Building muscle mass by dreaming

I read that people who are told "X builds substantial muscle mass" will experience more muscle growth than people who are doing the same thing but aren't told how "effective" it is in that regard. Kinda like a placebo. Exhibit B: "Two years ago, while presenting his technique to the Association of Canadian College and University Ombudspersons in Halifax, Miller cited a study in which children with leukemia who visualized a red army fighting a white army had their red blood cell count go up in 99 per cent of cases."

Bearing that in mind, do you think working out in dreams can have a similar effect?

If you are making no attempt to do so in waking life, then probably not. The sleep paralysis thing makes it difficult to get an effective workout done while sleeping.

No clue. I think it would be interesting to see how far the placebo effect can be taken.

Don't know how it works but here is my experience:
I'm not that much of a sporty person, so every time I start working out after a break - next day I feel muscle pain. Usual thing.
What I noticed is that if I have a nice run with something chasing me in a dream (i don't normally run in the dream for other reasons:)) - when I wake up in the morning my muscles ache just the same way as if I ran a marathon the previous day. At first I used to think it was a coincidence, or that there was some other reason for that pain, but it repeated so many times, that right now I know for sure - dream workouts work for me. In some sort of way, at least:)

I don't think so, just like playing video games all night won't build any muscle mass. But you might learn better coordination...

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Originally Posted by MischiefManaged

Don't know how it works but here is my experience:
I'm not that much of a sporty person, so every time I start working out after a break - next day I feel muscle pain. Usual thing.
What I noticed is that if I have a nice run with something chasing me in a dream (i don't normally run in the dream for other reasons:)) - when I wake up in the morning my muscles ache just the same way as if I ran a marathon the previous day. At first I used to think it was a coincidence, or that there was some other reason for that pain, but it repeated so many times, that right now I know for sure - dream workouts work for me. In some sort of way, at least:)

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It's possible that the physical sensation of having your muscles ache could be carried over from the dream in the same way that getting stabbed right before you wake up hurts even after you're awake.
We do flex our muscles in sleep paralysis, though, so it could go either way.

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Originally Posted by IAmCoder

I don't think so, just like playing video games all night won't build any muscle mass. But you might learn better coordination...

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Yeah, most of our coordination learning takes place in our dreams.

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Originally Posted by MindGames

It's possible that the physical sensation of having your muscles ache could be carried over from the dream in the same way that getting stabbed right before you wake up hurts even after you're awake.
We do flex our muscles in sleep paralysis, though, so it could go either way.

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For sure when you recall the feeling of being stabbed you may well feel it once again, and even if it feels real after awakening it still goes away quickly. On the other hand this muscle pain lasts good couple of days constantly and go away gradually - just like after real workout.
I agree that we don't need to move in order to make muscles work - i've just recently been reading about experiments with mental training, but I can't manage to find the articles now X)

Now what I am going to try and do is exorcise in my dreams and see if there are gong to be all results. I have trouble with real workouts so dream work outs should work. I think they would work because it tricks your body into thinking its gaining muscle. I will tell you if anything happens. :)

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Originally Posted by MischiefManaged

For sure when you recall the feeling of being stabbed you may well feel it once again, and even if it feels real after awakening it still goes away quickly. On the other hand this muscle pain lasts good couple of days constantly and go away gradually - just like after real workout.

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That's interesting. I wonder if that's a prolonged effect of dream sensations, or you actually worked your muscles out in sleep paralysis. I know we do flex our muscles during sleep paralysis, but it's such a small amount that it's not even enough to move our bodies.

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Originally Posted by MindGames

That's interesting. I wonder if that's a prolonged effect of dream sensations, or you actually worked your muscles out in sleep paralysis. I know we do flex our muscles during sleep paralysis, but it's such a small amount that it's not even enough to move our bodies.

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I'm really interested to know how it works. I haven't run or workout in lucids, didn't have much chance:) But as soon as I get more frequent ld's I'm gonna try and do couple of experiments:)

Did anyone try this yet? :) I'm also very interested in how it works. Does someone have access to lactate measurement equipment? I mean, when we work out we use our glycose to power our muscles, and a bi-product of the transformation from glycose to ATP (Raw energy) leaves lactate. Thus I think it would be exciting to measure if the lactate level increases when a person works out in a lucid dream. If the body performs the actual processes in sleep workouts, as in real life workouts.

/Nappel

I'm convinced that if you were to repeatedly work out in your dreams then you would get stronger. There have been studies showing that more neural connections are formed when you imagine yourself working out a muscle. This doesn't build up muscle mass, but it allows you to use the muscle mass you have to a greater degree.

By conservation of energy and mass, muscle mass that you build is proportional to how much you eat and exercise. It can't just appear spontaneously.

I agree that the muscle mass itself cannot appear spontaneously. However, there's nothing saying that your body can't simply devote more of the nutrients you consume toward developing muscle mass. It's a feasible hypothesis to test.

