Before I continue I have to get you to check if you are dreaming or awake. This might sound completely insane, of course your awake if your reading this and understanding the words and sentences on the page. Stupid as its sounds you could have read this page during the day and right this second be fast asleep in your bed! This is just how real a lucid dream can be, actually reading is one of the most difficult activities to undertake whilst lucid but it still is possible. Actually anytime you find yourself thinking about this site you need to perform what is called a reality check we'll start to learn about reality checks later on the next page.

Is this just Newage claptrap? No, lucid dreaming was proved by a scientist called Stephen LaBerge. Go here to check out the hard facts of the science but the summary is, yes its real. When you sleep you body is in paralysis to stop you hurting yourself, actually your eyes are the only things not paralyzed. Using this LaBerge got his Lucid dreamers who were hooked upto monitoring systems to check sleep patterns to signal when they became lucid by using a set eye movements, up twice followed by down three times or something like that. It could clearly be seen that although the subject displayed the classic symptoms of being asleep they were also showing levels that indicated that the brain was in an awake state.

Three main Points that make lucid dreaming a useful skill for a martial artist :-

1. The receptors that make the muscles move are suppressed in sleep, otherwise you'd be all over the place whilst asleep but the brain still fires the nerves and the muscles attempt to move (which is why you can twitch in your sleep or why dogs do that twitchy running after cats motion in their sleep). This is building muscle memory which is useful in all martial arts, in fact the repetitive nature of the arts is based on this fact.

3. Your buried subconscious memories can be organized in new ways. How many artists or scientists have made a break through after a short nap? This is partly due to the seemingly chaotic nature of dreaming and the fact that random unassociated facts and memories may be combined together. In the same way, it might occur to you how you need to refine your technique, (useful if you've reached a plateau in your style). In extreme examples you might come up with a whole new kata or way of moving etc like one of the founders of my style GoJu ryu who was shown a kata I practice by a man in a dream (sounds like a lucid dream to me).

On the right a dreamer and her DC (Dream Character) teacher performing moves from White Crane Kung Fu in the Lucid Dojo

How real can this lucidity feel and look? There are differing levels of the lucid state, for what we want to do I will try and describe how to reach the highest states in the next page. In the high states everything can look extremely real and usually pin sharp like the image in the lucid dojo right.

Opponents ~ Its hard to say how good your opponents will be, if you wish to spar or fight against someone. Much of what goes on in lucidity is related to our beliefs in everyday life, so although you might find it easy to out wit and overcome a low rank representation from your own dojo your mind is very likely to have great respect for the higher ranks. Your own instructor perhaps being almost the most difficult apart from the dead masters who in your mind I imagine approach mythical levels of skill and who if you wish you might be able to summon into your lucid dream.

Pain!!! ~ Lucid dream experiences are based mostly on real life experiences and expectations, this is key to the level of pain you might expect to feel in your lucid.

I'm not sure if this triggered her to flick kick me where it hurts but I do know that next time I'll not linger on two opposing thoughts like attractive women and karate practice again. It felt very very real and although in my real dojo were not suppose to show the pain I decided as I was dreaming it would be fine to have a bit of a yelp, which I think was the thing that woke me up in my bed.

Can it be dangerous? Dreams can have very dangerous themes and experiences but we all wake up, but what about lucid dreaming? Imagine the following and remember how real lucid dreaming can seem.

Facing you the man with two mean looking butterfly knives in each hand bows an acknowledgment and assumes a fighting stance. You look to your own hands and see you are holding a Jo, a short hard wood staff. You'd have preferred to have been better armed for such an exercise when you walked from the dream you became lucid in, but never mind your just keen to get started.

With that thought your opponent attacks, his face is a still mask unlike the whirling blades. His movements are blindingly quick but they are matched by your body evasions, parries and attacks.

"Crack"! The Jo splinters and in seemingly slow motion spins away, abstractly you think he only managed to second guess you because he's constructed from your own mind. Your opponent smiles and then he slowly he begins to advance again, the blades menacingly weave around his body and get ever closer by the second.....

OK, I know very dramatic and maybe you can handle a guy with two butterfly knives, when your unarmed without getting cut, but what if you can't? Hmmm well to be honest I don't really know, I have been attacked with swords in a lucid dream before and although I felt the impact but it didn't hurt. At the time I wasn't interested in the zombie Yankee soldiers as much as something else in the distance and I was in a low lucid state.

I imagine that those of you unlucky enough to have been cut before might feel the pain quite intensely and those of you who practice with weapons and know about the injuries caused will undoughtably feel something. Perhaps you will get paralysis of the part of the body injured in the dream? I do know that if you get too stressed your mind will wake you up immediately, which is why you shouldn't get over excited in a lucid dream in case you wake. Tales about if you die in a dream you die in real life are just that, tales.

The only previso I would add would be to those caught in a choke hold they cannot get out of, there is the very remote possibility that your body may be being choked in real life, if you find you cannot break free in a dream, maybe smoke from a house fire etc? Your body automatically takes care of functions like breathing naturally so you can fly in outerspace or swim to the bottom of the ocean with no ill effects but this is a minor risk you should pay attention to. To wake up try to imagine your body in bed, try to wiggle a finger of shout to wake up.

Click HERE to read an extra page about some experiences people have had with lucid dreaming and martial arts.