When I took up regularly playing chess again, I got all sorts of dreams about chess; tournaments, games, players, loads of stuff. I’d wake up with chess positions in my head, and game fragments - though they’d fade pretty quickly.
Now I’ve started playing keyboard. I practice a couple of hours a day + I’m improving quite well, immersing myself in the whole thing, trying to jam to tracks, learning the odd tune by ear, studying chord progressions etc. I was expecting to have the same experience of loads of dreams about it as my brain started coping with all this stuff, but I haven’t had a single dream about it at all (well maybe one where I was a little kid and had one of those big old fashioned black typewriters - it’s not music but to do with pressing keys I guess). I find this a bit odd - why no dreams?
I was just wondering if anyone else had been in this position, and had some experiences to share?
I just woke from another slightly unpleasant dream about work, got up and made a cup of tea. (I’m going back to bed in a minute and try and WILD again). While I was making tea, I had vague recollection of another earlier dream, can’t remember any details, but I was playing keyboard, and it was a positive dream, just remember the feeling really. So I got straight on the keyboard, and tried playing a piece I’ve been struggling with, even though I’m still a bit sleepy, and usually I have to warm up a bit by playing scales + such before I can make a reasonable stab of it. Played it near on perfect first time! all my timing was good, got all the chord changes right, didn’t fluff any notes! So chuffed. I guess my subconcious really is working on all that stuff while I sleep. If I get a decent LD, might trying playing then too… maybe in a band…
I’ve worked around the thought for quite a bit, and I’ve come to a conclusion: what the conscious was aware of, the SC doesn’t dream.
There is a trance induction technique that consists in retracing your day, backwards, starting from the moment you laid down, back to when you woke up in the morning, or earlier, to previous days, if you prefer. The point is, it is a widely known technique in LD departments because it frees our dreams from the influence of the passed day. Our conscious knows what it did during the day, thus the SC doesn’t dream about it. I’ve tried myself several times, and eiter got dreams completely unrelated to the day that I had just lived, or I dreamt vaguely of parts that I forgot to include in the session.
Same goes for my university: I’ve been studying math for a month this year, and I still have to dream something vaguely school-related, beacuse I’m always self-aware when I’m in my class, I’m aware when I listen to the teacher, I’m aware when I study.
So, my guess would be, you are quite aware of what you’re doing while you’re practicing music, or you think about it during the day with awareness, thus it doesn’t show up in dreams. Does this explanation relate to you?
Yes very much so. I sort of came to the same conclusion, thinking that if I haven’t been dreaming about it, then I probably don’t have any real issues. I guess I’ve been immersed in music all my life, even though I haven’t practiced it. The music is already in me. Also perhaps we don’t dream about mechanical skills (in this case getting my fingers to do what they’re told!) which is the main problem for me. By this I mean the brain doesn’t use memorable dreams to hone those kind of automatic skills.
Well I’d call my dreams pretty boring if I was repeating movements in them 
. Dreams are made to fantasize mainly, so I guessed the free-from-mindless-exercises guarantee came pretty much with the package 
But of course, as you said, if there’s some issues with them (fear of failing, etc.) they can verily show up in dreams. It’s just, things in dreams never appear for their own sake only, they have to be related to some feeling or memory.