When I was a small child, I was often plagued by nightmares. In dealing with these, I became very skilled with “lucid dreaming”. By the time of my late adolescence, I was able to often controll dreams, plan dreams before going to sleep, and retain a great deal of memory regarding the contents of my dreams. Not all of my dreams are lucid, but often there comes a point in a particularly vivid dream in which I realize that it is a dream, and then I have somewhat of a choice to try and direct it.
I’ve found this to be, at the least, a fascinating tool for introspection. You have *some* controll, and you know it’s a dream-- at least, I know that I am in my own subconscious mind, with at least a vague awareness that there is such a thing as reality and that the sensations I am experiencing in the dream have relevence and should be remembered. But still, the dream is it’s own kind of “reality”-- there are rules you have to follow in it if you don’t want to wake yourself up, and there is a different kind of logic directing events than in actual reality.
In exploring the “logic” [edit: maybe “rationale” is a better word.] and “rules” of my own dreamworlds, I’ve been able to dig up and locate long forgotten memories and knowledge, as well as emotions and desires that were at least partially repressed, ignored, or forgotten in my conscious life.
As far as gaining practical knowledge.. particularly regarding skills and physical activities in the real world, I have spent some time with that, too. I am a musician, and for a while, when I was in school and hardly had any time to practice, I tried for a while to plan dreams in which I practiced playing guitar.
I know it sounds rediculous, but I really do think I benefited tremendously from these dream practice sessions. It’s not the same as physically practicing the guitar- because you’re not excercising your hands, and you’re not training your mind to coordinate with your hands and with the sounds in time and space, as you would if you were actually practicing. But the objects in a dream take on special symbolic significance- what I played on the guitar in my dream was my mind’s attempt to integrate and understand and recreate the act of playing music in reality. So when I’d think “play a G Major,” my mind would have to do a lot of work to create what I think “G Major” means. It would search my subconscious for all my knowledge of music theory, and it would search my memory of experiencing “G Major” in reality. I found that when I awoke, and played G Major on my guitar, it was more vivid to me… I noticed more things about it that I used to ignore or overlook. Perhaps because I was trying to program my subconscious mind to make a better “G Major” in my next dream.
I note that in Ayn Rand’s instructional book on how to write fiction, programming the subconscious mind is a skill that is emphasized as essential. My method might seem overcomplicated, but I was trying to make the most of my time. And I had fun doing it, as an end in itself anyway. I don’t know if you could get better at something as physical gravity-bound as rollerblading in a dream. But when I try to learn things like rollerblading, I don’t usually approach them very conceptually. Dreams are good at conceptual things.. but maybe if I approached rollerblading more conceptually, I’d be better at it.
Also, dream journals are a good idea, I think. Because you always remember dreams best when you first wake up. Writing it down, and then going back later and reviewing what you remembered at first, and comparing it with what you remember now, is a good way to improve your ability to remember your dreams.
Edit- Oh, and one more thing- predicting the future is impossible, in dreams or reality, I think. Sometimes I will have a dream, and experience something like it later in real life, and notice the cooincidence, sometimes with a kind of shock or surprize. But I think it is a coincidence, and the similar sensations bring the memory to your immediate attention- like smelling a smell from long ago, and that’s why it gains such a strange emotional quality that people supersticiously ascribe to the supernatural.
Edit #2- Nx, I just reread your post, and as a suggestion, I think you should be carefull not to underestimate the psychological symbolism that is present in dreams. For example, a dream in which you can do acrobatic stunts that you’re afraid to do in real life could be your subconscious mind telling you that fear is holding you back from achieving your goals in real life- in general, not specifically related to acrobatics. Acrobatics might just be the handiest association your subconscious mind had access to at the time of the dream.
It seems you get the same mental experience as you would in the waking world, minus the coordination required by the body.