The lucid dreaming playbook: how to take charge of your dreams

Your doctor should be instructing you in this. In lucid dreaming you could have yourself correctly moving your affected muscles and observe them. Similar to mirror therapy and action observation. If your doctor can't put these three concepts together for your recovery you have to find someone who can.  Our fucking failures of stroke associations don't have enough functioning brain cells to even understand the concept, don't bother their poor brain cells. But don't listen to me, I have no medical training.

https://ideapod.com/the-lucid-dreaming-playbook-how-to-take-charge-of-your-dreams/

In the study I published with colleagues at the University of Adelaide, the best technique turned out to be something called Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD), originally developed in the 1970s by the American psychophysiologist Stephen LaBerge. It involves the following steps:

1. Set an alarm for five hours after you go to bed.

2. When the alarm sounds, try to remember a dream from just before you woke up. If you can’t, just recall any dream you had recently.

3. Lie in a comfortable position with the lights off and repeat the phrase: ‘Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming.’ Do this silently in your mind. You need to put real meaning into the words and focus on your intention to remember.

4. Every time you repeat the phrase at step 3, imagine yourself back in the dream you recalled at step 2, and visualise yourself remembering that you are dreaming.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you either fall asleep or are sure that your intention to remember is set. This should be the last thing in your mind before falling asleep. If you find yourself repeatedly coming back to your intention to remember that you’re dreaming, that’s a good sign it’s firm in your mind.

We relied on data from 169 people from all over Australia, who kept a dream journal so we could measure the effect of induction techniques against their ‘baseline’ tendency. More than half the people who used MILD ended up having at least one lucid dream in the week they started practising; they also went from experiencing these dreams about one night out of 11 to about one night in six. These findings are very exciting, and are some of the highest success rates reported in the scientific literature.

Surprisingly, the number of times that people repeated the mantra about remembering that they’re dreaming, or even the amount of time spent on MILD overall, did not predict success. Instead, the most important factor was being able to complete the technique and then go back to sleep quickly. In fact, it proved almost twice as effective when people fell asleep within five minutes after setting their intention. If you want to try this for yourself, you’ll need to experiment in order to get the right level of wakefulness when the alarm goes off – enough to allow you to complete the steps, but not so much that you’ll struggle to doze off again. Doing the technique after five or so hours of sleep is important, too: most of our dreams occur in the last two to three hours before waking, and you want to minimise the time between finishing the technique and entering REM sleep.

It takes a bit of practice, but if you’re lucky you might even have a lucid dream using MILD on your first night. If you do become aware that you’re dreaming, it’s important to stay calm, since intense emotions can trigger a premature awakening. And if the dream starts to fade or seems unstable, you can try rubbing your hands together vigorously from within the dream. It sounds strange, but this strategy works by flooding the brain with sensations from within the dream, which decreases the chance of becoming aware of your sleeping physical body, and waking up.

Aside from the sheer joy of being able to bend an imaginary world to your will, there’s a range of additional psychological benefits to lucid dreaming. For one, it can help with nightmares: simply knowing that you’re dreaming often brings relief during a nasty episode. You might also be able to use dreams to process trauma: confronting what’s haunting you, making peace with an attacker, escaping the situation by flying away, or even just waking up. Other potential applications include practising sporting skills by night, having more ‘active’ participants for studies about sleep and dreaming, and the pursuit of creative inspiration. With practice, our dream state can feel almost as vivid to us as the world itself – and leaves you wondering, perhaps, where fantasy ends and reality begins.

By Denholm Aspy. This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.

4 Things You Need to Know When Pursuing An Ambitious Dream

My dream is to completely change stroke rehab, such that it becomes a minor illness.  It is grandiose and delusional since I have no medical experience and don't even have a clue on how to set up a foundation to accomplish that. I have purchased the URL of strokeresearchinstitute.com so I'm not completely at step zero.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/4-things-need-know-pursuing-ambitious-dream/

1. There’s no shame in being green.

2. Setbacks are part of the process.

3. It helps to hold yourself accountable.

4. An experience can be worth so much more than it costs.

Constructive daydreaming

Why hasn't your doctor pulled together a stroke protocol utilizing this? Is s/he lazy or stupid?

Mind Wandering: A New Personal Intelligence Perspective

Ode to positive constructive daydreaming

 

Dreams about using the bad side

Recently I've had dreams where my left hand was used normally. I have to start reading the book 'Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming' so I can continue doing it regularily. I have been running in past dreams and that was a lot of fun.

