Dream imagery is convincingly real and vivid. There’s depth, color, dimension, and experience interwoven into dream imagery. An apple in a dream feels real and can be experienced with all senses, despite it only occurring in your head. On the other hand, when you imagine an apple in your head while you’re awake, it appears dim and weak, like a small flicker. Yet we rely on waking imagery all the time to envision futures, set goals, and mentally rehearse and practice skills (public speaking, sports…). Dreams can be used instead for these things. Learn to become conscious during a dream and use it to become a better public speaker, overcome the fear of approaching women, or simply envision your ideal future self.
Dreams are the most vivid type of mental imagery most people are likely to experience. The more the mental rehearsal of a skill feels like the real thing, the greater the effect it is likely to have on waking performance. Because of this, lucid dreaming, in which we can make conscious use of dream imagery, is likely to be even more useful than waking mental imagery as a tool for learning and practicing skills. –pg 185 of Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming
This technique has been explored heavily with great success by the community of avid lucid dreamers. It’s a shame that a fundamentally useful skill like this hasn’t entered the mainstream.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Example 1: Use Lucid Dreaming to fine tune motor skills as a surgeon
I discovered in high school that I was a lucid dreamer when I learned that I could study complicated mathematical and geometry problems before going to bed and discovered that I was able to solve the problems when I awakened…
The greatest use to which I have been able to put this facility is in the practice of surgery. Each night before retiring I review my list of surgical cases and I actually practice these cases in my sleep. I have gained a reputation for being a rapid and skilled surgeon with almost no major complications… (R.V., Aiken, South Carolina)
Example 2: Understand abstract mathematical concepts
A little over a year ago, I was in a linear algebra class that introduced me to vector spaces. I was having a lot of trouble understanding the topic on more than a superficial level. After about a week of serious studying, I had a lucid dream about an abstract vector space. I perceived directly a four-dimensional space. The dream did not have a visual component, but such abstract dreams are not uncommon for me. The best I can describe that dream is to say that I perceived four coordinate axes that were mutually perpendicular. Since that night, both math and dreaming have been more fun for me, and I’ve had relatively little trouble understanding vector space calculus. (T.D., Clarksville, Tennesee)
Example 3: Overcome anxiety, increase self-confidence
In my lucid dreams I am always with a group of people in a room where everyone seems to be doing or saying exactly what they feel. I am usually sitting back not saying much of anything, and feeling very badly inside. Suddenly, I realize that I am dreaming and I decide to change my behavior in the dream and say exactly what is on my mind. It’s a little scary doing this because it is new for me, but at the same time it feels good and makes me feel clearer. I wake up from these dreams feeling especially good about myself. It shows me how it feels to act aggressively rather than passively… (K.G., Charlotte, North Carolina)
Example 4: Perform in front of an audience without fear
I am studying to become a professional musician (French horn), and I wished to remove my fear of performing in front of people. On several occasions I placed myself in a state of self-hypnosis/daydreaming by relaxing my entire body and mind before going to sleep. Then I focused on my desire to have a dream in which I was performing for a large audience by myself but was not nervous or suffering from anxiety. On the third night of this experiment, I had a lucid dream in which I was performing a solo recital without accompaniment at Orchestra Hall in Chicago (a place where I have performed once before, but in a full orchestra). I felt no anxiety regarding the audience, and every note that I played made me feel even more confident. I played perfectly a piece that I had heard only once before (and never attempted to play), and the ovation I received added to my confidence. When I woke up, I made a quick note of the dream and the piece that I played. While practicing the next day, I sight-read the piece and played it nearly perfectly. Two weeks (and a few lucid dream performances) later, I performed Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony with the orchestra. For the first time, nerves did not hamper my playing, and the performance went extremely well. (J.S., Mt. Prospect, Illinois)
All of these examples were taken from Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, which has dozens more such examples and, of course, expert advice on how to use lucid dreaming to improve your waking world.
