A decade ago I picked up a copy of the La Berge book that Ferris mentions. I highly recommend it as it seems to be the canonical book on the topic since La Berge was credited with being first to medically prove in a lab that lucid dreaming even exists. It takes like 3 months of daily dedicated practice to get the knack, but once you've trained your mind to do it, it gets easier to induce with repetition. Regular lucid dreaming is an incredible experience, and I can't even begin to explain the impact it has had on my own creativity and self of self. If you haven't done it--GO DO IT!!
And I agree with what others said about using LD'ing to aid in learning. For me it is hugely useful to get unconstrained "practice" time to quickly go through steps I need to remember when awake. I call it dream kata. I mean both mental steps, like learning math proofs in my case, and steps for physical things, like learning to rock climb(falling off cliffs and flying away is seriously fun). What's weird is after routinely LD'ing such practice scenarios, when I go back to regular dreaming, I will have non-lucid dreams of doing the same kinds of practices. We dream about what we regularly do each day, so it's a way of tricking the mind to watch and mimic itself. Somehow it engages a part of the subconscious to constantly practice and learn.
While LD'ing sounds trivial, the time can add up and I think it has huge potential to give those who employ it an edge. Let's say you lucid dream for 2 hours every night for just 3 years--then you've got 2k+ hours of practice time in whatever you do. Take Gladwell's book Outliers and his account that "geniuses" in any field excel simply because they have had so much more raw practice than others. While we don't know how common lucid dreaming is amongst these "geniuses", it might be another explantion of this "practice == genius" phenomenon. The way I see it, if you can get 20% of the way to 10,000 hours just in your sleep, there's no reason to not be doing it.
I always feel obligated to post a contrarian point, since I think only people who A: succeed at training and B: have a great experience actually post, whereas all those who don't succeed or have a "meh" experience don't actually post, and these people may be the majority.
I naturally LD with some frequency, especially if the room is a bit too cold. In that case, I'll LD for days in a row at a time, and, well, here's a hint: my reaction is to go turn up the heat.
I think what people are reporting is like riding a roller coaster. It's great fun the first time, and still fun occasionally, but reading about LD being a "life changing experience" is like reading about riding a roller coaster being a life changing experience. Maybe it feels like it the first time, but... no, it really isn't. Well, I will concede that there probably is a small set of people for whom it might be important for some psychological reasons, but in general I doubt it. (Same is true for roller coasters, someone who is afraid of them may see it as a big deal that they got over their fear, but in general, it's not a lifechanger.)
On the other hand, I have to admit that I am also fairly creative and do have a strong sense of self, so perhaps I'm just jaded.
I really doubt it's useful for training though. The brain naturally "practices" (some think that's what dreaming is), and I think all the LD experience is doing is observing stuff that happens anyhow; I doubt the observation actually adds that much.
(Oh, and if you do have problems with recurring nightmares, LD is definitely worth pursuing. In my experience, the best approach once you know you are dreaming is to just let the scary thing happen; if you're scared of heights, fall, if you're chased by the monster, let it eat you, etc. Nothing bad can happen, and eventually your brain will work it out. My dreams are routinely filled with imagery that could be scary in the "wrong context" now, but it's never a problem anymore.)
I can see your point, but training is very important at the mind level. Many athletes use it when they can't physically train.
Anyway, I don't have the data but I guess 80% of results are still from physical training, although adding that 20% for free wouldn't be bad. I'm going to try it.
Have you ever found yourself rock climbing for real and suddenly uncertain about whether or not you're dreaming and what might happen if you let go?
I would think that if you spend enough time lucid dreaming, you might start to confuse the two states because you're so used to both of them. With the rock climbing scenario, I think even a moment of uncertainty would make my heart skip a few beats.
2 hour lucid dreams? Really? The most I can hold onto LDs is probably 15-20 minutes. I've had 20-25 of them in the past 6 months, and I consciously wanted them to occur.
They are definitely not 2 continuous hours of LDing, and more like the same time length you experienced. I'm just guesstimating how much total time was spent in multiple 20-30 minute LDs over the course of sleeping one night. For me LDs are longer and more "solid" when they happen towards the end of sleeping than the beginning.
Forgot to add one thing--if you're curious what it's like to practice and learn in lucid dreams, then watch the scifi movie Dark City and look for the scenes where he's remembering being taught by the Doctor--the experience is almost exactly like that!
