Using Lucidity to Practice Fighting

I've seen the topic of fighting come up in a few different posts and did a thread search also but (unless i'm too tired to see) I didnt see the answers to a few questions I had..

I've read that it is possible to learn and perfect any skill sport that you have knowledge and experience with while lucid but I would like to know if any of the members here could give any backing to that statement.

Particularly I'm curious to know, if you fight regularly in your LD's, will the muscle-memory or general-memory carry on to the waking world in a real life situation..?

I would really like to learn how to fight in an environment where I dont have to be afraid of taking it too far. I have studied fight theory and had brief encounters with karate training for a few months a couple of years ago but I'm talking about life or death street defense.

Obviously I cant practice this kind of thing in real life but I fear for the day when I have to defend myself because its getting harder and harder to keep the anger i sometimes feel under control. I live a peaceful life and i never cause anyone any discomfort of any kind.. i stick to myself as does my partner and we dont create waves unless they are controlled and for a good cause.

But I live in an area where the trouble-makers are on the front pages of the local newspapers every other week and it is fuelling them to continue their rampaging.. I'm not ignorant enough to think I will go my whole lifetime without every walking down the wrong street at the wrong time and running into a group of pricks, but I know when it does happen the anger will unleash, because such an event will be unjustified and I have a habit of standing up for injustice and I may take it too far and really hurt someone and end up getting myself in trouble with the law or with people I would rather not know. I'm not an angry person in general. In fact i'm quite patient and very understanding but there are one or two things that do effect me enough to trigger the anger inside. Normally the situations are the kind where instant action is not required so I can regain control in a matter of seconds but a day will come where I will want to let it out..

Because of this, I 'need' to practice in order to learn control. As i mentioned, I know the theory of effective street fighting and defense so I'm wondering can this knowledge be put to use while Lucid...

I would appreciate comments from anyone who has used their knowledge and experience of any skill sport to perfect techniques in their dreams and then reap the benefits in the waking life..

I dont need advice on 'how' to fight.. I am considering the option of resorting to Lucidity simply because I stick to myself and dont have the type of friends to practice with and I dont have the time to join a club. It's not the same practicing on a heavy kick bag simply because there is no emotion and no response. I need interactive practice..

Thanks for your time..

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I tend to fight in my lucid dreams, and I'm a member of a Taekwondo club. But to me, fighting in a dream is not quite the same as in real life. My opponent(s) tend to get predictable, so it's useless for me to use lucid dreams to practice sparring. Also, gravity usually doesn't work quite as in real life, and my movements can be slower, actually making it harder to punch in the dream than in real life, but not impossible.

You can try, but don't rely on the skills you might acquire in your lucid dreams when it comes to fighting. Joining a club is what I would recommend, is there no way you can get the time? Maybe in the future? :)

No!

You can't learn how to fight in lucid dreams.

If you are the dreamer and you are in control. It's not a fair fight! :)

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Originally Posted by Who I Am

No!

You can't learn how to fight in lucid dreams.

If you are the dreamer and you are in control. It's not a fair fight! :)

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I disagree, you can make it a fair fight.

In fact, I rarely use 'god-powers' because it is not fair on the DCs.

A dream is as fair as you make it, because of this it is perfectly possible to practice fighting in dreams.
However, you will be practicing technique, it won't help your muscles one bit!

You don't have to be in a lucid dream to practice technique... and I don't see how it could help.

In fact, because the "reality" of a dream is at a higher frequency, velocity or vibratory rate, there is no way to make it "fair" or follow the exact same rules as "physical reality".

However, you can learn how to "dream fight" better.

If you make it fair,... it's NOT fair,... and not "real"... not that anything is though.

The only way to learn how to fight is by fighting...

... and I don't think anyone really wants to do that,... do they?

