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Wow guys I just had a thought and want your opinion. Can you kick habits with a lucid dream? For example quitting cigarettes or something in your dream and waking up and not wanting one? I'm sure there have been discussions about this before and probably even on this site but I've never seen anything about it. Has anyone ever done this?
Hmm, I don't see how the physical addiction could be overcome by lucid dreaming. However, you can definitely enhance your willpower by lucid dreaming. Perhaps kicking a huge pack of smoke's ass in a dream would signify that you're quitting and that you've overcome that monster of a habit.
Never underestimate the power of placebo, especially when it comes to lucid dreaming :)
I have read of someone successfully dieting by stuffing herself with ice cream and cake during lucid dreams, so that she had no need for them during waking life because she had had enough.
However, I would think that it depends on the addiction:
If it is something that one can saturate (such as the above example, where there is such a thing as "enough" sweats. My understanding of smoking is that there may not be a saturation point like that for smokers, that there may not be such a thing as enough or too many cigarettes, and if that is the case then smoking in your sleep may actually make your addiction worse because now you would have conditioned your mind to want smokes both during waking and dream time.
Also I would think it depends on whether the addiction is more physical or more psychological. For example, if I am "addicted" to online forums, there is no physical component to it, and thus as long as I could make the experience in dreams satisfying enough perhaps I could fool my brain into accepting that doing it in my sleep only is enough. But with an addiction that is physical, you got more than your brain to fool, and the rest of your body may continue to crave the substance.
Very well said JoannaB :)
I had a dream that pertains to this topic.
Real life background: You see my example of "online forum" addiction was not a random example at all. I have recently left an online forum because I realized that I kept participating in it because I was addicted to it psychologically, but I was so bothered by so many things on that forum, and had been talking to my online friends there in private messages about my wanting to leave, for quite a while, but I kept going back. Last Friday I finally left. I had bad withdrawal symptoms, cravings for logging in there again. Finally I realized that I had to have an online forum in my life instead. That's when I remembered about wanting to go back to lucid dreaming. I found this forum, liked what I saw, and decided to join.
Working on my dream recall: At first I had no dream recall. Then yesterday, I was home sick and after nap, I remembered emailing a friend from previous forum. Just a snippet of a memory. Around 4am today, I woke up sad, and while I did not remember about what, but I remembered that it had something to do with the forum I left and that I had logged in in my sleep. Around 6am woke up again: This time I remembered feeling strong anger, and telling a friend "Why would the admin delete this post?!" (This was one of the things that bothered me about that forum: censorship and too restrictive.)
My realization: While I think I have successfully left that forum in real life, in my dreams I have not yet overcome this addiction! And given that it is a psychological addiction which bothers me due to the strong emotions of sadness and anger that it brought about on a regular basis, kicking this habbit in my waking life does not suffice! I am so glad that I am working on my dream recall, because I realize that our moods during the day are influenced by dreams even if we do not remember them. And my dream recall was so abysmal up to now that I did not know I had not successfully left that place. For this particular addiction, I think lucid dreaming is a perfect solution. I was strong enough to kick this addiction finally in real life, and once I am lucid in my dreams, I will get to do it all over again in my dream. I look forward to it!
Lots of habits are all in your head. In fact cigarettes is actually mostly a mental thing. I think that if you were trying to quit smoking you could make it easier on yourself by smoking during a dream. I have also heard of someone fighting food addiction (I think from ETWOLD) as well.
Ah, but even if smoking were mostly a psychological addiction (and maybe it is, I don't know, I never smoked), Smoking in one's dreams will only help if one's brain accepts the substitution bargain: a cigarette in dream for no cigarette in real life. But I would think that there would be a danger of smoking more in one's dreams exacerbating the problem by reinforcing the habit.
In my example of online forum addiction, participating in that community in dreams only is obviously a bad idea for me. First of all I bet I am just participating in a worst parts version of that forum in my nightmares. Second of all the mood swings continue. And last a true solution for me will be taking control and overcoming this habit all together in both waking and dream lives. Until I do, I cannot feel that I have been successful, it continue to be a weakness of mine, which I have to fight.
I cannot help but wonder if a similar logic would not also apply to cigarette addiction: smoking cigarettes in lucid dreams may not be a good long term solution if one truly wants to overcome the psychological addiction. Unless of course your only reasons for wanting to stop smoking are for your health and social reasons, but the psychological addiction does not bother you, in which case perhaps switching to smoking in dreams only may be the solution after all.
EDIt: It occurred to me that my seeking out a lucid dreaming forum may not have been a coincidence. I think a subconscious part of me realized that my dreams were a problem which needed to be resolved. :)