“If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It”: Practicing Musical Skills In Your Dreams Could Improve “Real-Life” Performance

    On nights before piano competitions, I would toss and turn in anxious anticipation of the performance. I recall having dreams about flawlessly executing the pieces in front of stern judges, perfectly as planned. If I could stay up all night practicing, without my tired eyes and fingers giving way to fatigue, I so would. However, dreaming about practicing, in hopes that it is truly contributing to the goal of improvement, would have to be sufficient. 

    Although many of us wish we had more time in the day to accomplish our goals, sleep takes up a good chunk of that time. And adequate sleep is imperative for productivity. But what if one could, indeed, effectively practice musical skills in their dreams, and transfer that practice to waking life? According to recent studies, one very well could. 

 

    Lucid dreaming occurs when one is dreaming, and as opposed to being unable to distinguish the dream from reality, is actually aware that they are dreaming. That being said, the dreamer may be able to “carry out actions deliberately,” according to researchers Melanie Schädlich of Heidelberg University and Daniel Erlacher of University of Bern. This opens the opportunity for researchers to find out if musicians can improve their skills through lucid dreaming. In their article, “Lucid Music – A Pilot Study Exploring the Experiences and Potential of Music-Making in Lucid Dreams,” Schädlich and Erlacher interviewed five musicians about their experiences. Although they were unable to gather from the interviews whether skills themselves were improved (i.e., theory, form), the participants confirmed the ability to “play and sing familiar and unfamiliar pieces of music, to improvise, and to compose music,” and the acts of doing such bettered their confidence and enhanced their creativity in performances (Schädlich and Erlacher). Because good theory and form are objective aspects of music, feasibly interference with a music teacher could aid in the improvement of skill. 

    By lucid dreaming, musicians could fall asleep, intending to practice their instrument in their dreams, and then awaken being able to accomplish their musical goals in their waking life. Karen R. Konkoly of Northwestern University has figured out a way to facilitate this process. In the article, “Real-time dialogue between experimenters and dreamers during REM sleep,” Konkoly et al. present findings that it is possible to communicate “from the outside” with those who are lucid dreaming. In the study, experimenters and participants formulated a way of communication during participants’ dreaming “. . . in the form of physiological signals based on facial or eye movements” (Konkoly et al., 2021). Participants were able to answer basic math problems and yes or no questions and convey those answers through facial or eye movements. Using polysomnographic recordings, experimenters were able to obtain these answers. This is a dialogue that is happening in real-time, implicating the possibility of, perhaps, a music teacher communicating to their student. 

    Both studies imply the chance of increasing productivity, even during our hours of rest. Though nevertheless, the research suggests that maybe if I had lucid dreamed my practice of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, I could have performed it for those judges a lot more confidently.

References

Konkoly, Karen R., et al. “Real-Time Dialogue between Experimenters and Dreamers during REM Sleep.” Current Biology, vol. 31, no. 7, 12 Apr. 2021, pp. 1417–1427., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.026.

Schädlich, Melanie, and Erlacher, Daniel. “Lucid Music – A Pilot Study Exploring the Experiences and Potential of Music-Making in Lucid Dreams.” Dreaming, vol. 28, no. 3, Sep. 2018, pp. 278-286. Ebsco, https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000073. Accessed 20 October 2021.