You could get hurt! LOL :D

I may have a black belt,... but I'm a lover not a fighter. :boogie:

I've had it work the other way around (learn and practice fighting a lot in real life, then have it incorporated in dreams), but not practicing things in dreams I did not already know in waking life. I agree that dreaming about fighting only by itself would not do it in real life. But, I felt the dreams were kind of like additional practice and "testing" of my skills acquired during the day. The dreams seemed to reinforce my confidence that I knew how to defend myself, because it felt like I was reacting to attacks that were not predictable (even though ultimately my mind was predetermining what the attackers would do!). The fights felt real to me, it felt like I was responding in real time, with real skills and not super-human strength or anything, to attacks or movements I did not know were coming (these dreams were not lucid, and not controlled). I thought this kind of "practice" was beneficial, kind of like additional time rehearsing techniques I was practicing during the day.

I hope you can find the means to enroll in some martial arts training MrDamon, it will change your life (even more than lucid dreaming IMO) if you find a good instructor and a good technique! It gave me a confidence in real life unmatched by anything else, and may be one reason I feel I have the confidence and patience to lucid dream or do just about anything else I set my mind to.

Thanks for the replies so far guys..

Barns that was my intention.. practicing technique.. What I had meant to say was subconscious-muscle-memory.. or reaction memory.. wasn't sure how to say it :)

And Pale-Rider I know you cant learn what you dont already know.. But I already know the how.. The theory.. Now i need the practice! :)

@ Who I am..

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You don't have to be in a lucid dream to practice technique.. and I don't see how it could help.

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If you will read my post I have said that I have no-one to practice with except on a heavy kick bag but a kick bag does not duck or dive or hit back so i'm not sure how you dont see that fighting an interactive opponent allbeit in a dream would help.

It's the psychological aspect of engaging an enemy who may have the ability to hurt you. You dont get that kind of practice without a partner..

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I use LDs to practice backflips although I still fail. At least breaking your neck doesn't hurt. :D

Mr Damon, I must have missed that in your original post, sorry for the confusion. Now that I understand you already know the techniques, and are just looking to practice them on "dream people", I guess I would say that I don't think lucid dream fighting could serve as any kind of substitute for real practice or sparring, but it could help a little just like any kind of extra practice or visualization. In the martial arts studies I have done, considerable time is spent on "forms" or "kata", where you are repeating movements thousands and thousands of times. I think doing these in your sleep could not hurt, just like it is good to practice them while awake.

The same is true for fighting. You probably already know all this, but once you have the techniques down by rote memory, where you are dealing with a predertimined attack or a cooperative partner, then with lots and lots of practice in different and competitive situations, you learn to apply them unconsciously to actual attacks. The idea is to be able to respond without thinking, so that your reactions are reflexive or intuitive, without conscious thought. This can be practiced even while awake, by closing your eyes and imagining attackers, and by performing the actual movements as though you were doing them against a real person. There is value in this exercise, and I think there would be value in doing it in lucid dreams too. Maybe you could get a better sense of reality and spontaneity in a lucid dream, in that sense I think you have a great idea! But, that by itself could not be enough to prepare one for the real thing, in my opinion. I would never allow my students to substitute imagination or dreams for real practice, at least not without telling them it is purely a mental exercise, and it cannot be relied upon for self defense.

Clearly no good athlete could achieve proficiency or mastery strictly by visualization, they have to go through the real thing for many years. If you already know the techniques through years and years of practice and actual application, then maybe lucid dream fighting could serve as some form of "brushing up" on your skills or keeping them from getting too rusty, but you still need the real practice too I think. And, you need the unpredictability of an opponent who does not think like you or who behaves in unexpected and (detrimental to you) ways.

I remember reading about a girl that naturally gained lucidity and used it to practice ice skating. If I remember correctly, her and her friends went out to do it and she was horrible. She practiced in her dreams and the next time she went out with them to ice skate she was a superior ice skater. She never practiced in real life though.

I don't remember where I read this exactly. It might have been from Laberge. I wish I knew so I could be a bit more accurate.

Anyway, I have heard other cases where people practiced something through a dream and actually learned the skill in real life. I would assume, like ice skating, you could learn the maneuvers. I doubt you will gain the agility and endurance, etc., that a martial artist would have. I suppose if you couple both IRL and dream experience, it should work fairly well.