Sorry to say but I'm pretty convinced that this is physiologically impossible. Working out builds muscle mass by placing strain on muscle fibers resulting in micro-tears. Those are what causes the soreness felt after a workout, I can't imagine how you would tear muscle fibers in sleep paralysis because the amount of trauma on muscles during sleep is incredibly little. The only explanation for soreness after a dream is that it could be a psychosomatic response, AKA it's all in your mind.

Being optimistic about this though I can see dreaming as a potential way to activate certain hormones or neural networks with benefits to muscle hypertrophy. Perhaps it would be possible to dream something that would lead to increased secretion of HGH (human growth hormone). Or perhaps (though in my opinion extremely unlikely) dreaming about working out could actually "trick" your mind into sarcoplasmic muscular hypertrophy. This would not be the same as working out for real however because there would be no accompanying myofibrillar hypertrophy. That is to say that the size of muscle cells would increase with the increase of sarcoplasmic fluid in them, but there would be no strength gains from the process of repairing torn muscle fibers.

This would be really interesting to experiment with. If researchers actually did find a link, that would shed a lot of light on the physiological purposes and capabilities of dreams! Unfortunately to accurately test this it would take A LOT of willpower and dedication from the experimentee in order to eliminate conflicting variables (daily deviations in diet, activity level etc.). At least you'd be working out in the best gym in the world, one that you own no less :D

It doesn't seem impossible to me that you could gain muscle mass. The human body's very complex. I do believe that lucid exercise would make you stronger, though; I have read about experiments in which people got stronger by simply thinking about exercising. There wasn't necessarily a gain in muscle mass, but there were more neural connections formed to the muscles, allowing a greater degree of muscle usage. Here's an article I found on it: Imagery training makes calf muscles stronger

Mental practice is used to improve motor skills, because when you think of movement your brain (motor cortex) works in the same way as when you really do the movement. The same applies to lucid dreaming, which was already investigated with EEG and fMRI.
So, practicing in lucid dream may improve your skills, by producing new connections between neurons in your brain. However, building muscle mass is much more complex process which requires real physical exercises.

Wishful thinking I think. I hate doing exercise so this would be hilariously funny if it worked, but to build muscle mass... I think if it was easy as a placebo someone would have figured it out long ago, made a sugar pill, and we'd all be extremely buff right now. :D

I forgot all about this thread. xD

Maybe not on it's own but would it be possible to stimulate muscle growth (via lucid exercise) after a real work out? Or, like kevjoy said, if it were to active certain hormones or neural networks, surely that would make the next day's workout more effective would it not? Just throwing a thought out there, much of this kind of stuff is way over my head. :P

You could probably trigger some of the hormonal factors that contribute to muscle growth. Physically overworking your muscles is not the only way to make them grow.

You can definitely increase strength over time by thinking about exercising, which would include thinking while dreaming. Part of the reason for this is a big part of the strength of a muscle is the strength and quality of the electrical signal that gets sent from your brain. And you can train that without actually moving the muscle. My brother-in-law is a medical researcher and this is his area or expertise.

I don't think it is possible alone. But there is a great correlation with the will and the training. If you focus and visualize your muscles doing the job and getting better or visualize your muscles stretching you will most likely have better success. If you continue that in the dreamstate too, I am sure it will help.

But completely without physical training. I'd say nope.

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Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

You could probably trigger some of the hormonal factors that contribute to muscle growth. Physically overworking your muscles is not the only way to make them grow.

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Right. Visualization alone can make nerves fire on their own. Many professional runners use visualization as a tool to strengthen their muscles by visualizing themselves running in a marathon. It does work.

There should be done more research on that. I mean, is it that your body really gets stronger or that you are merely able to get more out of it because of your mind? A very interesting subject though.

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Originally Posted by Unelias

There should be done more research on that. I mean, is it that your body really gets stronger or that you are merely able to get more out of it because of your mind? A very interesting subject though.

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I don't think it's that your body gets stronger; rather, you're able to get more out of your muscles. From what I understand, visualization strengthens the connections between your brain and your muscles, which allows you to use them to a greater degree.

This is what I have always thought of, too. But there are also studies that during ie. weight training visualizing the muscle workout and the thinking of the actual change you want to have can increase the gain from workout. I won't comment that much though since I don't have any research article at hand I could refer to. Still, it seems very logical that you could increase the effinency of your muscles nerve system with your mind. It is not merely the muscle mass that contributes for functional muscle, it is all about the nerves and nerve routes inside the muscles. If they are sparse, muscle is "bad muscle". If there are many of them and they are thick, your muscle is a functional muscle. This is why I don't like getting "big" muscles myself. They are a hindrance in the goals I am aiming to. :)

Take a handstand for example. Or the planches which I am training at the moment. You cannot do them merely by doing good benchpresses and such. You need to control your muscles and body in a very delicate manner and focus much of your strength on the crucial musclegroups and joints to keep balance.