One of the interesting things to sort out in this line of thinking is cause and effect. I dream lucidly about playing guitar for three months, and after three months I'm a much better guitar player. Is it because of the lucid dreaming? Or is it because I've been thinking about playing guitar in different ways for three months?

I read an article yesterday which cited some research about performers at the tops of their fields: chess grandmasters, virtuoso musicians, nobel prize winners. The researcher found that the average IQ of these people is about the same as the IQ of the average college student. What makes these people stand out from others who are just very good in their fields? The volume and quality of their practice. The best people in any field are those who practice a lot, and practice mindfully. They do not simply repeat tasks over and over, like playing a scale many times. They play a scale, analyze what they did right and how they could improve, and play it again, slightly differently.

Lucid dreaming becomes a part of mindfulness about a pursuit. It is not lucid dreaming itself that affects our concrete actions, but the mindfulness that goes along with LD'ing, and all that mindfulness brings with it.