Also, dreams are as real as you make them. If you bring yourself down to the level of your DCs, and learn to control the physics in your dream, it should simulate the real world quite nicely.

[QUOTE=Icelus;705744]I remember reading about a girl that naturally gained lucidity and used it to practice ice skating. If I remember correctly, her and her friends went out to do it and she was horrible. She practiced in her dreams and the next time she went out with them to ice skate she was a superior ice skater. She never practiced in real life though.

I don't remember where I read this exactly. It might have been from Laberge. I wish I knew so I could be a bit more accurate.

Anyway, I have heard other cases where people practiced something through a dream and actually learned the skill in real life. I would assume, like ice skating, you could learn the maneuvers. I doubt you will gain the agility and endurance, etc., that a martial artist would have. I suppose if you couple both IRL and dream experience, it should work fairly well.

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That's fascinating, I hope that story is true!

Wether you get trained or not you could probably make much of a cooler fight than in real life, like for instance on a skyscrape or in midair...:)

I have thought about this and was going to post, but now that I think about, learning to fight in a dream just doesn't seem possible.

Lucid dreaming can only really help with stuff you already have a degree of knowledge of. You couldn't learn to drive a car for instance, without having tried it at least once because your "car model" would be very incomplete, and you'd have to fill in a lot of the gaps with stuff that probably isn't accurate.

If you have some practice at fighting, then I'd say you'd be able to practice martial art techniques in a lucid dream just fine. And at the very least, it might help improve reaction times; always useful!

Just to clarify, in lucid dreams, assuming you have a human form at least, you send commands to the muscles in the same way as when you are awake. For instance, if you do a straight punch with your arm, the same signal is sent to the arm regardless, but it is blocked by a different pathway when asleep.

However, this does allow new pathways to be created, and existing ones strengthened. So you could practice a technique and have it become second nature when you wake up. In practice, this is unlikely, as most skills, especially complex movements require a lot of practice, far more than most people could do in a night! But you get the idea.

Anyway, you can model anything in a dream. The accuracy of the model will depend on your real life experiences, and the more accurate the model, the more useful it is for training anything you wish.

EDIT: Also, obviously your physical condition will not improve when dreaming, and this obviously affects your ability at many skills. So it's always useful to do some training in the real world, or otherwise build up your condition for a physical skill; techniques can only take you so far in some cases.

When i finally learn how to obtain and control a lucid dream i plan on using LDing to improve my technique in brazilian jiu jitsu.

As you said:
"I would really like to learn how to fight in an environment where I dont have to be afraid of taking it too far. I have studied fight theory and had brief encounters with karate training for a few months a couple of years ago but I'm talking about life or death street defense."

I think that you can learn some elements of fighting using Lucid Dreaming, but in my opinion it is no substitute for real-life training. What I mean is, you should take up the martial arts again. There now exist systems of martial arts based entirely on street defense; you should look into them. Here is an example:


http://www.kravmaga.com/

Thanks for everything guys.. I will continue to train at home with my own equipment and methods but hopefully i'll have some results, be they positive or negative, to disclose at some point in the future with regards to the effect of practicing in dreams..

I know this doesn't neccessarily speak to the point because I'm not talking about Lucid's here, but, often after I've been doing something intensely during the day or even really thinking about it, it will bleed into my regular dreams. When I wake up, I will be better. It's interesting to think about. I noticed this when I was picking up tennis a few years back - I'd dream about playing and the following day I would be significantly better. I also get better at video games I've been playing after I dream about playing and then hop online on Live and wreak havoc. Good times!

However, some research says that sleep helps consolidate memories, and other research says it might serve to 'defrag' your memories, discarding the useless junk and either could probably go a ways to explain the phenomenon. An interesting experiment would be to introduce someone to an activity and have them practice it solely in their dreams and see how they perform after a certain duration.

