Practicing skills in dreams

**Blackhole** · 01-30-2015 08:20 AM

So I thought I don't have much time
To practice while I'm awake, so I thought, what if you could do it in a dream? So can you practice something in a dream like cooking or painting or playing the piano or even something at school?

**Arnov** · 01-31-2015 06:46 AM

I recently came across a really interesting article in the Harvard Business Review where they tested the effectiveness of practicing physical skills in real life versus in a lucid dream.

To keep it simple, the physical activity they chose to test was the ability to toss coins into a cup from a distance of 2 meters.

You can check out the article here:
https://hbr.org/2012/04/practicing-i...ur-performance

The gist of the study was that practicing while awake produced the most improvement. However, training in lucid dreams was also a very effective way to train.

Participants who only practiced while awake saw a 15% increase in improvement. Participants who only practiced in their lucid dreams saw an 8% increase in improvement, and the control group that didn't practice only saw a 0.5% improvement.

Dr. Stephen LaBerge has also discussed research from Stanford that found when participants performed an activity in their lucid dreams (e.g. sing, run, have sex), the same neurons in their body and mind responded as if they were actually performing the activity.

Therefore lucid dreaming can be an effective way to practice for physical skills such as playing the piano or cooking.

However, it is more helpful if you have some previous experience performing these skills while awake.

For example, if you've never played tennis before, I don't recommend you practice for Wimbledon solely in your lucid dreams!

Although lucid dreaming can be a cool way to practice when you are busy during the day, I wouldn't recommend only using lucid dreaming to practice. You should also practice while awake.

**11Greg** · 01-31-2015 07:01 AM

I imagine skills that require an increase of confidence most of all, like public speaking or chatting up girls in a bar would definitely help. :p

**Rodrodrod** · 01-31-2015 08:52 AM

At the start of my dream journey, I somehow found myself in a band in waking life where I was playing the drums. I had only just acquired my very first drum kit, so it's safe to say I didn't know what I was doing. I begun to incubate dreams of me practicing and I actually managed to do it in non-lucids. It really helped because I have an electric drum kit in waking life and I needed to get used to playing proper acoustic drums.
Had really fun dreams too!