Self-improvement

Hi I am new to lucid dreaming. I stumbled on your site awhile back and have been considering LD for awhile as well. I've finally decided to get on the forums and read up a bit more on personal experiences.

I have a couple questions. Can LD help with self-improvement type issues (i.e. public speaking, motivation/inspiration). How long do I need to practice dream recall until I can continue on and work with dream signs? Until I can remember my dreams every morning when I wake up?

Thanks a lot, this is a great site. I love reading about some of this stuff! :D

you can start working with dreamsigns as soon as you remember enough dreams to distill a couple from. although you have a greater chance of becoming lucid if you can remember at least one dream most nights, or more

Hey there,

lucid dreaming is perfect for self-improvement. You can do anything at the level of realism which is usually only known through reality.
Speaking in public, writing exams, oral exams, talking to certain persons, performing for an audience, playing music, sports, problem solving, friendliness, and anything else you could imagine can be trained and developed in lucid dreams. Lucid dreams are just so real, but at the same time you know it's a dream and anything you do doesn't have real consequences. Say you're practicing public speaking. You could dream up a crowd of a few hundred people and hold your speech. You know that they are all dream characters, so nothing can have negative consequences. This knowledge alone can usually take away most of the fear of whatever it is you're practicing. Once you've done it successfully in a dream, at the level of reality, it will be almost the same to do it in reality as well - no problem at all.

Oh neat. This stuff is really interesting! Thanks for the replies.

Oh also, can you learn in dreams about things you've never known before? For example...driving stick?

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Oh also, can you learn in dreams about things you've never known before? For example...driving stick?[/b]

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hey there :D You can learn it to a degree. What you learn woudl only be what you percieve the experinece to be. All yoru dreams are based on what you know.

Good question, for example right now I'm learning to play the piano. I know how you play it, I'm just not too good, technicly it might be possible for me to master it in a lucid dream. Though of course it's unlikely. I'll have to try. :)

I've gone to sleep thinking about puzzels before and then seen the answers in my dream. I've also heard that people do practice things in dreams and it suposedly helps.

I once read this book and there was a dreamstory about some guy who had done kind of rough fighting sports all his life and just couldn't get the hang of this softer type of fighting. So every night he started practicing the moves in his dreams and it helped him become one of the best in his class. So if you know what to do and all you need is get the hang of it, then practicing in lucid dreams is one way to go. Hope this is encouraging :)

Yes, it's possible. It's like a very involved version of visualization :)

There are some things that I don't think could be learned merely by dreaming them, though. As Barbizzle said, if you've never done it before, it would only be what you perceive could happen, and not necessarily what does happen. For example, a couple of times I've spoken Russian in my dreams (I'm studying the language at school). The first time I woke up and realized that what I had said was completely wrong from what I meant to say. The second time (one of my minor fears came to life) and I couldn't comprehend the woman who was speaking Russian to me. I think that it's really about building confidence, that's the main thing.

As for playing the piano, I think that it's possible to get better at it even with only a little bit of experience. For someone who's musically inclined, your mind would probably remember the notes on the piano and one could, in essence, become better. It really depends.

-Amé