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Practicing a motor task in a lucid dream enhances subsequent performance (2010)

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melanie_schaedlich:
In one thread http://mortalmist.com/forum/index.php?topic=5617.new;topicseen#new I promised to post this study. But since it was not published in a free journal like the others, I can only provide the absract here. If you are interested in the whole article, I can send it to you for private use, but not for publication in forums etc.:

Erlacher, D. & Schredl, M. (2010): Practicing a motor task in a lucid dream enhances subsequent performance: A pilot study. Sport Psychologist, 24(2), 157-167.

Nocturnal dreams can be considered as a kind of simulation of the real world on a higher cognitive level. Within lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to control the ongoing dream content and is free to do what he or she wants. In this pilot study, the possibility of practicing a simple motor task in a lucid dream was studied. Forty participants were assigned to a lucid dream practice group, a physical practice group and a control group. The motor task was to toss 10-cent coins into a cup and hit as many as possible out of 20 tosses. Waking performance was measured in the evening and on the next morning by the participants at home. The 20 volunteers in the lucid dream practice group attempted to carry out the motor task in a lucid dream on a single night. Seven participants succeeded in having a lucid dream and practiced the experimental task. This group of seven showed a significant improvement in performance (from 3.7 to 5.3); the other 13 subjects showed no improvement (from 3.4 to 2.9). Comparing all four groups, the physical practice group demonstrated the highest enhancement in performance followed by the successful lucid dream practice group. Both groups had statistically significant higher improvements in contrast to the nondreaming group and the control group. Even though the experimental design is not able to explain if specific effects (motor learning) or unspecific effects (motivation) caused the improvement, the results of this study showed that rehearsing in a lucid dream enhances subsequent performance in wakefulness. To clarify the factors which increased performance after lucid dream practice and to control for confounding factors, it is suggested that sleep laboratory studies should be conducted in the future. The possibilities of lucid dream practice for professional sports will be discussed.

yuften:
This is very interesting and thank you for posting this study. I can relate to this, in fact, most of the time (I cannot say all because I do not remember) I have practised something physical in a dream, say thai boxing for example, I would see that it would consequently positively affect my practice of it in "real" life (for the lack of a better term). I was actually thinking about this phenomena today and here I come across this study, how convenient !

Makes me think of something I read not so long ago "every time you wish something, the universe conspires to make it happen."
Thanks again.

Shellidfl:

--- Quote from: yuften on February 18, 2013, 05:12:08 PM ---This is very interesting and thank you for posting this study. I can relate to this, in fact, most of the time (I cannot say all because I do not remember) I have practised something physical in a dream, say thai boxing for example, I would see that it would consequently positively affect my practice of it in "real" life (for the lack of a better term). I was actually thinking about this phenomena today and here I come across this study, how convenient !

Makes me think of something I read not so long ago "every time you wish something, the universe conspires to make it happen."
Thanks again.

--- End quote ---

That's how I felt when I "found" this forum!

Sunshine:
(content removed by user request)

iadr:

--- Quote from: Moonbeam on February 18, 2013, 08:52:58 PM ---Interesting.  I wouldn't have thought motor skills would be something you could improve in dreams.  It seems counter-intuitive.

--- End quote ---
Motor skills can absolutely be improved by rehearsing things while in a lucid state, just as visualizing things while not dreaming can improve ones performance. The advantage of rehearsing things while in a lucid state would be that a person would be deeper and more in tune with their subconscious mind during this state, and could actually be rehearsing the things using their dream body instead of just going through the things in their imagination as they would while not dreaming.

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