Lucid Dream Sport Practice in Japanese College Athletes: A Questionnaire Study

Abstract

In a previous questionnaire study with German professional athletes, we showed that the prevalence of lucid dreaming in athletes is 57% and that about 5% of athletes use their lucid dreams to practice sport skills while asleep. The present study applied a Japanese translation of the same questionnaire to a Japanese sample of college athletes to explore cultural differences. We found that about 41% of Japanese athletes stated that they experienced a lucid dream at least once in their lives, 18% experienced them once a month or more frequently, while 3.6% of athletes used lucid dreams for their sport practice. The frequency of lucid dreams in Japanese athletes was lower than in the German athletes, indicating potential cultural differences. Yet lucid dream practice does appear to have a cross-cultural applicability.