What would a great stroke association look like?

1.  It first would have a great outreach to survivors. This can be copied from the British Stroke Association.
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Here at the Stroke Association we are looking for a representative sample of people affected by stroke to take part in a reader panel to provide feedback and advice on our written information publications and help us to be really sure that they are meeting the needs of stroke survivors and their carers.
Reader panel members will be sent a range of publications by post or email to read at regular intervals throughout the year and will be asked to provide a range of feedback, via a method appropriate to your needs.
Whether you are a stroke survivor; a family member, a carer or friend of someone who's had a stroke; or you have an interest in stroke, if you think this role sounds interesting we want to hear from you!
To express your interest and request a role description and application form please send your name, address, email address and telephone number to us by emailing: info@stroke.org.uk
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2.  It would have a strategy and vision for each 5 year period to 25 years in the future. This would be updated on a yearly basis.
3.  It would contain a complete database of all stroke research for the last 200 years. Available to doctors, therapists, researchers, survivors and caregivers.
4. Textbooks would be updated every two years. The goal of transferring research knowledge to clinical use within 3 years, instead of 30 years.
5.  It would be the acknowledged leader in everything to do with stroke. No layperson or doctor/therapist  would upstage the organizations knowledge.
6.  Research would be sponsored. Like the Michael J. Fox Foundation decisions on research would be decided quickly.  Myelin Repair and the Alzheimers Association also sponsor research and should be emulated.
7.  The latest news on stroke would be reviewed weekly  to determine what the response should be, news release, update strategy, update database.
8.  In the US a similar law  to the  National Alzheimer’s Plan would be created for stroke.
9. These statements would never be used;
     a.  'this question falls under our organizational guidelines as a medical inquiry and we defer to the medical community to respond.' - direct quote from the NSA
     b.  'All strokes are different, all stroke recoveries are different'
     c.   'You won't recover'
     d.  'You have hit a plateau'
10.   All stroke protocols are fully documented and available to all survivors. Therapists, doctors and hospitals  found not using them will be shamed.
11. A passion for stroke rehab and research would exist in all employees.
12. The leader and board of directors would be survivors.
13. Every survivor would be contacted in the first week.
14. The tipping point for stroke will be achieved with breathless anticipation for each research result. 
15.  The president would have an open door/email policy for all survivors.
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With 7 million survivors in the US the donor pool is huge, and they would be more likely to donate to actual work rather than the nebulous prevention laziness.
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Now we just need a large donor to instigate such an organization and a management person to pull it off.

You have to dream big, nothing occurs without taking chances. And a few survivors have told me I must love risk-taking - maybe too much.

How to Learn in Your Sleep

The application described is pretty limited but our stroke researchers should be able to find  a way for us to make use of it. Then they could compare this to lucid dreaming efficacy.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-learn-in-your-sleep

Scientists Measure Dream Content for the First Time: Dreams Activate the Brain in a Similar Way to Real Actions

So our researchers should be able to apply this and determine if this would have the same results as mental imagery and action observation in our recovery. And I wouldn't have to spend every waking hour thinking about my recovery.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111028113626.htm
The ability to dream is a fascinating aspect of the human mind. However, how the images and emotions that we experience so intensively when we dream form in our heads remains a mystery. Up to now it has not been possible to measure dream content. Max Planck scientists working with colleagues from the Charité hospital in Berlin have now succeeded, for the first time, in analysing the activity of the brain during dreaming.

