Other people are luckier. Their dreams are more like a movie experience, but one where they not only get to choose the film, they can also take directorial control and influence the course of events. This is known as "lucid dreaming" and considered a half-way house between sleep and wakefulness.

In a study out this week, a team of psychologists led by Ursula Voss at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, claim to have given non lucid-dreamers the power of lucid dreaming by applying weak electrical current to the surface of their scalps and into their brains.