Thread: Lucid Art

You can improve at sports through LDing. But I could imagine of some difficulties when it comes to actually drawing during a dream. It could be
as if you'd try and read, your picture would fade/change or stuff. Or you know what you want to draw and how it should look like and it may actually appear on the paper or whatever then. That's what I think, not sure though. Gotta try.
If that wouldn't happen, I think ... why not? You're basically practicing the movements you do when drawing... a face for example 'n stuff. There may be some kind of muscle memory activated then.

This is kind of off-topic, but not really...

I used to try to become a conceptual architect. Come up with cool, new building designs. The problem is that even though (or perhaps because?) I have a very high IQ, I'm not a very creative person, in fact I'm not creative at all! I've tried painting, architecture, composing music, writing novels and many other types of art, yet the only way I've ever come up with something good is to steal it from someone else.

I could sit all day with my eyes closed and still come up with absolutely NOTHING new, I'm really not creative at all, even though it's something I really want to be.

However, I found that when I'm tired and go to bed, the creative part of my brain wakes up. Again, using the architecture as an example, I would go lie down, then force myself to stay awake, and suddenly I would see brilliant designs, so I would wake myself up, quickly sketch what I saw, and then go back to get to the hypnagogic imaging again and repeat it until I was too tired to go on. Next day I would have some very good sketches to work from.

I found it really strange that someone like me, who is absolutely not creative during the day, could suddenly come up with one new idea after another as soon as I got to the "almost dreaming" part.

So whether you can become a better artist with LDs, I don't know, but if you lack inspiration, like I always do, try focusing on your HI.

Stay awake longer than usually, so you're extra tired when you go to bed, then keep pen and paper handy, let yourself get to HI, but don't let yourself fall asleep, then just observe all the gorgeous images you will see and wake yourself up to sketch what you saw that you want to paint the next day.

I believe it is totally possible to improve your art in your dream, both technique and general artistic creativity because when you immagine something or actually see something, your brain fires the same receptors; it doesn't know the difference. So if you draw a ton in a dream practicing proper hand motion, technique, etc. then your drawing will improve in real life too, as practice is practice. Same goes for just generally becoming better at the creative aspect. If you practice figuring ways to create new art, experiment, etc. then it will transfer to reality, and you'll have all kinds of new ideas, and since dreams are really weird often, using stuff from dreams as inspiration for real life art could work quite well.

Originally Posted by PenguinLord13

I believe it is totally possible to improve your art in your dream, both technique and general artistic creativity because when you immagine something or actually see something, your brain fires the same receptors; it doesn't know the difference. So if you draw a ton in a dream practicing proper hand motion, technique, etc. then your drawing will improve in real life too, as practice is practice. Same goes for just generally becoming better at the creative aspect. If you practice figuring ways to create new art, experiment, etc. then it will transfer to reality, and you'll have all kinds of new ideas, and since dreams are really weird often, using stuff from dreams as inspiration for real life art could work quite well.[/b]

Well i'm currently working on a musical project based on dream & LD experiences of mine, so in that sense it's been a great source of inspiration for me.

Well, as they say, true art is a skill of seeing, not a skill of motor coordination. So, lucid dreaming seems to fit the bill for improvement perfectly! I don't get HI, so I couldn't say anything about that.

I'm a musician and former wanna-be rock star. I have often dreamt music that I'm pretty sure was original and that I remember as being pretty good. For some reason it most often came up as being by another performer, like I'd hear a really good Neil Young song that didn't really exist. In my waking life I used to write songs in a similar manner, trying to write a Tom Petty or Eagles song, so maybe that's just a continuation. But the ones I "wrote" dreaming were much better, some I actually remembered enough to write in waking life.

If you mean technical improvement, I'm not so sure lucid dreaming could improve your art. As for inspiration, remember that lucid dreams are created in your mind. I firmly believe that by exercising your creative imagination in lucid dreams will definitely be beneficial to your artwork.

Who's is your greatest inspiration in your artwork? Why not visit him/her in your LDs and ask for inspiration, perhaps ask them to show you a piece of artwork. Hell, why not ask them for a private art lesson. Open a book, tell yourself that inside the pages is YOUR artwork. Manifest a pen and notebook and sketch your surroundings in your dream.

Be sure to keep a drawing materials next to your bed so you can sketch down ideas after you awaken.

