# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion > Nightmares and Recurring Dreams >  >  Ptsd, Nightmares, And Lucid Dreaming

## Callista

I&#39;m a natural lucid dreamer. I also have post-traumatic stress syndrome.

My particular case of PTSD stems from about eight years of being terrorized by my stepfathers (two of &#39;em). It&#39;s not bad, as PTSD goes; it causes hypervigilance (I&#39;m always checking to make sure I&#39;m safe), very light sleep (from when I was a kid, and wasn&#39;t safe even while asleep), and nightmares. As the years pass, it&#39;s slowly fading; and I think I sometime during the next 3-4 years they will tell me I no longer have PTSD. I&#39;m wonderfully glad I don&#39;t get panic attacks; I had a few, early on, and they&#39;re miserable things.

In any case, the main thing I&#39;m interested in are the nightmares, the light sleep, and the fact that I&#39;m a natural lucid dreamer, and how those might be connected.

My first memory of a lucid dream (or any dream that I can still recount to this day) is from age 9. That&#39;s also the age I was when my mom married the first of those two stepfathers. It was a dream about a tornado, a mild nightmare in which I had a brief lucid moment.

Over the years, I&#39;ve had quite a few nightmares that turned into lucid dreams. Sometimes, the fear stayed; sometimes, it went away. In most cases, I was able to control the dream slightly or more completely, or at the very least wake myself up.

My non-lucid nightmares have changed, too. Now, most of the time, I&#39;m no longer immobilized or helpless; many times, I fight whatever monster or situation is frightening me or investigate whatever puzzle I can&#39;t seem to solve; sometimes, I even win. The chief problem now with non-lucid nightmares those with predominating sadness rather than fear.

So:

Did my nightmares force me to learn lucid dreaming? Or is it because I sleep lightly that I have lucid dreams, and thus can alleviate my nightmares?

Is the increasing control during my non-lucid nightmares due to my lucid dreaming experience, or is it because I&#39;m getting over what happened to me when I was a kid?

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## Jess

I think lucid dreams come naturally to you because you&#39;re hypervigilant as you must carry over this heightened awareness into your dreams.

And I think the increased control in non-lucid nightmares is down to both your lucid dreaming experience and that you&#39;re coming to terms with what happened.  Subconsciouly you understand the dreamworld better due to your dream experiences and also your waking experiences must affect the content of your dreams.

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## tai

> The chief problem now with non-lucid nightmares those with predominating sadness rather than fear.
> 
> [/b]



I&#39;m sorry to hear about your history, Callista.

The one positive that seems to have come out of it is that, for one reason or another, you&#39;ve been given the gift of Lucid Dreaming.  You seem to be using your Lucidity to work through the nightmares, or at least cope with them, which is wonderful.

Since you&#39;re already fighting monsters and solving puzzles in your scary dreams, I have no doubt that if you can achieve Lucidity in your current nightmares, where sadness is the predominant emotion, you will very quickly find a way to address the source of sadness in the dream directly. As with other nightmares, this should almost immediately reduce the subconscious&#39; need to keep having that kind of dream.

I wish you much success as you work through this.  Stay positive and let us know how it goes&#33;

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## Callista

Well, with so much progress already made, I really can&#39;t help but stay positive. It&#39;s just a matter of time. And I&#39;ve pretty much gotten used to the nightmares.  :smiley:

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