Nofap and lucid dreaming

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Originally Posted by Clidu

You say no fapping or is it just no porn? If its porn thats ruining our brains then surley imagination is fine to use as a fapping tool? Iv gone a week so far i think and i didnt even notice this post till now and iv had some vivid dreams myself so it isnt a placebo effect for me.

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Porn messes up your brain yes

Imagination and fapping are fine,but you won't feel the effects as much and you'll probably edge and watch porn

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Originally Posted by Pornocrates

That's a good question, I'd be interested in an answer.

Fapping is good for the brain as long as you don't overdo it, porn is not that great but let's say that you fap say a few times a week using imagination, would it still be bad?

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It isn't bad fapping with imagination yet it could lead to fapping with porn which is bad

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Originally Posted by Forg

I absolutely hate all the nofap bullshit there is on the internet. The people who support it claim that nofap is supported by science, but it isn't. It is based on bad interpretation of studies. Like the one about watching porn and that it shrinks the brain. That is just bad interpretation of a study that showed a correlation and not causation.

That study suggested that people who watched porn more than 20 hours per week, were statistically more likely to have less grey matter in certain areas of the brain. Watching porn is probably not the cause of this.

Here is a bit about what neuroscientist Dr. Nicole Prause said about it:



But there are even some studies that suggest that masturbating might be healthy. Please, if you find a study that suggests otherwise, post it here.

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I am sorry you feel that way friend. Just try it and let us know what happens your opinion most definitely will change.

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Originally Posted by MidnightFlight

If you're not otherwise having sex with ejaculation, not masturbating puts you at greater risk of prostate problems.

Personal experience FWIW- When I've gone through periods of pretty good lucid dreaming in the past, I wasn't restricting my behavior in this area in any way (incl. porn). I spent some time restricting this behavior years ago after reading a yoga book , and it didn't contribute to any improvement as far as lucid dreaming goes.

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Wet dreams body's natural way of releasing some semen friend plus you could use it as a trigger as some people not all people get a lot of wet dreams. So you could reality check in that situation or tell your subconscious to check.

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Originally Posted by jtn98

When do dreams usually start getting vivid? I just started, I'm on day 2 now, and last night I had a dream, but it wasn't any more vivid than normal.

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Everyone is different,but definitely by day 10 and up

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Originally Posted by fogelbise

After seeing references to this movement a few times on Dreamviews, I finally decided to look it up and have been reading various information off and on over the last couple of days. I was wondering if the lovely ladies I interact with in my LD's are strongly detrimental to me in some way.

From what I gather, the average person may have no concerns in this area but may notice some benefits. Keep in mind that the yourbrainonporn website does clarify in spots that it is a temporary "reboot" in order to change to more "healthy" ways of masturbating and ejaculating. This seems to cover concerns that not ejaculating passes up benefits to prostate health ( Does frequent ejaculation help ward off prostate cancer? - Harvard Prostate Knowledge - Harvard Health Publications ), since you may only be refraining from masturbation temporarily, and may be doing this while continuing to have sex. They encourage you to find what works for you (much like LD'ing).

The movement may be more important to someone with a porn or sex addiction, or someone that has signs of erectile dysfunction, but others seem to do it for the reported benefits. The yourbrainonporn site has over 1,800 testimonials.

I'm not sure how valid this is, but the yourbrainonporn site points to this study to refute Prause: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/5/3/388/htm You can search "Prause" on the report, and then put "Prause" in the search box at yourbrainonporn to see other rebuttals. (Mastubation/ejaculation being healthy for prostate linked in 2nd paragraph of my post)

Just thought I would share what I learned, though I am by no means an expert! Feel free to correct, clarify or challenge anything above.

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Thanks a lot mate for making such a long post and doing the research must've taken awhile

1 day and i cant reach my reccord for seccond day :D

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Originally Posted by Superdremer

Porn messes up your brain yes

Imagination and fapping are fine,but you won't feel the effects as much and you'll probably edge and watch porn

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Why is imagination fine? What is the difference between me seeing images from my screen and me visualizing the exact same thing? Does the particular event of watching at a screen change things?

