Thread: Nofap and lucid dreaming

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.