Abstract: 

The sense of agency, or feeling of control we have over our thoughts and actions, is a key aspect of our sense of self and wellbeing. These features can be severely disrupted in dreams, with a lack of control being associated with bad dreams and nightmares, and increased control associated with pleasant dream experiences such as lucid dreams. We tracked sleep quality and sense of agency using wearable devices and journals to assess how these experiences shift through the course of individual dream sequences. In this talk, I discuss the use of agency-specific surveys as well as a novel protocol that focuses on the change of agency as a way of filling in the gaps of our understanding about control, wellbeing, and the dream state. Preliminary evidence suggests a complex relationship between sense of agency and wellbeing, although generally increased control increases wellbeing.