A few questions...

[Autumn Dream]

Hello everyone. I'm new here, although I've posted once or twice, and I want to introduce myself. My name is Alan and I've been interested in lucid dreaming for a few days now... I'd like a few questions answered though since I can't seem to find the answer anywhere else... 1. During a lucid dream state, can one more easily revise for school tests? 2. How long does the average lucid dream last? 3. Is is possible to re-inforce ones current knowledge or look at it from a different perspective? 4. Let's assume I skimmed through a German dictionary just before I went to bed. In a lucid dream state, will I be able to recall everything I skimmed over or will it, like in the waking world, be forgotten within seconds? As you might have guessed, I'm interested in lucid dreaming for academic purposes . Thanks in advance for all your help!

[Placebo]

Hey Autumn, welcome (officially) I'll have a shot at your questions 1. During a lucid dream state, can one more easily revise for school tests?[/b] In theory at least - Definitely. I used to be big into various memory techniques, and if done correctly, all that information falls into your dreams, and you find yourself going over it again and again Repetition,etc ... good for memory, esp when the information is presented in an interesting way. You could use a lucid dream to lead the dream into subjects that involve your school tests. This would make the information feel incredibly real to you, assuming you remember the dream well enough You should also find that information is more readily available to you in a dream This could take a bit of practice to get right consistently 2. How long does the average lucid dream last? [/b] In real time, or dream time? In real time... It varies from person to person and technique to technique, and has a lot to do with sleep cycles and patterns. In addition, it depends on *when* in your REM period you become lucid (if its a dream induced LD) Eg. you could have a 1 hour REM period (eg a midday nap), but you only become lucid halfway through it. Then you only get 30 mins. Its also hard to time these things (naturally) In dream time... It also varies from person to person and technique to technique (haha). Here it has to do with quality of the dream (completeness and vividness) vs the quantity of time spent in it. Your brain runs at a particular max. speed, and if your dream is higher quality it takes longer to process... leading to a shorter dream time. And vice versa... there was one guy who claimed to have lived 100 years in a dream 3. Is is possible to re-inforce ones current knowledge or look at it from a different perspective? [/b] I'm not entirely sure what you mean... can you elaborate? If I understand the question correctly, my answer is 'yes' 4. Let's assume I skimmed through a German dictionary just before I went to bed. In a lucid dream state, will I be able to recall everything I skimmed over or will it, like in the waking world, be forgotten within seconds? [/b] Different people will give you different answers here. The complication is that it is possible to speak a language in your dream, that you've never attempted to learn in real life. Why? Because we dream in thoughts, not words. The words can be complete rubbish, but you believe it to be genuine. There is some thought that its possible to recall eg. a book that you skimmed. (in a dream) In practice, most of us (in a previous attempt I read) seemed to get very silly results, or very limited results. Certainly an entire dictionary seems a bit ambitious. Perhaps its possible, but I haven't seen it done