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They were able to do this with the help of lucid dreamers, i.e. people who become aware of their dreaming state and are able to alter the content of their dreams. The scientists measured that the brain activity during the dreamed motion matched the one observed during a real executed movement in a state of wakefulness.
The research is published in the journal Current Biology.
Methods like functional magnetic resonance imaging have enabled scientists to visualise and identify the precise spatial location of brain activity during sleep. However, up to now, researchers have not been able to analyse specific brain activity associated with dream content, as measured brain activity can only be traced back to a specific dream if the precise temporal coincidence of the dream content and measurement is known. Whether a person is dreaming is something that could only be reported by the individual himself.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, the Charité hospital in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig availed of the ability of lucid dreamers to dream consciously for their research. Lucid dreamers were asked to become aware of their dream while sleeping in a magnetic resonance scanner and to report this "lucid" state to the researchers by means of eye movements. They were then asked to voluntarily "dream" that they were repeatedly clenching first their right fist and then their left one for ten seconds.
This enabled the scientists to measure the entry into REM sleep -- a phase in which dreams are perceived particularly intensively -- with the help of the subject's electroencephalogram (EEG) and to detect the beginning of a lucid phase. The brain activity measured from this time onwards corresponded with the arranged "dream" involving the fist clenching. A region in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain, which is responsible for the execution of movements, was actually activated during the dream. This is directly comparable with the brain activity that arises when the hand is moved while the person is awake. Even if the lucid dreamer just imagines the hand movement while awake, the sensorimotor cortex reacts in a similar way.
The coincidence of the brain activity measured during dreaming and the conscious action shows that dream content can be measured. "With this combination of sleep EEGs, imaging methods and lucid dreamers, we can measure not only simple movements during sleep but also the activity patterns in the brain during visual dream perceptions," says Martin Dresler, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry.
The researchers were able to confirm the data obtained using MR imaging in another subject using a different technology. With the help of near-infrared spectroscopy, they also observed increased activity in a region of the brain that plays an important role in the planning of movements. "Our dreams are therefore not a 'sleep cinema' in which we merely observe an event passively, but involve activity in the regions of the brain that are relevant to the dream content," explains Michael Czisch, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry.

People can learn new skills in dreams, claim Yale researchers

Maybe my idea on lucid dreaming last October wasn't so crazy.
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/tech1192.html

The idea of the surreal Hollywood blockbuster Inception, where people travel through someone's dreams to 'plant' an idea in his head may not be so out-there after all.

Researchers at Yale have found that 'lucid dreamers' - dreamers who have 'waking dreams' that they control - are able to learn new skills in their dreams.

A team is now experimenting with the idea of 'training' people by telling them what to dream about.

While the idea of 'walking through' someone's dreams, as in the hit movie Inception is fictional - and likely to remain so - dreams are good for more than just entertainment, say researchers

People who can control their dreams can use the unusual ability to experience a sense of euphoria, as if they have accomplished something.

But new research hints that people can actually 'use' dreaming as a tool to learn.

Being in command of dreams opens up opportunities to manipulate them for learning and training - although it may not be quite as precise as learning to play the violin while asleep.

Instead, 'lucid dreamers' can control areas of their brain to open up and 'learn' while they sleep. What's more, it seems that merely being a lucid dreamer seems to give you an advantage.

Researchers from Yale University found that lucid dreamers perform better in a gambling task, designed to test a part of the brain important to emotional decision-making and social interactions, said a report in New Scientist this week.

Peter Morgan at Yale University and colleagues think that this region can be trained.
Morgan and his team are working on how to train people using dreams.

Morgan hopes to be able to improve a person's social control and decision-making abilities.

'We know that by engaging circuits in the brain we can change its architecture,' he says.
It's already been proven that people who practice tasks in dreams can be better at them in real life.

One Swiss study, led by Daniel Erlacher of the University of Bern, showed that lucid dreamers who 'practiced throwing a coin into a cup were better at the real thing when they woke up.
This article also helps.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/10/dream-movements-translate-to-rea.html

The Benefits of Lucid Dreaming

I'm sure there is no research showing how this can help stroke patients, but sometimes we have to blaze our own trails. I look at this as another form of mental imagery. Why waste your sleeping hours, you can do therapy while sleeping. Nothing in Canadas' Strokengine on this.
Or you could read Ursala K LeGuin; The Lathe of Heaven
Ok I found a study;
Dreamed Movement Elicits Activation in the Sensorimotor Cortex.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22036177

Abstract

Since the discovery of the close association between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and dreaming, much effort has been devoted to link physiological signatures of REM sleep to the contents of associated dreams [1-4]. Due to the impossibility of experimentally controlling spontaneous dream activity, however, a direct demonstration of dream contents by neuroimaging methods is lacking. By combining brain imaging with polysomnography and exploiting the state of "lucid dreaming," we show here that a predefined motor task performed during dreaming elicits neuronal activation in the sensorimotor cortex. In lucid dreams, the subject is aware of the dreaming state and capable of performing predefined actions while all standard polysomnographic criteria of REM sleep are fulfilled [5, 6]. Using eye signals as temporal markers, neural activity measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was related to dreamed hand movements during lucid REM sleep. Though preliminary, we provide first evidence that specific contents of REM-associated dreaming can be visualized by neuroimaging.