You can't practice every aspect of fighting (namely; the physical), but fighting is just as much a mental art as it is a physical. What you can practice is comfortability with the mental aspect of a fight. You can practice reaction time. You can practice locking attack combinations into memory. You can practice the mentality of "what do I do if this guy is coming at me with a knife??" Having the ability to fight means nothing, if you're the kind of person that just freezes up in fear, or has no idea what to do, when things are getting crazy. Practicing in dreams will help you familiarize yourself with the concept of fighting, and can help tremendously.

And for those that say "fighting while lucid isn't a fair fight" should seriously meet some of my dream characters, some time. Lol.

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Originally Posted by SynapseSnap

I know this doesn't neccessarily speak to the point because I'm not talking about Lucid's here, but, often after I've been doing something intensely during the day or even really thinking about it, it will bleed into my regular dreams. When I wake up, I will be better. It's interesting to think about. I noticed this when I was picking up tennis a few years back - I'd dream about playing and the following day I would be significantly better. I also get better at video games I've been playing after I dream about playing and then hop online on Live and wreak havoc. Good times!

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Well I have to say, in my teens I played quite a bit of snooker although I did not 'practice' as such. But every couple of months I would rent a sega game called 'Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker' for a week and play it a lot. Now the game speed was quite slow if you wanted to do it right. A decent break of 50+ would take a good 15 or 20 minutes to achieve in this game but I always remembered that after I left the game back to the video store and went down to the real tables for a game, my performance was definately noticably better. Unfortunately this was only a temporary effect but it was the technique being drilled into memory that added to my peformance.

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Originally Posted by Oneironaut

You can't practice every aspect of fighting (namely; the physical), but fighting is just as much a mental art as it is a physical. What you can practice is comfortability with the mental aspect of a fight. You can practice reaction time. You can practice locking attack combinations into memory. You can practice the mentality of "what do I do if this guy is coming at me with a knife??" Having the ability to fight means nothing, if you're the kind of person that just freezes up in fear, or has no idea what to do, when things are getting crazy. Practicing in dreams will help you familiarize yourself with the concept of fighting, and can help tremendously.

And for those that say "fighting while lucid isn't a fair fight" should seriously meet some of my dream characters, some time. Lol.

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Thats exactly my thoughts 'Oneir'.. Putting reactions and attitude to memory. To familiarize myself with an actual opponent on the other end. As I said in the beginning, I need to learn about control and in order to do that I need to be more comfortable and aquainted with fighting an opponent or opponents.

I feel that any dose of anger that is dished out can be more easily controlled if I have certain key responses committed to habit. It is my goal to channel the energy of anger directly to the physical body while maintaining control mentally. But of course I need to practice ;)

While the ultimate goal would be to rid anger entirely, I think that it is better to be the way I am now because I enjoy standing up for injustice and I know this is an important part of my purpose in life.

Just by visualizing the movements it takes to complete an action is practice without physical movement.

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They discovered that imagining a
body movement involved the same areas of the brain as doing the actual movement --
with the exception of the motor cortex, which actually directs the muscles that
produce the movement. In other words, mentally visualizing an action ahead of time
gives your brain almost the same neural workout as doing the real thing.

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Of course this still means you have to have knowledge on the subject you are practicing. No one can 'know' something without learning it, or coming up with a new idea. So no doubt, lucid dreaming can accomplish this goal, I personally would stick to visualizing, so that I could save my dream time for fun! :D

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Originally Posted by Barefooted Student

I personally would stick to visualizing, so that I could save my dream time for fun! :D

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Actually I usually list learning as one of my hobbies so I 'would' in fact consider this a fun thing to do even though it is to aid a serious goal :)

One thing I have to say here: nothing can prepare you for the fear that comes from a stranger pulling a weapon on you. If you've been in a fight with a stranger, you might understand this.
I agree completely with those people who say take up a martial arts, and also that mental preparation is a good idea. However, you must remember that your opponent will already have the intent to harm you and will have a weapon ready to use before you even know what's going on.
My advice is to be prepared to end the situation peacefully (if possible) or try to distract them so you can get the first hit in. Without that hit, you will most likely be left critically injured.

