How much could lucid dreaming actually help you?

[LDleader]

Since when your in a lucid dream you can speak to your subconscious, how far could it actually help you. For example if one had an exam the next day, then would asking your subconcious to recall information better actually work? Results It would help if anybody could share results with speaking to your subconcious. Also,include what you asked and how well it worked, or didn't. I'm pretty new to LDing, so can someone tell me how to get to your subconcious in a dream, if you actually can.

[Yuusha]

I believe lucid dreaming can be a tremendous tool for personal development. After all, lucid dreaming can be just as vivid as waking life, and this will give you the experience of actually practicing things in waking life, even though you are obviously dreaming. I have had personal experience of feeling more confident around girls since I practiced being with them during a few lucid dreams, and I was amazed how effective it was. It was literally as if I had practiced it in waking life, and it had the exactly same effect. It's the same thing with phobias - people have reported getting rid of all kinds of phobias and anxieties thanks to lucid dreaming. Some peope have even mentioned they have managed to lose weight just because their lucid dreams allowed them to eat whatever they wanted in the dreams and therefore their cravings for junk food decreased in waking life. I think lucid dreaming can even help you change your entire personality for the better - if you are unhappy about certain aspects of your personality then you can safely practice being "the real you" (the person you want to be, which is how I personally define "be yourself") in a safe dream environment, and this will make it much easier to practice it in waking life. Personally I have always thought of lucid dreaming the mental version of physical exercise, because it has a very great effect on your mental health in many ways, and improves your overall life quality. For example, lucid dreaming often involves visualization, relaxation techniques, prospective memory and self-awareness, so lucid dreaming is very deep and has many awesome "side effects".

[EarthInferno]

I would say the dreams and dream characters represent your subconscious mind. When you attain lucidity, you gain a certain amount of control over your dream in the way it should go. Your dream characters would represent different aspects of your subconscious, and if you spoke to them lucidly you might be able to gain some insight into the way your subconscious mind is working. I see what you are saying that if we learned information and have stored it in our memory but can't recall it. We do know it, but the information seems to be in our subconscious and not recallable. This is just a failure of our conscious mind to access memory stored in our subconscious. I would think the more you lucidly interact with your subconscious mind in dreams, the more connections you form between those two parts of your brain and therefore bridging that gap becomes easier.

[LucidEveryNight]

Ive asked my subconscious to show me what I need to see(by yelling out to the dream) and at that moment my subconscious decided I needed to be reminded not to forget my past and the people that have helped me in my life.. I was shown a picture of my whole past and childhood in a black and white hand drawn picture inside a frame, it ment so much to me I broke down crying inside my dream, so all I can say is if you probe your subconscious you will definitely get answers and different perspectives on things and I'm telling you right now it goes deep so be prepared for some intense experiences. I think you can definitely improve your personality or recall some things from the past you may have forgotten but its hard to tell whether what you are remembering is a flase memory or not so I wouldnt go down the memory road too much.

[OneUp]

I have to agree with everyone here, it can only help in the better in my opinion. Since I began my Lucid Dreaming journey last year I have found that the hobby itself has changed my personality alot. Because of lucid dreaming I am now alot more relaxed, laid-back in general, and am extremely optimistic. Of course I had all of those characteristics before, but lucid dreaming really highlighted them and I am also now alot more of each. Lucid dreaming has also made me realize that you can do anything in a sense, but most importantly it has taught me to believe in yourself. That alone has been one of the most life changing things I have ever learned. Once you see yourself for not only who you are now, but moreover what you can be in the future and your potential, you learn to change the game for what it is. For me the hobby made me in control of my life. I've learned so much from it. As for recall, I think your subconscious has the ability to remind you of certain things, and even perform certain tasks robotically. I don't do much dream journaling anymore, but I've noticed that whenever I wake up I remember all of my dreams. However, I only journal that dreams that I want, so if I don't like a particular dream or I just didnt find it interesting, I won't journal it. In the end though I will still remember all of the dreams of the night. So my point is, maybe if you train your subconscious enough, you can get it to grasp certain tasks and do them without your having to spend all the effort to do it in the first place. I think this has a huge effect on lucid dreaming, for the positive.

[Hilary]

I'm amazed you can remember your dreams without journaling every night, OneUp. Not fair It seems if I miss one night, my recall takes a nosedive. And I also agree lucid dreaming has a profound ability to change ones life. For me it has: -Resolved a childhood trauma for me and brought much needed inner peace, -Taught me about my own insanity on an issue that I could not see for myself in waking light, -Shown me ways to apply my creative abilities, and then those ways turn out to be hugely positive for me in waking life, -Shown me things about people that I may have subconsciously picked up on, that lets me know whether or not I should be trusting them, -Shown me what is actually most important to me, -Lets me know when I'm getting off track for achieving my goals, -Helped me resolve an issue with my dead grandmother, -Alerted me to when a family member was in distress, -Oh! And it showed me what unconditional love feels like (here's a clue: everything!).

[Patjunfa]

Great thread. I posted ystrdy interested in how LDing impacts upon daily life. I want to do my thesis looking somehow at how LD practice effects ones awareness, particularly in relation to mindfulness practice. A lot of the examples people for here are v interesting and relevant. Also some interesting posts in the Lucid dreaming doesn't make u spiritual thread. I wonder how long after starting practice some of these benefits came about? While its v individual, I think LD practice is difficult enough for a lot of people and takes long enough to develop proficiency at. To examine benefits from a mindfulness intervention its common to study participants after 8 weeks. With LD'ing, it would be a longer timeframe presumably, and v individual. Mindfulness practice tends to generate a number of similar Benifits which help substantiate claims made about it. With lucid dreaming I wonder of there are generic benifits or v individual results at v varying timeframes. This could still be explored qualitatively. I wonder what %of participants who start practice become proficient enough to sustain dreams regularly for a good long length and how long it takes them to do so? I also wonder how to relate changes within ones awareness in meditation or reflective living to ones sleep and dream practice.