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Games special: Lucid dreaming
WE’VE all been there: a bad mood during the day because of a nightmare the night before. For athletes who rely as much on their mental as physical strength, this can spell disaster. Yet Victor Spoormaker at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, knows how they can turn their bad dreams good. He has been developing ways to eliminate recurring nightmares through lucid dreaming, a state between wake and sleep where a person becomes aware that they are dreaming while still in the dream. “You can become lucid in a nightmare and change it any way you wish,” says Spoormaker, who overcame his own nightmares this way. Pleasant dreams can provide the extra boost athletes need to succeed. In a study conducted in the 1970s, American gymnasts hoping to make the Olympic team were asked how frequently they dreamed about gymnastics and about the nature of their dreams. Of the 12 hopefuls, the six that
qualified were the ones who said they had had more dreams about success beforehand. The state of lucid dreaming is notoriously difficult to achieve, so dream researcher Daniel Erlacher at the University of Bern in Switzerland has been working on ways to induce it. In his latest attempt, he wakes sleepers up in the early hours of the morning and asks them to think about the dreams they have just had and the dreams they want to have, before sending them back to bed. While only around 10 per cent of the participants’ dreams were lucid before they tried the technique, “we had success rates of over 50 per cent”, says Erlacher, who presented the findings at the annual meeting of the German Sleep Society last year. Once you have gained control of your dreams, why stop there? Lucid dreamers who are able to dream about tossing a coin into a cup have a better aim the following day compared with those who don’t train in their dreams. Could athletes do the
”People who can lucid dream about tossing a coin into a cup have a better aim the next day” same to squeeze in some extra pre-games practice? While evidence that the technique boosts athletic performance is mostly anecdotal, many sports people are already using it, says Erlacher, who has had a number of professional athletes knocking on his door for advice. In a recent investigation, Erlacher’s team questioned 800 German athletes on their dreaming habits. “Twenty per cent of them said they were frequent lucid dreamers, and those who used it to practise said it helped their performance,” he says.
A winning genome SPORTS stars owe a degree of their success to their parents – more specifically, the genes they inherited. “There’s no doubt that genetics plays some role in athletic performance,” says Stephen Roth, a geneticist at the University of Maryland. Heritability studies on identical and nonidentical twins suggest that up to 80 per cent of differences in athletic prowess can be attributed to genes, not training. Exactly which of our many genes make up a winning genome is tricky to pin down, but there are some candidates Brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee are successful triathletes
46 | NewScientist | 21 July 2012
that appear to be tied to top performance. In 1998, researchers discovered differences between two variants of the gene that codes for angiotensinconverting enzyme, which helps heart tissue to grow in response to training and muscles to use oxygen. One form of the gene confers useful traits on endurance athletes such as marathon runners. The other has been linked to success in sports that require shorter bursts of power, and is common among elite swimmers. Another candidate gene is ACTN3. Clifford White/corbis
image source/getty
Lucid dreaming
The fibres that form muscle come in two varieties, fast twitch and slow twitch, and ACTN3 controls how much of each fibre a person has. Slow twitch fibres are better at using oxygen over longer periods of time, making them handy for endurance events. Power athletes such as weightlifters, on the other hand, need the quick power bursts provided by fast twitch fibres. Performance isn’t all about muscle, though. There’s also the mental toughness required to stick at training come rain, shine or blisters, and to perform, repeatedly, under intense pressure and scrutiny. How do they do it? When Nicola Maffulli at Queen Mary, University of London, and his colleagues reviewed existing research on ordinary people, they found some clues. Genetics account for between 30 and 60 per cent of the difference in the amount of daily exercise that people take, and up to 83 per cent of the difference in sports participation. We are still a long way off nailing down the whole range of genetic characteristics that combine to make an Olympian. A number of traits can prove invaluable in different sports – strength, height, agility and coordination among others – and these may each have different genetic components. Height alone, is thought to be influenced by around 4000 genes.
qualified were the ones who said they had had more dreams about success beforehand. The state of lucid dreaming is notoriously difficult to achieve, so dream researcher Daniel Erlacher at the University of Bern in Switzerland has been working on ways to induce it. In his latest attempt, he wakes sleepers up in the early hours of the morning and asks them to think about the dreams they have just had and the dreams they want to have, before sending them back to bed. While only around 10 per cent of the participants’ dreams were lucid before they tried the technique, “we had success rates of over 50 per cent”, says Erlacher, who presented the findings at the annual meeting of the German Sleep Society last year. Once you have gained control of your dreams, why stop there? Lucid dreamers who are able to dream about tossing a coin into a cup have a better aim the following day compared with those who don’t train in their dreams. Could athletes do the
”People who can lucid dream about tossing a coin into a cup have a better aim the next day” same to squeeze in some extra pre-games practice? While evidence that the technique boosts athletic performance is mostly anecdotal, many sports people are already using it, says Erlacher, who has had a number of professional athletes knocking on his door for advice. In a recent investigation, Erlacher’s team questioned 800 German athletes on their dreaming habits. “Twenty per cent of them said they were frequent lucid dreamers, and those who used it to practise said it helped their performance,” he says.
A winning genome SPORTS stars owe a degree of their success to their parents – more specifically, the genes they inherited. “There’s no doubt that genetics plays some role in athletic performance,” says Stephen Roth, a geneticist at the University of Maryland. Heritability studies on identical and nonidentical twins suggest that up to 80 per cent of differences in athletic prowess can be attributed to genes, not training. Exactly which of our many genes make up a winning genome is tricky to pin down, but there are some candidates Brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee are successful triathletes
46 | NewScientist | 21 July 2012
that appear to be tied to top performance. In 1998, researchers discovered differences between two variants of the gene that codes for angiotensinconverting enzyme, which helps heart tissue to grow in response to training and muscles to use oxygen. One form of the gene confers useful traits on endurance athletes such as marathon runners. The other has been linked to success in sports that require shorter bursts of power, and is common among elite swimmers. Another candidate gene is ACTN3. Clifford White/corbis
image source/getty
Lucid dreaming
The fibres that form muscle come in two varieties, fast twitch and slow twitch, and ACTN3 controls how much of each fibre a person has. Slow twitch fibres are better at using oxygen over longer periods of time, making them handy for endurance events. Power athletes such as weightlifters, on the other hand, need the quick power bursts provided by fast twitch fibres. Performance isn’t all about muscle, though. There’s also the mental toughness required to stick at training come rain, shine or blisters, and to perform, repeatedly, under intense pressure and scrutiny. How do they do it? When Nicola Maffulli at Queen Mary, University of London, and his colleagues reviewed existing research on ordinary people, they found some clues. Genetics account for between 30 and 60 per cent of the difference in the amount of daily exercise that people take, and up to 83 per cent of the difference in sports participation. We are still a long way off nailing down the whole range of genetic characteristics that combine to make an Olympian. A number of traits can prove invaluable in different sports – strength, height, agility and coordination among others – and these may each have different genetic components. Height alone, is thought to be influenced by around 4000 genes.