This is my full review of the Somni lucid dreaming mask on Kickstarter. In the past, lucid dreaming MASKS or devices have tried to find the holy grail of lucid or sleep tech companies:
A lucid dreaming mask that actually works.
It’s been a long search, but have we finally arrived? Buckle up and prepare your brains, today I’m going to be talking about the new Somni mask:
A new lucid dreaming mask that seems to be much better than previous masks.
Meet the Somni mask:
By the way, If you’re new, go here to learn what lucid dreaming is and how it works.
There have been many failures, and a few ‘interesting’ lucid dreaming devices over the years. Each mask or device had it’s benefits or ‘goals’ and it had it’s challenges. It’s a difficult thing, so let’s dive into what makes Somni an incredibly interesting new breakthrough…
What is the Somni mask?
The Somni lucid dreaming mask is a new device that launched on Kickstarter in mid 2020. It aims to detect REM sleep using an eye tracker, and then give the wearer light cues that they’re dreaming. It can also do this through headphones and audio cues.
The idea is then that the dreamer would see or hear these cues during their dream and realise they’re dreaming. This would trigger what we know as a ‘lucid dream’.
A dream during which you’re aware of the fact that you’re dreaming.
By doing that, the dreamer is able to experience vast benefits from the lucid state such as:
- Enhanced learning and creativity
- Inspiring and seemingly impossible experiences and adventures
- Real life skill improvement
- Reconnecting with lost loved ones or family members
- Exploring alien worlds and creating new fantasies
- Improving your confidence and removing fears and phobias from your mind
- Accessing your subconscious mind and directly working with your own brain and beliefs (supercharged personal and spiritual growth)
And many more. In fact I wrote a whole post about the many benefits of lucid dreaming and how they can improve and change your life. You should go and read it if you want. Or not.
So lucid dreaming is pretty epic, and if your’e just reading this after seeing Somni on some product hunt website or news article, welcome to this incredible world! I actually have a free PDF guide and video training on lucid dreaming if you want to get started.
But on with the review.
By the way if you’re skim reading, you can click here to get a 51% discount on the newly launched Somni mask but I’m not sure how long that will be around for!
So the question becomes:
Does this method actually work?
Can the Somni mask really give you lucid dreams?
Can you reliably induce a lucid dream using audio and light cues during REM sleep?
Can you actually induce a lucid dream using these techniques? Well, in theory, yes. But the challenge lies in the method: ACTUALLY detecting when the dreamer is in REM sleep and then ACTUALLY managing to get them to recognise and act on the cues.
To say it’s an instant lucid induction device would be false.
To say it’s going to give you EASY lucid dreams might also be false.
How does Somni work?
So how does the Somni mask actually work? Well, in simple steps, you wear it like a sleep mask. You just turn it on, it recognises your eye movements behind your eyelids, and detects when you’re in REM sleep.
When the device detects REM sleep, it activates sound signals in the earphones, and activates visual cues over your eyes.
REM sleep is the period of the night where we experience lucid dreams and it’s an important sleep stage to target. Especially for techniques like the wake back to bed, REM sleep is where the magic happens:
It looks like the mask doesn’t really do much until it detects you’re in REM sleep, and then it starts trying to make you become ‘lucid’ by flashing lights and playing audio cues.
We don’t know too much about the exact audio cues, or visual cues. We also don’t know if they’re customisable yet.
It looks like it’s charged via micro USB cable, and seems to be fairly comfortable to wear. The SETTINGS of the Somni mask can be changed from the computer, when you plug it into the MICRO USB port:
From their Kickstarter page:
“Since we don’t use wireless communication, the settings of this device are adjusted through the USB cable. When connected, your computer or smartphone will detect a new device. It opens up the interface for adjustments, where you can change audio files and any parameter responsible for the work of the device.”
They claim it’s:
- Easy to wash
- Comfortable
- Won’t put pressure on your eyes or nose like some sleep masks
- Blocks out light as well
- Has removable headphones
So does the Somni lucid dreaming mask work?
It’s hard to say because like most Kickstarter projects, we’ll have to wait a while to physically try it out. It’s just a concept at the moment, and many of the other lucid dreaming masks in the past have not really finalised.
They failed, in other words.
BUT this looks like it could work, because it’s based on a more accurate way of tracking REM sleep; eye movement. Tracing and tracking the eye movements of the dreamer could be a much more reliable way of detecting when they’re in REM sleep.
Even better:
Because the tracker is over the eye, you can wear the device much like a typical sleep mask meaning it could be comfortable! I can’t say HOW comfortable without properly trying it out, but compared to uncomfortable EEG monitors, this is a big win.
I’d like to share this little excerpt from an article in Psychology Today talking about how this concept could work:
The WAY the track eye movements in REM sleep is pretty smart too.
They use a built in chip that can remove ‘false signals’ caused when you roll over, so it only captures and acts on REAL REM sleep signals, when you’re not moving your body:
From their Kickstarter page:
“To exclude false signals, we’ve decided to use an accelerometer. While tracking the movements, the smart mask will not signal you when you accidentally wake up or roll over on your other side. The accelerometer will detect head movement and pauses the tracking for several minutes each time. Therefore, Somni only works during REM sleep and does not wake you up. The device analyzes eye movements for a certain period of time to confirm REM sleep and avoid false signals.”
So it has promise.
And compared to the previous lucid dreaming masks, this one’s actually quite interesting. It seems to be based on reliable and accurate information and principles. It seems to be able to track REM sleep and send cues to the wearer.
And that will work!
BUT…
The one drawback of the Somni
There’s one big drawback with a lucid dreaming mask like this. It relies on the dreamer actually recognising the cues. If you don’t notice them, you’re screwed. you won’t be able to lucid dream, and the thing becomes pointless.
But that’s not all doom and gloom, far from it in fact.
Because if you TRAIN yourself to recognise the cues, suddenly, you’re much more likely to lucid dream! This will take a bit of time, but it could be well worth it!
Get the Somni for a huge discount! (51% off)
If you want to see how this plays out, you can actually pre order the Somni mask right now for a huge discount of about 50% off or more. Just click here and you’ll be able to learn more about the discount, and watch a video explaining how it works in more detail.
I actually feel pretty excited about this one.
I’ll update this when I have one physically to test out, in a few weeks/months.
I’d suggest reading the following as well:
- How to lucid dream tonight
- Go through my Lucid Breakthrough course (New video course explaining how to lucid dream in very simple steps)
- And of course, check out the Somni lucid dreaming mask
