I’ve been wondering for a while if lucid dreaming can help real life addictions. Hypothetically, someone with a smoking addiction, would they be able to quit smoking in real life, but smoke while lucid to help counter withdrawal? I don’t smoke, but I have other minor addictions, like coffee, so this would be helpful to know.
1 Like
I think it can help. There is a detachment and sort of Birds Eye view that comes with dreaming. I once had stopped smoking a few weeks and had a lucid dream where I smoked a few puffs of a cigarette. I remember laughing about it in the dream and how it couldn’t hurt me cause it wasn’t real life. And it wouldn’t set me back or anything.
Also the quality of these things can be unreal. I once saw a cigar in a dream that had this sort of high quality wooden mouthpiece. Also saw mixed drinks that stay the perfect temperature and are always stocked up for you to just get at a bar.
It did not make me want to smoke the next day. If anything it seemed to help me to detach or look at the bad habit with a sense of humor. On the same note I’ve had dreams where I did drugs that I never did in real life but I got high in the dream lol. I have also had dreams where I got drunk or was at a party where everyone was high. These types of dreams are rare for me but a dream lucid or not can simulate the effects as well.
1 Like
I agree, I successfully quit smoking from lucid dreaming. It was like I would wake up and feel like I had been smoking all night and have no desire to smoke in the morning.
2 Likes
Has it helped you even weeks or months after quitting?
1 Like
My initial reaction is that it hasn’t for me. It seemed to help me most in the first or second week of quitting. But it would only make sense for dream journalling as a discipline to help people with anxiety or give them resistance to peer pressure or whatever it would be to cause them to smoke again. Personally I smoke the occasional cigarette and don’t let it make me feel bad. I think there is a big difference in smoking all day long versus maybe smoking 2 or 3 times a week and that’s kinda where I am most of the time. If I had to quit outright it wouldn’t be a problem. A good sign is if you don’t need to smoke in the morning, at least in my experience.
1 Like