“Lucid dreaming has considerable potential for promoting personal growth and self-development, enhancing self- confidence, improving mental and physical health, facilitating creative problem solving and helping you to progress on the path to self-mastery.”
Stephen Laberge, PhD - Psychophysiologist and leader in the scientific study of lucid dreams
As I’ve talked with people about lucid dreaming over the years, I’ve noticed that there are two types of reactions to the topic –the person who finds it completely fascinating, and the skeptic who doesn’t really get why anyone would want to have lucid dreams.
It surprises many, even some of the more zealous lucid dreamers out there, to learn that there are actually several real life applications for lucid dreaming. A study of the applications of lucid dreaming has, in fact, erupted quite a bit of discussion within the scientific community.
Research has uncovered quite a few practical applications for lucid dreaming, such as conquering phobias, overcoming PTSD/ night terrors, and improving creativity. But perhaps the most interesting is the practicality of lucid dream training in the field of athletics. Don’t worry, I thought this sounded a little farfetched at first too.
When you really think about it though, it makes perfect sense how lucid dreaming could help with things like complex skill mastery and sports performance. (Start lucid dreaming right away with the advanced lucid dreaming supplement.)
A study on the applications of lucid dreaming in sports and athletics:
A well-known German psychologist named Paul Tholey published an article titled, “Applications of Lucid Dreaming in Sports.” In his article, Tholey introduces a useful analogy for lucid dreaming, where he compares simulation training (such as flight simulation) to the lucid dreaming experience. He argues that lucid dreaming has several advantages over such simulation training and can greatly improve the abilities of athletes in their respective fields.
According to Tholey, lucid dreaming has many advantages for athletes because lucid dreams allow the subject to experience a unique level of reality by involving memory and complete use of the five senses. He points out too that the human mind accesses the same neurological activity in lucid dreams as is involved in skill mastery during waking life.
His research contains 7 theses, which he claims to have tested, quite exhaustively, during his career as a sports psychologist. They are as follows:
Thesis 1: Sensory-motor skills which have already been mastered in their rough outlines can be refined by using lucid dreaming.
Thesis 2: New sensory-motor skills can be learned using lucid dreaming.
Thesis 3: Sensory-motor actions can be perfected by test runs carried out in a lucid dream state.
Thesis 4: The flexibility of an athlete’s reactions can be substantially improved by varying body movements in lucid dreams.
Thesis 5: Lucid dreaming can also be used for practicing mental movements which make sensory-motor learning easier.
Thesis 6: Lucid dreaming can be used for improving the organization of the phenomenal field with respect to the execution of sports movements.
Thesis 7: By changing the personality structure, lucid dreaming can lead to improved performance and a higher level of creativity in sports.
If you’ve ever seen the movie The Matrix (which is actually based on the concept of lucid dreaming, oddly enough) you can probably recall the scene where Neo enters into simulation to master Kung Fu, and various forms of martial arts. While this scene is no doubt a bit of an exaggeration of the applications of lucid dreaming, it is incredibly similar to how Tholey has helped to train his athletes.
Interestingly, Tholey has earned quite a notable reputation for his craft in training athletes. Who knows, perhaps his success has been due to a highly evolved sense of lucid dreaming and its applications for athletes.