Working out in Lucid Dreams?

[ImmaLDer]

If you work out in Lucid Dreams, will you have the same effect as if you worked out in real life?

[DreamscapeGoat]

Interesting question. There are people that improve their skills in lucid dreams - things sugh as playing piano or sports. However, I do not think you can build muscle mass in dreams and expect it to transfer back into waking life - though, you may have a better body in your dreamscape (But why work out when you can just change it in an instant?).

[AstralMango]

It will definitely not have the same effect, unless you happen to be kicking and running in your bed while you're asleep. I guess it would give your brain a mental workout, though. ^^

[Hypertrophy]

It's been reported by many people that you can use lucid dreaming to view things differently (in other words stimulating creativity) and even improve your motor skills but muscular and cardiovascular improvement involves lots of processes in the muscles which need physical movement/resistance to take place

[VagalTone]

It will help to build new synapses, and i think there is some research backing it up. This has been shown to be true regarding visualization too.

[AnotherDreamer]

http://lecerveau.mcgill.ca/flash/cap...g_strength.pdf I work out in my dreams, there is some evidence that you can build strength through imagining the exercise while not doing it, so you can least increase the activation level, if not the muscle mass from working out in your dreams. "The purposes of this project were to determine mental training-induced strength gains (without performing physical exercises) in the little finger abductor as well as in the elbow flexor muscles, which are frequently used during daily living, and to quantify cortical signals that mediate maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs) of the two muscle groups. Thirty young, healthy volunteers participated in the study. The first group (N=8) was trained to perform “mental contractions” of little finger abduction (ABD); the second group (N=8) performed mental contractions of elbow (ELB) flexion; and the third group (N=8) was not trained but participated in all measurements and served as a control group. Finally, six volunteers performed training of physical maximal finger abductions. Training lasted for 12 weeks (15 min per day, 5 days per week). At the end of training, we found that the ABD group had increased their finger abduction strength by 35% (P<0.005) and the ELB group augmented their elbow flexion strength by 13.5% (P<0.001). The physical training group increased the finger abduction strength by 53% (P<0.01). The control group showed no significant changes in strength for either finger abduction or elbow flexion tasks. The improvement in muscle strength for trained groups was accompanied by significant increases in electroencephalogram-derived cortical potential, a measure previously shown to be directly related to control of voluntary muscle contractions. We conclude that the mental training employed by this study enhances the cortical output signal, which drives the muscles to a higher activation level and increases strength."

[dutchraptor]

Actually it's been shown that through visualization it's possible to enhance the cortical output signal, which increases strength by driving the muscles to a higher activation level. It doesn't have the same effect as workout, but it will have a (possibly strong) effect. A lot of people in the body building world attest that if you visualize working out while you are doing it, that you build muscle mass and control much quicker. How strong the effect would be is unknown, but there is a very large likelihood that workout in dreams does have a positive effect on your body. It makes logical sense, a lot of things cause a similar response in the brain, whether doing them or visualizing doing them. Large chance that extensively dreaming about working out will cause your brain to release a growth hormone of some sort.

[clearthoughter]

You probably won't build any muscle, but your form during the exercises can certainly get better. You might get a little stronger too.