Well I don't agree in either but apparently imagination is fine. Porn is porn just stay away

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Originally Posted by miktux

hmm no fap challange...when i find faping i never stop, its its its... u know its hard to stop doing what you doing :D but well i could try to res my penis :D

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That's also a part of your laziness problem. Fapping takes you energy away, bro. Check out this site.https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/

Testosterone may have an effect on the quantity and quality of your dreams each night. People on TRT (Testosterone Replacement Therapy) have sometimes reported extremely vivid and intense dreams.

When you orgasm, beta-endorphin is released. Beta-endorphin is a natural opioid, and like other opioids, it has a negative effect on your male hormonal system, causing decreased expression of your androgen receptors (where testosterone binds). If you're masturbating daily, it doesn't matter how high your testosterone levels are, you'll have far less receptors for it to bind to, so you'll eventually (if you have high testosterone to begin with, it'll be a lot longer before you notice the negatives/they'll be more subtle - if on the other hand your testosterone levels are average/below average, then the negatives will be quite significant) experience many of the symptoms that you'd experience with low testosterone levels (lower energy, less motivation, low confidence, social anxiety, etc).

NoFap not only gives those receptors a chance to recover and up-regulate once more, returning to normal function, but it also actually boosts your levels of testosterone:
Endocrine response to masturbation-induced orgasm in healthy men following a 3-week sexual abstinence. - PubMed - NCBI
A research on the relationship between ejaculation and serum testosterone level in men. - PubMed - NCBI

So it's quite possibly the testosterone link as to why NoFap has an effect on lucid dreaming. I'm on day 69 of NoFap at the moment, and I've certainly encountered much more vivid and longer lasting dreams. I've had some of my most successful lucid dreams ever during this period, and not only that but I've had a couple of full out-of-body experiences - something I'd struggled to achieve fully more than once prior to my NoFap streak.

Really though, I wouldn't do NoFap just for the sake of having more vivid dreams. The real benefits of NoFap come in other areas: Increased energy (I would say my energy levels are close to 40-50 times higher than they were prior to me starting, I literally had to come up with a new scale because my old 10/10 would be like a 2/10 now), increased confidence (have completely overcome my phone call anxiety, and made huge strides with my face to face social anxiety), and more drive to improve myself in general - I've gone from ~24% body fat to 14% body fat, started working out harder than ever before, and come up with several new business ideas etc since I started.

Perhaps most interesting of all the benefits I experienced was the attention from girls. I don't know if it's pheromones or what, but I genuinely did feel like I was in an AXE commercial at times. It was almost comical. Like seriously, I don't even want to spoil it.. It's one of those effects you have to see for yourself, but after just 2-3 weeks of NoFap, go clubbing, shit brix. ;D

As weird as it was, it kind of does make sense, we're programmed to be able to detect and pursue the most eligible mates for reproduction. Higher volume of sperm available + increased testosterone levels are certainly something that would make it more likely for conception to happen, so it's plausible there's some mechanism by which ladies detect this.

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Originally Posted by Saizaphod

I'm on day 62.

- Some increase in awareness in dreams. Before my decision to get clean of the bad habit of fapping, I wouldn't get the slightest awareness into my dreams if I wasn't doing multiple RC's during the day. Now if I do only 15 to 20 ( I used to do 80+ each day to get at least some degree of lucidity), I might get to that " this might be a dream, but I decide not to do a reality check for some reason"-stage. If I do half (40) of what I used to do, I get lucid almost certainly.

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Hmmh. I'm on day .. 80-86 and now that I try to LD again and perform 40-80 RC's daily this benefit has ceased to exist. Weird.

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Originally Posted by Royaltramp

NoFap not only gives those receptors a chance to recover and up-regulate once more, returning to normal function, but it also actually boosts your levels of testosterone:
Endocrine response to masturbation-induced orgasm in healthy men following a 3-week sexual abstinence. - PubMed - NCBI
A research on the relationship between ejaculation and serum testosterone level in men. - PubMed - NCBI

.

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In that first study, it was found testosterone did peak after 7 days, but then dropped.

Even the anti-porn site admits this Testosterone Research versus Testosterone Myths | Your Brain On Porn