Long-term effects of LD

[jonjon5000]

I was wondering if anybody out there has done any tests or if people personally have experiences of what a long-term life of Lucid Dreaming can do for you. I know it expands your mind into more creative and reasoning-based thinking. It takes a strong mind to break the laws of physics even while dreaming and the mind has to practice identifying reality from dreams, but is that something that can benefit you mentally while you're awake too? Has anyone seen an increase in mental clarity or alertness after extended periods of Lucid Dreaming?

[Mystical_Journey]

The coin has two sides...... something that can benefit you mentally while you're awake[/b] Thats what we all hope for Its interesting to look at the long term effects of mental health, has anyone done a study on this, increase or decline of mental stability.

[Pesho_Zmiata]

I think LD is a great benefit for the mind. It's probably the best way to deal with stress, and it is a very good training for your imagination. LD does make you more creative, which is a definite plus if your job involves it. And ofcource, it's suprfun too

[TygrHawk]

I don't know of any studies, but speaking personally, it completely stopped the nightmares I had as child after the first time that I became aware that I was in dream and could end it anytime I wanted. After that, even non-lucid dreams failed to scare me, even if they put me in situations that would have scared me in real life. And just to offer my $.02 on the original question, I believe that anything you do that requires mental gymnastics will improve your mind, or at least help prevent it from deteriorating.

[Syntex]

Any benefits of Lucid Dreaming are most likely psychological/emotional ones. LDing doesn't normally take more energy away or bring more back physically. The benefits of LDing are based on what you do during that LD. If you for instance conquer a nightmare, your probably stabalizing emotional or pyschological imbalances. If you were to train in your lucid dreams to become a better skilled whatever, then you could practice it perfect in your lucid dream, since there is no limitations. Thereby reaching that skill much faster than trail and error in real life. If you were to say, I will dream up an amazing invention, your mind during dreaming would be much more capable of creatively coming up with a valid solution to a boggoling problem. If you have A.D.D. and were to find the psychological cause for it in the dream and eleminate or correct that part of you, you could porbably fix that too. As for added clarity and overal better mental ability, that only seems to happen while in the dream state and not when awake. However some can claim that if you were to become LUCID while awake, you would bring with you that added clarity and mental awakeness you experience in the dream. Overal, the benefits are what you make them to be... The only draw back to LDing is what you make it to be. It can be your heaven or hell, your source of inspiration or your source of great stress. My only problem with it is that it makes life seem nothing more than a dream... sometimes the only way you can tell them appart is by the smallest inconsistancy. -Daniel

[Aneas]

I wrote a post on this subject. http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic....=asc&highlight=