# Lucid Dreaming > Dream Control >  >  "Russian Doll" dreams

## XmisterIS

Hi all,

I have been told that as people get older, the content of their dreams tends to get more and more ordinary (e.g. they may dream about going to the local shop to buy some milk) and they can remember their dreams less and less.

I am 32 years old and I still dream very vividly and lucidly every night.  I have really bizarre dreams which I can often remember clearly and this has been the case ever since I can remember.  In fact, as I get older my dreams seem to get more vivid and bizarre!

I have found that I am able to control my dreams more, with a very peculiar effect - if I am in a dream that I don't like, I seem to be able to tell myself to "wake up" - but I wake up into another dream, which is so vivid that I think it is reality - until weird things start happening.

My dreams tend to feature huge, weird buildings and landscapes, they're extremely colourful and they all have a kind of sinister but very exciting feel to them.  Things happen in my dreams that would ordinarily scare the crap out of me, but in the dream they are quite tolerable.  Conversely, very ordinary occurrences in my dreams can sometimes become what I call "hypervivid" - i.e. they are truly indistinguishable from reality - then I feel as if I am "trapped" in the dream and I start screaming (for real - and I usually wake myself up for real by my own screaming!).

For example, I had a dream the other night in which I was being chased by clowns with knives for teeth - that didn't scare me at all.  I then consciously "woke up" out of that dream into a scene where I was standing on a path in a lush, leafy lane - I could draw that scene in every minute detail even now, if I wanted to - and I got the trapped/screaming thing.

I have also died in my dreams before, and I have killed people (again in my dreams!) - apparently if this happens then you are supposed to be insane - I can assure you I am NOT insane!

I wonder if anyone else experiences these kinds of things and if so, what causes them?

TIA,

Mike.

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## Idolfan

Hi, and welcome to Dreamviews!

You do appear to have pretty vivid dreams. Even in my lucids I can still feel something about the environment that makes it a dream. I rarely have dreams as vivid as you describe, but I have had dreams about dying, but strangely enough never about killing someone. I certainly don't think that it's anything to do with being insane; I'm sure most of the people who say that can't remember their dreams anyway.

I understand what you mean by a sense of vastness. I don't get that a lot but when I do it's strange. I have a dream (or used to) every few months about standing on a layer of thin cloud at night. Above me there is a massive expanse of thick moonlit cloud which extends out in all directions, as far as the eye can see. That for me is a very vivid dream and I get the same feeling of being unnerved, but at the same time it feels really special. I don't understand the feeling, but the dream itself as far as I have deciphered is a representation of my life (there's a bit more to it with clues about this, but I won't go into it).

I also find really strange and scary things incredibly normal, I don't think you're alone there.

Those things I experience, other than extreme vividness. I rarely have nightmares but when it gets to the stage of the terror you describe I find it pretty impossible to escape. I have heard that nightmares can actually be triggered in some cases by lucidity. You mention you feel as if you have woken into another dream. Presumably this causes you to reflect on the previous dream, which in some way makes you more conscious. 

That's the explanation, but if you ever realise you're dreaming during one of these false awakenings it would be best to avoid freaking out by controlling the dream.

Sorry for an essay... Idolfan

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## Shift

> Hi all,
> 
> I have been told that as people get older, the content of their dreams tends to get more and more ordinary (e.g. they may dream about going to the local shop to buy some milk) and they can remember their dreams less and less.
> 
> I have also died in my dreams before, and I have killed people (again in my dreams!) - apparently if this happens then you are supposed to be insane - I can assure you I am NOT insane!
> 
> I wonder if anyone else experiences these kinds of things and if so, what causes them?



I've died in my dreams, and I've had some dreams where I was a different person and killed people. My mom is 50 and she and I are always telling one another about our dreams. I told her about this post and she said, "What?! My dreams are so real and vivid, it's like having a second life!"

Just curious, where are you hearing these things? I've never heard either, would've been nice to know that I'm considered insane  :smiley:  Like the majority of the population!

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