User:Esther Calderon

Who I am

I am Esther Calderón Rueckert, Multidisciplinary Artist & Independent Researcher with a Diploma in Cognitive Neuroscience (DNC, MasterLevel®), a musician, and a science enthusiast with a rather eclectic background.

My interest in science developed gradually, through a series of questions, encounters and changes of direction rather than through a clearly planned career path.

In 2014, in Spain, I studied Classical Philology for a year. I was interested in languages, ancient cultures and the ways in which people have tried to understand and describe the world. I later moved to Toulouse, France, where I studied psychology for a year before moving to Switzerland in 2017.

When I arrived in Switzerland, music was an important part of my life. I played in the streets, performed concerts and gave music lessons. At the same time, I continued exploring subjects that interested me on my own, particularly physiology and chemistry, through online courses and other forms of independent learning.

Little by little, these interests led me towards neuroscience. I eventually completed a Diploma in Cognitive Neuroscience (DNC, MasterLevel®) and began exploring scientific research more seriously.

I am particularly interested in questions related to consciousness, learning, memory, emotions and sleep, with a current focus on lucid dreaming.

I have been interested in dreams since I was a teenager and have practiced lucid dreaming for many years. Over time, this personal interest developed into a more scientific one. I became interested not only in understanding what happens during lucid dreams, but also in asking whether they could be studied as a possible environment for learning, experimentation and emotional processing.

I am still learning, and I think this is an important part of doing science. I don't consider myself someone who has all the answers. I am more interested in finding good questions, looking for evidence, building things, testing ideas and learning from what does not work.

Outside neuroscience, I remain involved in music and enjoy exploring the connections between biological systems, technology and artistic expression. I play several instruments, including piano, guitar, flute traversiere and djembe, and I am particularly interested in the possibility of creating experimental musical instruments or interfaces using biological signals.

In short, my interests tend to wander between disciplines. I have learned to see that less as a problem to solve and more as a useful way of looking at things.

Why I love Hackuarium

I discovered Hackuarium almost by accident.

At one point, I became fascinated by a question about DNA-based memory and went to EPFL hoping that someone could explain it to me. I spent about four hours there asking around and trying to find an answer, without much success.

Eventually, someone opened the door of their office and told me something along the lines of:

“I don't know what you're talking about, but we'll look for the answer together.”

That was probably the first time I encountered the kind of scientific environment I had been looking for without knowing that it existed.

After talking for a while, they realised that I did not come from a conventional scientific background and suggested that I visit Hackuarium.

I joined Hackuarium in 2018, became a member of the committee in 2019, served as secretary from 2020, and became President in 2024, a position I still hold today.

What made me stay was not only the possibility of using a laboratory or working on interesting projects. It was the atmosphere.

Hackuarium gave me a place where I could ask questions without feeling that I was asking the wrong kind of person, or that I needed the right academic background before being allowed to be curious.

It also gave me the opportunity to meet people with very different skills and backgrounds and to learn from them. I have always appreciated the idea that someone can arrive with a strange question, a half-formed idea or simply an interest in understanding something, and that this can be enough to start investigating.

I share the values and ethics of Hackuarium and, over the years, contributing to them has become increasingly important to me.

I would like to help make science more accessible and encourage more people to participate in it, not necessarily by becoming professional scientists, but simply by being allowed to ask questions, experiment and understand how things work.

Hackuarium welcomed me when I was still finding my way into the scientific world. It gave me a place where I could learn, contribute and express myself freely.

Over time, it became much more than a laboratory or an association.

It became a kind of family.

My personal work

Lucid dreaming research

One of my main areas of research is lucid dreaming.

My work explores lucid dreaming as a possible environment for learning, motor practice and emotional processing, and more broadly the question of what happens when conscious awareness is maintained during dreaming.

