Frequency of Lucid Dreams and Lucid Dream Practice in German Athletes
Daniel Erlacher, Tadas Stumbrys, Michael Schredl
Imagination, Cognition and Personality February 21, 2012 DOI: 10.2190/ic.31.3.f (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Survey Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 840 |
| Population | German athletes from various sports |
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Keywords | Athletes Population Psychotherapist Physical therapy |
| Citations | 36 |
| Key findings | Lucid dreaming is used by some athletes for mental practice, and most who use it perceive an improvement in waking performance. |
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.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey Respondents to an online survey about lucid dreams | 2014 | Online survey | n = 684 |
| Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Representative sample of German adults | 2011 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 919 |
| Lucid dreaming: an age‐dependent brain dissociation Students aged 6-19 years | 2012 | Survey | |
| Terror and bliss? Commonalities and distinctions between sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and their associations with waking life experiences Adults aged 18–82 years | 2016 | Cross-sectional survey | n = 1,928 |
| Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy Patients diagnosed with narcolepsy and healthy control subjects | 2015 | Cross-sectional study | n = 979 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 22
- The Phenomenology of Lucid Dreaming: An Online Survey The American Journal of Psychology April 21, 2014
- Lucid dreaming incidence: A quality effects meta-analysis of 50 years of research Consciousness and Cognition June 20, 2016
- Effectiveness of motor practice in lucid dreams: a comparison with physical and mental practice Journal of Sports Sciences April 7, 2015
- Applications of lucid dreams: An online study heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2012
- Time for actions in lucid dreams: effects of task modality, length, and complexity Frontiers in Psychology 2014
and 17 more in the library
Cites 6
- Frequency of Lucid Dreaming in a Representative German Sample Perceptual and Motor Skills February 1, 2011
- Practicing a Motor Task in a Lucid Dream Enhances Subsequent Performance: A Pilot Study The Sport Psychologist June 1, 2010
- Do REM (lucid) dreamed and executed actions share the same neural substrate? heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2008
- Dreaming, Lucid Dreaming and Personality heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2009
- The Incidence of Lucid Dreaming within a Japanese University Student Sample heiDOK (Heidelberg University) 2008
and 1 more in the library