Thread: Helloes!

Hi! So happy I've found a place like this

I first learned about LD in about 2005-2006 after experiencing it incidentally (let me tell you.. best dream I ever had ), but back then there was very limited info even on internet. I've found a big scientific book and even tried to follow it, but it was a bit too much for me back then.
The thought of trying to study LD popped to my mind every half a year after it, but I was always pre-occupied with something else.

Then today I've found a topic about LD on a completely unrelated website and decided to check if more info has appeared on the internet nowadays and wham, found this website

Really excited to try learning it again.

P.S. Oh, almost forgot couple of questions related to using LDs:
1.) Has anyone managed to effectively study some college topic in LDs?
2.) Has anyone managed to effectively work out in LD (i.e. it actually affecting muscle (or muscle memory for martial arts study)?

Hi and welcome to the forums!

Not sure I have the answers to your questions though im sure someone will chip in soon!

As for books - there's numerous ones about, a good one to start off with is 'Exploring the world of lucid dreaming' by Stephen Laberge.

Welcome to DreamViews!

You can find a lot of information about lucid dreaming here on DreamViews. A great place to start is Puffin's Beginner's Guide to Lucid Dreaming.

Originally Posted by Inori

1.) Has anyone managed to effectively study some college topic in LDs?

I don't think it's possible to learn something new in a lucid dream. But I think that if you already have learned something in college or by reading a book, you can repeat this to yourself during a dream to become more familiar with it.

For example, you may have a dream where you are in college, listening to a teacher. That doesn't mean that whatever he says is true. You could for example dream that you are in French class, and the teacher is speaking French. If you are not familiar with the French language, your mind is probably just making random words up that you perceive to be French, but it is probably just gibberish.

If you want, you can walk up to someone during a lucid dream, and ask them if they can teach you a word you don't know in a language you don't speak. When you wake up, look up this word in a dictionary of said language. This word will probably either not exist, or have a completely different meaning.

Originally Posted by Inori

2.) Has anyone managed to effectively work out in LD (i.e. it actually affecting muscle (or muscle memory for martial arts study)?

When you do something during a dream, you don't actually use your muscles, so I don't think your muscle memory will be affected.


I hope this helps somehow. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

2.) Has anyone managed to effectively work out in LD (i.e. it actually affecting muscle (or muscle memory for martial arts study)?

When you do something during a dream, you don't actually use your muscles, so I don't think your muscle memory will be affected.

No, obviously you don't use your muscles in your dream, but muscle memory, I think it depends what you mean.

For instance in one of my dreams, I done a dance move, I span around and did some crazy shit with my legs. I have never seen this move before let alone done it myself, but when I woke up I was able to pull it off about 90%, I believe due to my phsyical body being more unfit than my dream body lol.

Think about it, if you have a dream where you are fighting bruce lee, and he is using all the fight moves you've seen him use in his films. You are going to be seeing these moves CLOSE UP and personal, heck, he might even show you HOW. HECK, you could even be bruce lee!
And then you wake up, sure, your arms and legs arent tired, they havn't been working. But your mind has, and remembers all of it.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

And then you wake up, sure, your arms and legs arent tired, they havn't been working. But your mind has, and remembers all of it.

Good point. But there's still something that makes me doubt if muscle memory is really affected in dreams.

To keep it short, I had a dream a little while ago where I was playing guitar, and someone taught me a song I've never heard before and showed me how to play it. In my dream, I had no problem playing it, and I kept playing it over and over. After I woke up, I grabbed my guitar and tried to play it, but I couldn't. I had to write the song down and learn it note by note as I normally do before I was able to play it right.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

For instance in one of my dreams, I done a dance move, I span around and did some crazy shit with my legs. I have never seen this move before let alone done it myself, but when I woke up I was able to pull it off about 90%, I believe due to my phsyical body being more unfit than my dream body lol.

This sure is interesting. Was it a lucid dream? I wonder why it did work for you, but didn't work for me in the example I gave above.

This sure is interesting. Was it a lucid dream? I wonder why it did work for you, but didn't work for me in the example I gave above.

Mmm like I said, I could only pull it off about 90%, the rest due to me not being a very good dancer irl. Could the guitar thing be because your fingers couldnt do the notes quick enough or something, which you later was able to do?
Which is what I was trying to get at with my bruce lee example, you can fight with bruce lee, then wake up remembering all the moves and tricks but your phsyical body not being up to scratch -- a world class guitarist for example could shred with you on stage and you wake up with a great song in your head, but your guitar skills arent up to scratch -- i'd wake up with a great dance move and not being able to perform it properly -- but with practise I could!

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

Mmm like I said, I could only pull it off about 90%, the rest due to me not being a very good dancer irl. Could the guitar thing be because your fingers couldnt do the notes quick enough or something, which you later was able to do?

It was an easy song, and I could play a lot faster than I needed to in order to play it. However, after waking up I couldn't play it until I really took my time to learn it note by note. Because I've been playing this song in my dream over and over again, you would expect that I would be able to get it right with only a few tries after waking up.

Enjyu,

Everyone is different. I hear what you are saying, but maybe someone has your exact skill set, but also benefits from dreaming about a song. Perhaps someone else has ShadowOfSelf's exact skillset, but doesn't benefit from dreaming about a dance move.

I can lucid dream, but some are natural lucid dreamers. Now we are talking reality, and comparing apples to apples. Why is there a difference?

