’t exactly the same dream. But it is true that I haven’t had that particular dream again since my stay at Kimpton Fitzroy. As far as hotel wellness offerings go, that would be a greater gift to take home with me than the all-too-fleeting effects of a 45-minute massage.
“We did a study on 65 people with high levels of post traumatic stress disorder that was published in the Traumatology journal,” says Charlie. “After one week, people had such powerful experiences with lucid dreaming that 85 per cent of participants no longer classified as having PTSD using the official diagnostic criteria. The panic attacks and anxiety had stopped, and that was true at the four-week follow up as well.”
This notion makes me feel emotional. It means we may all have the tools within us to improve our own sense of wellbeing, without the time or monetary investment therapy requires. The tea, drops, balm and pillow spray are yours to keep, so I’ve continued to practise the relaxation techniques at home to see if I can achieve a lucid dreaming state – although I’m not sure I’ll be investing in my own VR headset any time soon.
Regardless, this experience has given me a new appreciation for the restorative powers of a good night’s sleep. What I thought would be a bit of a gimmicky novelty actually proved rather thought-provoking. It makes a timely reminder that, no matter what happens to us, we alone have the power to take control of our own narrative – be that in our waking lives, or even in our dreams.
You can add Kimpton Fitzroy’s ‘Room to Dream’ package to your booking for a £50 supplement. See here for more information.