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One thing I have to say here: nothing can prepare you for the fear that comes from a stranger pulling a weapon on you. If you've been in a fight with a stranger, you might understand this.
I agree completely with those people who say take up a martial arts, and also that mental preparation is a good idea. However, you must remember that your opponent will already have the intent to harm you and will have a weapon ready to use before you even know what's going on.
My advice is to be prepared to end the situation peacefully (if possible) or try to distract them so you can get the first hit in. Without that hit, you will most likely be left critically injured.

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To say nothing can prepare you for the fear is not true; many martial arts do, with Krav Maga (which I saw a link to earlier) being one of them. Indeed, one of the cornerstones of KM is to control your reactions in a fight and channel your reactions into a positive manner. For instance you control the adrenalin rush and still act in a controlled manner, whilst using the enhanced power you have from the adrenalin.

Preparation comes from training and from confidence. Evidently soldiers manage to deal with the fear that comes from being fired at by an enemy, otherwise most militaries would be useless!

Dreaming can be a valuable asset in preparing people for all kinds of situations, in the same way that other training is used in the real world. Fire and Earthquake drills are used around the world and definitely allow people to take the right course of action in these dangerous circumstances, even though the danger during the drills is non-existent. Fear comes from the unknown.

I haven't had many LDs and the ones I had weren't as full as I'd have liked them to be, so I'm not speaking from experience. There is scientific evidence to suggest that this is entirely possible. Visualization has been used by many athletes (including myself) to improve muscle memory when one is not able to practice physically.

My friend tried this and said that 90% of the time the practice didn't carry of into real-life. For this to be effective you should have excellent dream recall to where the only distinction between real life memories and ld memories is the knowledge that you are dreaming.

You would also need to be able to "render" an extremely realistic (as in real world physics, appearance, and body strength, size, and other various factors) environment. I'm not sure of the difficulty of this, but I would expect that if the skills of God are readily available in the dream world it could be quite difficult.

If and when I ever get full lucidity (and once I'm done having a crap-load of fun) I am going to try this out. Can't wait! :)

Someone said that you could use lucid dreams to hone your technique. I disagree with that. Maybe for a beginner that's the case, but anything above 5th kup should not be mental anymore, it's about muscle memory. Muscles don't get activated in your dreams.

That being said, I encourage all of my students to practice fighting in lucid dreams. Combinations for real self defense situations can't be done at full force in class.

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Someone said that you could use lucid dreams to hone your technique. I disagree with that. Maybe for a beginner that's the case, but anything above 5th kup should not be mental anymore, it's about muscle memory. Muscles don't get activated in your dreams.

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When you practice any technique, a pathway is created and reinforced, and if you practice it enough it becomes so reinforced that it becomes second nature. LDing can create and reinforce pathways as commands are sent to the muscles like when you are awake. Muscles don't 'remember' anything, it's pathways being built up.

Lucid dreams can't make muscles or other parts of you physically stronger unlike actual physical training, but it can certainly be used to practice techniques, and there are plenty of stories in La Berge's book on the subject. You're going against a lot of evidence, anecdotal or otherwise with your claim you know.

Photolysis is exactly right. Muscle memory is all in the brain. It's not as if muscles have little brains in them that remember stuff. It's all about establishing a pathway so your brain becomes more used to doing a certain thing. This allows you to do this particular "move" quicker and more efficiently, and it allows your mind to be able to integrate the move in the right situations better. Still, you have to be able to create that perfectly real world dream environment, which couldn't be that hard.

Has anyone tried to create a nearly perfect real world dream environment?

one day i realized i could learn a little more about self-defense, and i picked up a book - a very good book. i didn't feel like i needed to practice any of these techniques that i studied, but i certainly wouldn't rely on practicing in my dreams if i did - after all, it will be your safety in jeopardy. a little bit risky if you ask me... best of luck to you, but i would seriously consider taking classes.