Artists' Corner?

Salvador Dali used to use his dreams as inspiration.
He would hold a key in his hand while he sat in a chair. As he dosed off he dropped the key. Many off his renderings came from what he had seen.


Lucid dreaming as well as non lucid dreams is a tremendous advantage for artists.
It gives us a great introspective view of a surrealistic view of colors shapes sizes.

Our right hemisphere is filled with creativity and it often lets loose in our dreams. I can't say enough about how vital they CAN be if you choose.
Some, when maintaining a very high level of lucidity have painted in their dreams.
I have tried this twice. It began to work but got jumbled as I became more cognizant.

I don't think you can Improve Drawing skills since they are dependant on Motor skills which is a physical thing. Dreams are a 100% mental experiences.

However, you CAN obtain a great deal of Creativity from Lucid Dreaming which is usefull for WHAT to actually draw/paint...etc. Composition wise, Theme-wise, Color-wise and impression-wise. I get alot of Inspiration from Dreams which I use to Draw things in Waking Life. It is my infinite source of Inspiration. From both lucid and Non lucid dreams.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO BUT, it will give you TERRIBLY FRUSTRATING great ideas!! I'm an artist- painter by trade, but I have visions of some awesome things that I haven't developed the skills (or the time) for. I have recieved great book, invention, and project ideas in LD though!!!!!!

I would think so, mainly because you remember then easier. Dreams can be very very creative. The whole style of surrealism is based on the idea of dreams. I'll bet Escher and Dali dreamed a lot. The movie "The Science of Sleep" was based on dreams that the writer had.

I don't know if lucid dreaming could improve physical drawing/painting skills. LaBerge talks about improving coordination for sports, so maybe the same applies to artwork. Lucid dreaming definitely could be used for developing ideas for artwork. Some people aren't great at visualizing (myself included), but you can make anything appear in an LD with just the snap of your fingers. Let's say you are painting a nature scene and you aren't sure what color a bird's feathers should be. You can induce an LD, summon the painting, and keep changing the color of the bird's feathers until you find something that you like. Wake up and go paint it. Or you could use an LD to randomly generate artwork until you like something a lot. That beats brainstorming by hand!

I drew my avatar from something that I remembered from a dream.

This thread reminded me of an article I found about lucid art two years ago.

http://www.lucidart.org/publications/bogza...ce_lucidity.htm

Here's a couple of LDing peices I had done back in high school. Keep in mind this was about 3 or 4 years ago, so some of the imagery may seem a little unrefined by my current standards.

The first one is about a trip to stone henge.




This one is about an EP experiment I did, in which I managed to get some interesting results. (image is "to scale" of an actual playing card).






This one is more or less about the darker sides of a lucid dream.





This is me falling out of the sky via lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by serenitatem1

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO BUT, it will give you TERRIBLY FRUSTRATING great ideas!! I'm an artist- painter by trade, but I have visions of some awesome things that I haven't developed the skills (or the time) for. I have recieved great book, invention, and project ideas in LD though!!!!!!

Could you elaborate a little? What kind of invention, book?


Also, painting in an L.D. is my next project as soon as I can get my mind out of the gutter. I've no doubt that this helps visualizing AND technique. In Laberge's book he mentions a surgeon that performs surgery's in his LD's the night before and then outperforms his colleagues by about 40% based on speed.

And nice artwork Ethen

Sorry, ska, but drawing, painting, etc, are a hell of a lot more than just motor skill.

I go to one of the top art schools in the nation, and I can tell you, a professional-seeming veneer over work that lacks fundamentals can get you a pretty long way, but a discerning eye can tell the difference. Whereas work that is fundamentally strong, but maybe needs work getting it polished, it may not look as impressive at first, but it's better off by far. The knowledge of and execution of fundamentals such as balance, composition, proportion, scale, perspective, anatomy, structure... these are all things that could unarguably be improved in dreams, given firm enough motivation and concentration.

The calm, practiced, and smoothly guided hand, your motor skills, maybe not. But you sure as hell could do yourself some serious good if you really went balls to the wall with dream-study and dream-practice.

what school do you go to?

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Is there anyway I can see any of your art, if you don't mind?

Haha, I'm not trained as a fine artist, technically. I'm part of their Bachelor of Science program for game design and interactive media.

Oh ok.

your art rocks ethen..

You can see some of my newer stuff here.