Lucid dreaming as a learnable skill: A case study
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1982-00442-001
During a 3-yr study, the author recorded a total of 389 lucid dreams and developed a mnemonic technique for the voluntary induction of lucid dreams (MILD). Without using any induction procedure, the S reported less than 1 lucid dream/month. Using autosuggestion resulted in a range of 1–23 lucid dreams/month, with at most 2/night. MILD yielded 18–26 lucid dreams/month, with up to 4/night. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
The benefits of lucid dreaming are far-reaching
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/benefits-of-lucid-dreaming.html
e new skills.

That's not to mention the enormous fun that comes from playing within your own virtual reality dream world and how it relates to your own subconscious mind. Soon you will see it is all interconnected - conscious and unconscious - enabling you to use this playground for profound personal growth and insights.

And then there is the obvious benefit: pure wish fulfillment. Act out your greatest fantasies in full color. You don't need inspiration for that, do you...?

Improve Your Problem Solving Skills

Scientists understand the benefits of lucid dreaming; some have used it to enhance their problem solving skills in extraordinarily creative ways.

Take Friedrich Kekule's discovery of the structure of the benzene molecule; Otto Loewi's experiment on nerve impulses; and Elias Howe's invention of the sewing machine. These dream-inspired inventions highlight the stunning power of the dreaming subconscious mind.

Once you learn the basics of lucid dreaming, you can solve problems on demand - and on a whole new level. That's because you are not limited by your logical conscious brain. Instead, you can solve problems creatively in a 3D environment, or by drawing deeper insights directly from your subconscious mind. Just ask any question to your lucid dream and wait for the answer...

Improve Your Creativity

Conscious dreaming is an exceptionally powerful way to improve your creativity. Painters like Salvador Dali, William Blake and Paul Klee created famous artwork inspired by dreams.

Even musical composers - like Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner - pointed to dreams as the source of their inspiration. In fact, some of the most beautiful music I ever heard took place in my lucid dreams. They reveal our most creative side because of the free-flow of ideas arising from the subconscious mind.

To improve your creativity in lucid dreams, you can follow two avenues. First, make an announcement in your dream: "show me something amazing!" Your subconscious will respond in unpredictable but often deeply inspiring ways.

Alternatively, set a lucid dream intention. If you are a painter, take a trip to your own lucid dreaming art gallery and see what you find. If you are a musician, play the piano with Chopin and create a complex new arrangement. By encouraging your conscious dream to show you these things, the response will come as if automatically, straight from the dreaming subconscious.

Face Your Fears

Remember I said the benefits of lucid dreaming are far-reaching? This one may push you to your logical limits.

Conscious dreaming allows you to face your fears in a controlled setting. If you are afraid of heights, why not jump out of an airplane?

In the alternate reality of lucid dreams, you can slow down time for a controlled fall, and float gently to the ground. Once you have done this at 10,000 feet you will be surprised how you feel about heights in the waking world.

How does it work? One explanation is that dealing with a worst case scenario in a positive way creates new neural patterns in your subconscious mind. Reinforcing that belief with more experiences that seem real can dissolve the fear altogether. From skydiving to snakes, you can face your fears and reprogram your subconscious reactions, knowing that absolutely no harm can come to you.

Alternatively, why not ask that spider what he represents? He may give you an astonishing response that finally allows you to rationalize your fear.

Improve Your Confidence

Do you lack confidence in the waking world? If so, you can use conscious dreaming to release your inhibitions and be totally free in a realistic dream world.

If you want to improve your public speaking abilities, you can rehearse the event in a lucid dream. Having practiced your speech in a realistic environment, you will find you have more confidence when it comes to making the speech in real life. Remember - practice makes perfect.

Lucid dreams are a playground for experimentation. You can try out any concept imaginable - from business, to sports, to relationships - anything you like. By rehearsing a situation or simply toying with different outcomes, you can improve your confidence in any number of waking scenarios.

Practice New Skills

By the same token, you can practice new skills in lucid dreams. In Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming by Dr Stephen LaBerge, there is a testimony from a surgeon. Before going to sleep, he would review his surgical cases for the next day. Then he would practice them in precise detail in lucid dreams. He has a solid reputation as a surgeon because of this, being able to refine and polish his techniques and perform procedures much faster than the average surgeon.

By now, you can see how the benefits of lucid dreaming are limitless. Take a look at this website for martial arts training in lucid dreams. It features images and descriptions of its virtual training rooms, so you can go there next time you are lucid. It also explains how the precision muscle movements you make during dream training is ingrained in your brain - just as if you had been training in the real world.

