Is there anyway to work on the connection object

Is there anyway to work on the connection object from SQL window? I'm trying to work on the performance of the queries I'm executing. I connect to Oracle from SQL window and wanto use this connection object (if possible) and work on it (if possible)if there are methods available supporting this.

Using SQL can I assign the result of a particular query to a variable like int String = select sysdate from dual;

I'm sorta newbie so if questions are silly.. my apologies.

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