Has Anyone Successfully Overcome Social Anxiety Through LD?
I imagine that through LD-ing one who is usually reclusive or socially awkward could improve this through meeting and speaking with DC right?
In the dreamworld you could go on dates, hang out with cool people, learn how to have a conversation…etc and figure out how it feels to be yourself and know what it’s like to have friends or people that you can talk to. I would think this could carry over IRL. Also, your improvement could be accelerated through time perception in dreamland (like if your LDs ‘seem’ to be a week each time…you could change IRL rather quickly).
Is there anyone who has noticed marked improvement in social skills and/or just come out of their shell since LD-ing?
Well, I don’t think anyone has tried that, but it sounds like something that would be cool to do in a dream regardless of what you are trying to achieve.
You could also add mantras that say you would be more confident etc. Confidence is the key, so whatever you might do to boost it, feel free to do it.
I have not overcome my social anxiety disorder through Lucid Dreaming because I’m not that advanced a dreamer yet but I have something to add to the discussion.
In July 2012 where I live there was an article published stating that a trial at Karolinska Sjukhuset (a renowned teaching hospital) had seen great success in a new treatment for social anxiety disorder. The treatment consisted of two parts and I believe that at least one of them should lend itself very well to Lucid Dreaming once one has achieved enough control.
Subjects in the trial had to identify the traumatic situations which led to their development of social anxiety disorder and then they were told to write them down. But when they did so they were to change the emotions that they had experienced while going through the events and even to change the outcomes of these events so as to give the subject an improved sense of self as a result. In an LD however one could actually reenact the situations as they happened and change the outcome.
It’s just a thought, more experienced dreamers can weigh in but one of my LD goals (long term) is definitely to try and treat my social anxiety disorder. That would be frickin’ sweet!
Oh, the other part of the trial was to have the subject deliver a speech in front of an audience, record it, and then play it back to the subjects so they could see that they did much better than they themselves had thought.
I haven’t tried this because of lack of LDs and the fact I don’t have a social disorder but I see no reason why this shouldn’t work.
Socialising in LDs seems like it would help your social skills in reality. Maybe if you LD about talking to some people who you’d never be able to talk to for some reason (like someone you admire, or even the president) then it might help you also.
