The picture above is a topographic image from a 2009 study done in Frankfurt, Germany in a Neurological Laboratory. The colors from red to blue on the side indicate brain activity with red being most active and blue being relatively inactive. The top image is an example of a brain when awake, the bottom is when one is lucid dreaming, and the last is when one reaches the deepest level of sleep, REM. From the image, we can see that lucid dreaming activates the brain enough that there is both activity and inactivity with the most activity towards the parietal (side) and frontal (front) of the brain. These are sections of the brain that have been found to be needed for waking memory, self-reflective awareness, and insight. Because these parts of the brain are active, it suggests a hybrid state of consciousness that has definable and measurable differences when compared to wake and REM sleep. Basically, this means that there are certain parts of the brain that are active during lucid dreaming that cause the dreamer to be aware that they are dreaming and are not awake. This is key to my paper because it is novel research that acts as tangible evidence of the reality of lucid dreaming and what parts are affected. Understanding the neurophysiology is also important because, in order to use lucid dreaming as an intervention, understanding what occurs allows researchers to investigate further inquires and theories, such as the efficacy of lucid dreaming as a therapeutic intervention for nightmare disorders.