Explore Alternate Realities

The lucid dream world is made up of many alternate realities. Every time you "wake up" in a new dream scene, you will find strange goings on and new landscapes to explore. They are all completely tangible and life-like.

Just like in science fiction, you can teleport to parallel worlds, explore different timelines, visit alien planets and travel to other dimensions. This is a thrilling proposition that enables you to explore the nature of the physical universe, as your vast subconscious mind sees it. You can even induce an out of body experience (OBE) in a lucid dream and explore the so-called astral realm.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are many great benefits of lucid dreaming. I'm most thankful for lucid dreaming because it showed me something very special about the nature of the human mind. I realized that we are fully capable of creating a vivid virtual reality, complete with all five senses, inside our heads. If you think lucid dreaming is anything like normal dreams, or daydreams, think again...

I love the sheer freedom created by lucidity; how it enables me to fly high like a bird without fear of falling - or run through solid objects. I can visit anyone and do anything I want. And beyond the novelty of wish fulfillment, it provides me with a direct channel to my subconscious mind, enabling me to heal past fears and anxieties and regard myself in a whole new light. It's mind-blowing stuff.

Like anything worth doing, learning to wake up in dreams is not necessarily easy. But with practice and patience, anyone can do it. In fact, just by discovering the concept you have already planted the seed to have lucid dreams tonight...

A Neuroimaging Step Toward Reading Your Dreams
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/neuroimaging_step_toward_reading_your_dreams-84048

'Lucid' dreamers are people who claim they are aware that they are dreaming and can deliberately control their actions in dreams. When people dream that they are performing a particular action, a portion of the brain involved in the planning and execution of movement lights up with activity.

This learned skill presents an opportunity for researchers who are studying the neural underpinnings of our dreams and their findings in Current Biology, made by scanning the brains of lucid dreamers while they slept, give us a glimpse into non-waking consciousness and perhaps create a waypoint toward true "dream reading."

The researchers instructed participants to make a series of left and right hand movements separated by a series of eye movements upon entering a lucid dream state while their brains were scanned. Those eye movements served as a signal to the researchers of what was happening in the dream.

Those studies show for the first time that neural activity observed in the brain's sensorimotor cortex can be related to dreamed hand movements.

The discovery suggests that lucid dreaming in combination with neuroimaging and polysomnography (a more common form of sleep monitoring) may allow the transfer of more sophisticated "brain reading" tasks to the dreaming state, the researchers say. In other words, it might eventually be possible to predict dreamed content by analyzing patterns of brain activity.

"The main obstacle in studying specific dream content is that spontaneous dream activity cannot be experimentally controlled, as subjects typically cannot perform predecided mental actions during sleep," study coauthor Michael Czisch explained. "Employing the skill of lucid dreaming can help to overcome these obstacles."

Martin Dresler of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, says it will also be interesting to investigate brain activity at the moment a dreamer becomes lucid. "The lucid dreamer gains insight into a very complex state: sleeping, dreaming, but being consciously aware of the dream state. This may inform us about concepts of consciousness."

REM sleep and stroke fatigue

A theory of mine, I don't think I have dreamed since my event and was wondering if that was causing some of my fatigue. As the episode Night Terrors in Star Trek Next Generation shows what happens when you don't dream. Please respond if you have or have not dreamed and list the fatigue you have. I can easily fall asleep anytime during the day even with 12 hours of sleep.
SYMPTOMS: A person lacking REM sleep will show all the general symptoms of sleep deprivation, such as reduced productivity in the workplace, daytime sleepiness, and not handling stress well. Losing REM sleep makes people more sensitive to pain, too. In addition, REM sleep seems to be necessary for verbal skills. A lack of it will cause a person to not be as creative in using language, and they will not do too well on language tests.
As both these articles state; The success of a stroke patients rehabilitation plan is heavily dependent on sleep.
http://strokerehabonline.com/2010/06/sleeping-and-sleep-for-stroke-recovery-speed-up/comment-page-1/#comment-503
http://ezinearticles.com/comment.php?Sleep-is-an-Important-Aid-to-Stroke-Recovery&id=3866857
What are your dreams like and do you have them? Do you dream pre-stroke or after stroke abilities?
I have now changed both my zocor and zoloft from evening meds to morning meds and I now dream. Don't do that without your doctors ok.