If a natural lucid dreamer could practice various actions in his/her dreams, then we could get a better sense of this. having practiced 20 actions 5 times each, perhaps we would see muscle memory forming in some areas and not others.

With the two examples being discussed here, we simply don't have a large enough data set to draw any conclusion at all. It's interesting to speculate though.

It seems to me that muscle memory is a term that we use to describe an idea, but it isn't 100% descriptive. I have driven a tractor trailer before. Downshifting requires double-clutching. It takes a little getting used to, and I would say muscle memory plays a role. What isn't taken into account is the mental aspect associated with this "muscle" memory.

I have heard that when you are preparing for certain activities, it helps to visualize yourself completing the action. This would be congruent with dreaming of the action. As for the difference between ShadowOfSelf pulling off a dream dance move 90% and Enjyu not being able to play his dream song on guitar even though he played it in his dream repetitively, I think we must consider the difference in actions, and the differences in people.

Suppose ShadowOfSelf hadn't dreamed of this dance, but just made it up. Perhaps it would have taken an extra pass to get it to 90%, perhaps a couple extra passes. What if Enjyu had not dreamed of his song, but simply wrote it in waking life. Perhaps he would have had even more trouble than he actually did. Possibly only a tiny bit more trouble. Perhaps the difference wouldn't even be noticeable.

The point is, there are variables to consider. I can't believe that if you dream of something, it doesn't help in the execution of that action in some way, even if it is undetectable, and if it does help any, then I have to think that in some cases, with some people, it could help a measurable amount; what psychologists call a jnd, or a just noticeable difference.

As a final note, should an experiment be run to measure that difference, it seems as though it would not be worth the effort, and would still leave room for speculation as to the accuracy of the measure of help; though my point remains the same.

Interesting points, nice contrib sandman

Yes there are too many variables to take into account, mostly the brain, which is partly switched off, in a sense. For example the other night a DC told me about death, he said "once you die, everything turns into tiny glass eggs" this made PERFECT sense in the dream, no kidding I pretty much aplauded the guy thinking "why did I not think about that before?!", but then of course woke up and didnt have a fucking clue what he meant. Then again I werent lucid, or was I when performing the dance move.

But yeah, I guess its for everyone to find out on their own, make their own conclusions from it, though when I become more proficient at lucid dreaming I might try some experiments.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

Interesting points, nice contrib sandman

Yes there are too many variables to take into account, mostly the brain, which is partly switched off, in a sense. For example the other night a DC told me about death, he said "once you die, everything turns into tiny glass eggs" this made PERFECT sense in the dream, no kidding I pretty much aplauded the guy thinking "why did I not think about that before?!", but then of course woke up and didnt have a fucking clue what he meant. Then again I werent lucid, or was I when performing the dance move.

But yeah, I guess its for everyone to find out on their own, make their own conclusions from it, though when I become more proficient at lucid dreaming I might try some experiments.

Yeah, I've found a whole thread like "DC say the darnest things..", so I guess any interaction should be avoided

Point of my questions and reason I'm really excited about learning LDs is that in theory it feels like a huge potential for studying. Imagine if you'd have couple more hours a day to study and still get proper rest.
Also I understand that learning new things is out of question - brain simply cannot generate new stuff (like learning languages you never heard of), but a lot of studying comes from repetition. Even if it makes a very small difference, it's still huge compared to nothing.

I completely agree with what you say, Sandman.

While I was still writing my previous reply, you had already posted yours, so unfortunately I didn't read it until after I replied. Now mine looks stupid.

Like ShadowOfSelf, when I get better at lucid dreaming I will probably try experimenting with this as well. It will be interesting to see what kind of results we get.

Originally Posted by Enjyu

I completely agree with what you say, Sandman.

While I was still writing my previous reply, you had already posted yours, so unfortunately I didn't read it until after I replied. Now mine looks stupid.

Not at all. Some forums will advise you that someone has posted since you started writing, and you have an opportunity to see what the other person wrote before you post.

Personally, I believe that dreaming could improve muscle memory, but I would have to judge for myself based on knowing myself if I thought it really helped.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

Yes there are too many variables to take into account, mostly the brain, which is partly switched off, in a sense.

Indeed, the logical part of your brain is turned off. That is why you are about to tell us about tiny glass eggs in your next quote!

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

For example the other night a DC told me about death, he said "once you die, everything turns into tiny glass eggs" this made PERFECT sense in the dream, no kidding I pretty much aplauded the guy thinking "why did I not think about that before?!"

Lol!

This is classic for the "DC's say the darndest things" thread. It's one of my favorite aspects of dreaming. I once made up a song that actually had proper meter, it rhymed, was relatively long, it was intriguing, had a decent tune, and I still remember it. What you create in a dream is awesome. On the other hand, you may create ridiculous wisdom, and I love it.

Think about it; if you were writing a book, regardless of the subject or genre, would you have ever come up with that line about death on your own? If you had to create a delusional character, do you think you could have come up with that little gem? (No pun intended)

Think about it; if you were writing a book, regardless of the subject or genre, would you have ever come up with that line about death on your own? If you had to create a delusional character, do you think you could have come up with that little gem? (No pun intended)

Haha no! it was just too random! which is the beauty of it, dreams allow that inner creativity, of everyone, to just go wild. They might not show you things you've never seen before, but can definitely show you things, in a completely different way, outside the box so to speak. Which is where a lot of famous artists, musicians, poets etc. draw inspiration from.