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Originally Posted by theyearthreethousand

one day i realized i could learn a little more about self-defense, and i picked up a book - a very good book. i didn't feel like i needed to practice any of these techniques that i studied, but i certainly wouldn't rely on practicing in my dreams if i did - after all, it will be your safety in jeopardy. a little bit risky if you ask me... best of luck to you, but i would seriously consider taking classes.

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Practicing in lucid dreams can never be the same as taking classes run by a professional. But if you already know roughly what you are doing, then they can be an excellent addition to your training.

A good example of what I mean is learning to drive. If you've never tried to drive before, you couldn't use lucid dreaming to learn as the 'driving a car' model would be full of holes, and would likely be very innaccurate. However, once you've actually driven for a bit, and got the feel for handling a car, you could use LDs to learn to drive much more successfully, as your car driving model would be much more accurate.

Similarly when it comes to martial arts, once you've got the basics, you could use lucid dreams to refine your techniques. LDing can also be used for other situations as well, such as reacting under pressure, or decreasing reaction times to unexpected situations, both of which are very important in self-defense or martial arts.

It isn't the same because I can down backflips in my dreams because I am not afraid of getting hurt. IRL I can do a backflip or kick like I do in my dreams.

I practiced a couple of techniques in my dream just two nights ago. I've actually had some good success with practicing in dreams and I think that they have benefitted me in waking life as well.

Just learn to fight in real life. Half of learning to fight is experiencing how much it hurts to get hit. You have to get used to the real physical contact, pain, and exhaustion of a fight. Can't really mimic those in a dream.

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Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

Just learn to fight in real life. Half of learning to fight is experiencing how much it hurts to get hit. You have to get used to the real physical contact, pain, and exhaustion of a fight. Can't really mimic those in a dream.

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Agreed, however any practice you can get is good.

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Originally Posted by Oneironaut

You can't practice every aspect of fighting (namely; the physical), but fighting is just as much a mental art as it is a physical. What you can practice is comfortability with the mental aspect of a fight. You can practice reaction time. You can practice locking attack combinations into memory. You can practice the mentality of "what do I do if this guy is coming at me with a knife??" Having the ability to fight means nothing, if you're the kind of person that just freezes up in fear, or has no idea what to do, when things are getting crazy. Practicing in dreams will help you familiarize yourself with the concept of fighting, and can help tremendously.

And for those that say "fighting while lucid isn't a fair fight" should seriously meet some of my dream characters, some time. Lol.

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i totally agree with you , i am in muay thai, and the basis in any martial artis to stick the technique into your memory and make it your reaction for the time when the situation appears you do it as a reaction , i think it would really help to do this (but obviously it will not help you to strike harder or to have a better condition) just makes you react correctly in the moment

before i was in classes i had the desire to learn this techniques of martial arts and these awesome stuff , it really helps what i did , i just watched "how to" youtube videos and other videos showing the technique , then you just practice it in your room and do mental sequences of yourself applying the technique then practice it again and by just doing that you become pretty good against street fighters trust me they will fear you and wont bother you again , but obviously getting in classes is much better

power is a big responsibility, you must handle it with wisdom otherwise you will end up screwed

You don't need to LD to learn how to fight :P Just clench your fists, find some courage, and just start swinging at your opponent.

What you want to do, I am guessing, is LD to find the courage to actually do something. In real life, you know you really want to kill that jackass, and you play a scene in your head where you are tombstoning that mother f****r into the cement and start beating the crap out of him. While you know you are capable of beating him up, you just can't bring yourself to swing your arm and break his face in real life.

If you want to hit someone/beat them up, do it in your dream. Bring that person you dislike, and just begin hitting them in the face. This'll prepare you for hitting them in real life. If you want to practice fighting (like a fist fight, or karate), that is another story, as the physics in your dream is entirely different and you might be fighting like in the matrix. :lol: Sometimes, when I know I can't just hit someone in real life, I do it in a dream. It's fun, and it's definitely tempted me and gave me more courage to actually do so in real life.