Mood:
brightTopic: Dreams
It seems like the ultimate lazy girl's fantasy - or the plot of a science fiction movie.
But new research has revealed sporting performance can be improved while we sleep.
It comes down to lucid dreaming - essentially the sort of dream you have while fast asleep but in which you aware you are dreaming and can thus control your dream world.
Studies have for some time noted a link between lucid dreaming during REM sleep and improved athletic performance, but had never isolated the reason why.
Now research by Heidelberg University and published in the Guardian's running blog shows that the improvement stems from the fact that your mind believes you are practising the sport for real.
Sportsmen and women who have engaged in training while they sleep have described enhanced performance after practising such things as a complex move, a tricky shot in basketball or a free kick in football over and over again.
Others have controlled their dreams to make themselves run faster, or for longer without tiring, or simply told themselves they can move past feelings of exhaustion to carry on running.
One ballerina in the study describes struggling with a complicated move for some time before 'sleep practising' it - and found she could then perform it in real life too.
Read more: dailymail.co.uk