My research on this subject, “Lucidité dans le cahos du Rêve'': Lucid Dreaming as a Space for Learning and Emotional Regulation”, is available through Zenodo:

DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21894415

The work brings together findings from the existing scientific literature with observations and experimental approaches related to lucid dreaming. It also explores possible protocols for investigating whether lucid dreams can be used for intentional practice and whether experiences occurring during lucid dreams may have measurable effects after waking.

I am currently interested in developing this work through a participatory research project involving 30 or more participants. One possible direction would be to investigate whether people can intentionally practice a particular skill or learning task while lucid dreaming, and whether this practice could have measurable effects outside the dream.

Another possible direction concerns emotionally sensitive experiences and trauma. I am interested in exploring whether lucid dreaming could provide a useful experimental context for studying how people interact with difficult emotional material during dreams.

This second direction would require particular care. I do not consider lucid dreaming a demonstrated treatment for trauma, and I would not present it as one. Research involving trauma or particularly sensitive emotional material would require an appropriate ethical framework, informed consent and qualified professional supervision.

The broader question behind this work is:

To what extent can conscious awareness within dreams become an active space for learning and emotional processing?

How to contact me

info.esther.calderon@gmail.com

I can be contacted through Hackuarium for questions, collaborations, citizen-science projects, science communication, educational activities, workshops, or discussions related to my research interests.

For questions specifically concerning my work on lucid dreaming, I can also be contacted through the contact information associated with my research.

What I have been working on at Hackuarium

NeuroKids and Kids' Club

I am involved in NeuroKids, developed within Hackuarium's broader Kids' Club activities.

The idea is to introduce children to neuroscience and scientific thinking through experiments, games and hands-on activities.

I am particularly interested in helping children explore subjects such as memory, learning, perception and the brain without turning them into conventional lessons. Children are often remarkably good at asking questions that adults have stopped asking, so I think there is quite a lot to learn from them too.

Lucid dreaming

Lucid dreaming is currently one of my main research interests.

My work explores the possibility of using lucid dreams as an experimental environment for learning, motor practice and emotional processing. My research work is available through Zenodo and has been assigned a DOI.

At Hackuarium, I would like to develop this work further through a participatory research project involving 30 or more participants.

One possible direction would be to investigate whether people can intentionally practice a particular skill or learning task while lucid dreaming and whether this has measurable effects outside the dream.

Another possible direction concerns emotional experiences and trauma. I am interested in investigating whether lucid dreaming could eventually provide a useful experimental context for studying how people interact with emotionally sensitive material during dreams.

This is an area where I think considerable caution is necessary. I do not consider lucid dreaming a demonstrated treatment for trauma, and I would not want to present it as one. Any research involving trauma or particularly sensitive emotional material would require an appropriate ethical framework and qualified professional supervision.

More broadly, the question that interests me is whether conscious awareness within dreams can be used as a tool for studying learning and emotional processing.

Music, the brain and living systems

I am also working on ideas combining music, neuroscience, electronics and living systems.

One of my longer-term ideas is to explore the possibility of creating an experimental musical instrument or interface based on brain activity or other biological signals.

I am interested in the moment when a biological process can become something we can hear, manipulate or interact with. I don't yet know exactly what such an instrument would look like, which is probably part of the fun.

Declaration of further interests

My interests include cognitive neuroscience, consciousness, lucid dreaming, sleep, memory, learning, emotional processing, physiology, chemistry, biology, biohacking, citizen science, open science, science communication, education, music and the relationship between science and art.

I am particularly interested in subjects that sit between disciplines. I enjoy learning enough about different fields to see where they might connect, even when I am not yet sure whether the connection will lead anywhere useful.

My background has taken me through classical languages, psychology, music, physiology, chemistry and neuroscience, and eventually into citizen science and open laboratory culture.

It has not always been a straightforward path, but it has taught me that curiosity does not always follow the categories we create for it.

This is one of the things I appreciate most about Hackuarium: it is a place where you can arrive with a question, a strange idea, a half-built experiment or simply the desire to understand something, and there may be someone willing to sit down with you and figure it out.

That is the kind of science I would like to contribute to.