Monday, November 26, 2012

Can Dreaming Something Make You Better At It?

When first hearing about lucid dreaming everyone thinks, "Aw man I could fly, and shoot electricity out of my hands like that guy in Star Wars," or that could have just been me.  However, the more I thought about it, I began wondering what practical things could be gained while dreaming.  I remembered some words of advice given to me by my ski racing coach.  She told us the night before a race imagine running the course, and going through the gates while in bed before going to sleep.  She said that during this time our muscles would contract, though minutely, and give us some muscle memory to help in the race the next day.

Since then I've stopped racing but have begun snowboarding.  I started wondering if this same concept could apply for practicing snowboarding tricks, and then I began to wonder if practicing these skills while dreaming could have any effect.  It would give me a chance to run through motions for hours without having to go through physical exhaustion.  This article by Dr. Erlacher says it could be a possibility.
Reference 
Erlacher, D. (2012). Practicing in Dreams Can Improve Your Performance. Harvard Business Review, 90(4), 30-31.

Edit (12/11/2012):

When I first read this article all I could think about was how beneficial this would be for any activity as practice becomes almost effortless.  Its something you literally do in your sleep.  However, upon further review I found one may not got as much benefit from these activities as I first thought.  When thinking of the movie Inception dream time becomes slower (as this info-graph demonstrates) so I figured one could get more practice comparative to the time they put into it.  However, according to the study put Hamzelou, J. (2011). Reality gets a kick via dream control we actually move 50% slower in our dreams compared to reality.  So if we consider that one only gets a total of 90-120 minutes of REM sleep a night, they will only be able to practice a skill for 45 minutes to an hour.  Still pretty neat in my opinion though.
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1 comment:

  1. UnknownDecember 6, 2012 at 5:20 PM

    I believe there is actually a medical basis on this. According to graduate student Evan Chinoy at CU Boulder's sleep lab, our muscle movement is suppressed by our central nervous system when we sleep. This makes sense of course, otherwise everyone would be up and walking around every night. However, according to Dr. Weissburg of the Boulder Sleep Clinic, the lack of movement in our sleep is one of the only differences that exists. The motor areas of the brain are still very much active, and when we dream of running or being afraid our brains are actually simulating those actions. So in terms of muscle memory there is certainly something to be said for controlling dreaming.

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