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Abstract

Mental practice is the cognitive rehearsal of a motor task in the absence of overt physical movement. A different and rather unknown kind of mental rehearsal is practice in lucid dreams. Within lucid dreams, the dreamer is able to control the ongoing dream content and for athletes it is possible to use the dream state to deliberately practice sport skills while physically asleep. In this study, 840 German athletes from various sports were asked about their experience with lucid dreams. About 57% of the athletes stated that they experienced a lucid dream at least once in their lives, 24% are frequent lucid dreamers (having one or more lucid dreams per month), and 9% of the lucid dreamers used this dream state to practice sport skills, and the majority of those athletes had the impression that the rehearsal within the lucid dream improved their performance in wakefulness. The prevalence rate of lucid dreaming in professional athletes is similar as in general population, however the rough estimate of the percentage of lucid dreams compared to all dreams in athletes was found to be nearly twice as high as in general population (14.5% vs. 7.5%). The possibilities of lucid dream practice for professional sports will be discussed.

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Frequency of Lucid Dreams and Lucid Dream Practice in German Athletes

Abstract

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