Comments
A decade ago I picked up a copy of the La Berge book that Ferris mentions. I highly recommend it as it seems to be the canonical book on the topic since La Berge was credited with being first to medically prove in a lab that lucid dreaming even exists. It takes like 3 months of daily dedicated practice to get the knack, but once you've trained your mind to do it, it gets easier to induce with repetition. Regular lucid dreaming is an incredible experience, and I can't even begin to explain the impact it has had on my own creativity and self of self. If you haven't done it--GO DO IT!!
And I agree with what others said about using LD'ing to aid in learning. For me it is hugely useful to get unconstrained "practice" time to quickly go through steps I need to remember when awake. I call it dream kata. I mean both mental steps, like learning math proofs in my case, and steps for physical things, like learning to rock climb(falling off cliffs and flying away is seriously fun). What's weird is after routinely LD'ing such practice scenarios, when I go back to regular dreaming, I will have non-lucid dreams of doing the same kinds of practices. We dream about what we regularly do each day, so it's a way of tricking the mind to watch and mimic itself. Somehow it engages a part of the subconscious to constantly practice and learn.
While LD'ing sounds trivial, the time can add up and I think it has huge potential to give those who employ it an edge. Let's say you lucid dream for 2 hours every night for just 3 years--then you've got 2k+ hours of practice time in whatever you do. Take Gladwell's book Outliers and his account that "geniuses" in any field excel simply because they have had so much more raw practice than others. While we don't know how common lucid dreaming is amongst these "geniuses", it might be another explantion of this "practice == genius" phenomenon. The way I see it, if you can get 20% of the way to 10,000 hours just in your sleep, there's no reason to not be doing it.
I always feel obligated to post a contrarian point, since I think only people who A: succeed at training and B: have a great experience actually post, whereas all those who don't succeed or have a "meh" experience don't actually post, and these people may be the majority.
I naturally LD with some frequency, especially if the room is a bit too cold. In that case, I'll LD for days in a row at a time, and, well, here's a hint: my reaction is to go turn up the heat.
I think what people are reporting is like riding a roller coaster. It's great fun the first time, and still fun occasionally, but reading about LD being a "life changing experience" is like reading about riding a roller coaster being a life changing experience. Maybe it feels like it the first time, but... no, it really isn't. Well, I will concede that there probably is a small set of people for whom it might be important for some psychological reasons, but in general I doubt it. (Same is true for roller coasters, someone who is afraid of them may see it as a big deal that they got over their fear, but in general, it's not a lifechanger.)
On the other hand, I have to admit that I am also fairly creative and do have a strong sense of self, so perhaps I'm just jaded.
I really doubt it's useful for training though. The brain naturally "practices" (some think that's what dreaming is), and I think all the LD experience is doing is observing stuff that happens anyhow; I doubt the observation actually adds that much.
(Oh, and if you do have problems with recurring nightmares, LD is definitely worth pursuing. In my experience, the best approach once you know you are dreaming is to just let the scary thing happen; if you're scared of heights, fall, if you're chased by the monster, let it eat you, etc. Nothing bad can happen, and eventually your brain will work it out. My dreams are routinely filled with imagery that could be scary in the "wrong context" now, but it's never a problem anymore.)
I can see your point, but training is very important at the mind level. Many athletes use it when they can't physically train.
Anyway, I don't have the data but I guess 80% of results are still from physical training, although adding that 20% for free wouldn't be bad. I'm going to try it.
Have you ever found yourself rock climbing for real and suddenly uncertain about whether or not you're dreaming and what might happen if you let go?
I would think that if you spend enough time lucid dreaming, you might start to confuse the two states because you're so used to both of them. With the rock climbing scenario, I think even a moment of uncertainty would make my heart skip a few beats.
2 hour lucid dreams? Really? The most I can hold onto LDs is probably 15-20 minutes. I've had 20-25 of them in the past 6 months, and I consciously wanted them to occur.
They are definitely not 2 continuous hours of LDing, and more like the same time length you experienced. I'm just guesstimating how much total time was spent in multiple 20-30 minute LDs over the course of sleeping one night. For me LDs are longer and more "solid" when they happen towards the end of sleeping than the beginning.
> The way I see it, if you can get 20% of the way to 10,000 hours just in your sleep, there's no reason to not be doing it.
If there is no downside to it.
What possible downside is there?
Forgot to add one thing--if you're curious what it's like to practice and learn in lucid dreams, then watch the scifi movie Dark City and look for the scenes where he's remembering being taught by the Doctor--the experience is almost exactly like that!