My "condition" for lack of a better term. Please help!

Okay, so my “condition” that I am referring to seems to have some relationship with what this website refers to as “lucid dreaming”. However, I want no one to be confused; I have only come to the website in an attempt to understand if this “condition” can be harmful. I want to try and learn about it so that I may begin to deal with it better. As of now the “condition” is hard for me to deal with, and frankly scares the shit out of me.

Well I will get right to it then. For many years now I have had this “condition”. Basically, I would akin it to lucid dreaming; however, it is much more traumatic than some of the descriptions of other peoples experiences here on the site. I liken it to being trapped inside a coffin or a jail that I cannot escape. Here is what I know about the “condition”:

A) It ONLY happens when I oversleep. For instance, if I take a nap in the middle of the day, or if I try to sleep in after a full nights rest.

B) I am completely cognizant to the fact that I am dreaming. However, I have never made any attempts to control the dream. I believe this is because in the dream I am not thinking logically. For instance, I can never remember where I am sleeping in real life wherever I believe I am asleep is usually more related with the dream sequence that it is with reality.

C) As of now I do not know how to wake myself up. Although, I do have a method that seems to work it is hard for me to tell if I am waking myself or if I simply wake up after a certain period of time. What I attempt to do is to relax, and wait a moment before ‘mentally thrusting myself awake’ for lack of a better description. If I would have to characterize this action I would say it is as if I am trying to shake myself back into reality. However, this usually results in what I would call a dream within a dream. This can happen several times, and is an extremely traumatic event. This is the part I am most concerned with as it sometimes causes panic attacks and results in a dream like inebriation. Things become hazy and I often find myself asking god to wake me or cursing him out of anger for the predicament I am in. I cannot stress enough how absolutely frightening, and stressful this can sometimes make me feel.

D) It is easy for me to trick myself into believing I have woken myself in my dream. This usually causes me to start dreaming again; however, I always eventually realize that I am still asleep. In other words if it happens once during a nap then I am screwed. This is the dream within a dream that I am referring to.

E) My dreams become hazy, and it becomes extremely difficult to see or “hear” or experience any of the “normal” dream senses. Also, if there are other people in my dream when I realize I am dreaming they always seem to try to convince me that I am actually awake. This can be quite disorientating and is the dream like inebriating I was referring to earlier.
The reason I have only recently become so concerned is because normally I can deal with the “condition” in fact, as I stated earlier, I have been dealing with it for quite some time now. However, just today it happened and it was unlike any time before. This may be because it has not accrued in so long. I make an effort at avoiding naps or oversleeping, obviously. However, I must have become complacent as I completely forgot about it and took a nap today.

Today was… well.. the worse experience I have had with it thus far. I realized I was dreaming, and was almost immediately flooded with paralyzing anxiety. When I tried to relax and begin the process of waking myself it was, well, hard to say the least. I must have tried a dozen times and to no avail. Waves of anxiety washed over me in my dream. I was in tears in my dream begging god to wake me; which is a fact I am none too proud to admit. As I said before I am hardly logical during the moment which is odd because in real life I am an engineering student who is: contemplative, intelligent, and I would say a very logical person in general; a bit of a stiff really.

However, I have not always been like that. In my 26 years I have experienced, and been diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety and OCD. I have demonized those characteristics in myself, and this is probably why I believe they may be related to my “condition”, and am mentioning them here. However, some of you who may have more experience with this stuff might have a better idea of what is going on. Please feel free to email me directly if you’re a professional otherwise please reply, and know that I will be checking this thread periodically throughout today and days to come. Thank you for your time and your attention.

Hello! First of al it's perfectly normal! i used to have a lot of scary dreams to (Now i like these kind of dreams for the thrill of it). and knowing you're dreaming but not doing anything about it could(and probably is) because you didn't know it was possible. Besides its never possible to 100% control a dream. What i mostly do is, thinking of a scenario or a person to steer the dream in a direction i like.

A) At those times you dream a lot and its also a great way to remember your dreams. So it's not strange. I actually use it to have more dreams.

B) I would say try it! don't try to right out manipulate it but start with things that actually could happen in the dream.

C) The "dream inside a dream" is called a false awakening, in where you think you've woken up but instead are still dreaming. (i always do a check if i dream after waking up to avoid this). i've also had it on multiple occations in where i woke up multiple times but couldn't actually wake up.

E) When i get lucid i like to ask my dream characters if they know it's a dream. they can give you any kind of answers. A lot of times mine say "don't be silly sure this is real'. i wouldn't mind them if i where you. (i would say to look into the thing called "dream guide". That can probably help you a lot.

What i think is going on is that you put to much emotion in it being a "condition" and all. By trying 'not worry' you actually worry the most causing these panic attacks. My advice would be to just let the dreams play out, or try to influence them. Don't try to escape by feeling relaxed, just consider them movies that you're watching in a relaxed state of mind.
The part of the brain that handles emotions is somewhat deactivated(like putting things in perspective) when we dream causing dreams to be very emotional (and thus can be scary).

Hopes this helps a bit.

Like said above, all that you seem to show is that you're causing yourself all this anxiety. OCD can cause people to dwell in the same path of thought over and over, and when this path is filled with negative emotions, it's many times hard to let go of it. Also, it's not surprise that the events keep happening, since dreams tend to illustrate a matrix of short-term vs long-term memories, and in your case, dealing with such a traumatic range of experiences without managing to change the course of action might turn this lucidity moments into a somewhat terrifying thing.

First of all, I'd recommend you to follow the most simple advice: keep a regular sleeping schedule, don't stress yourself before going to bed, and make sure you seek psychological help if you think you're still having a hard time dealing with your symptoms, especially OCD, since it's something that, as you can naturally guess, may take a long time to control. It doesn't help if your a logical person, since stress and certain emotional pressure can take your "logic" away and trap you in a continuous loop of thought or reaction.

Regarding lucid dreaming, yes it is the experience you seem to have, but you clearly, probably with the contrary intention, developed a kind of negativity towards it that only seems to put you in a miserable state when you experience it, but it doesn't have to be this way. You see, dream control is very influenced by our beliefs, expectations, desires. But once you start picturing the horrfying experience when you become lucid, you merely (even if at inconscious level), you actually make it worse.
It's not simple to remove lucidity in your case, but you certainly won't help the situation unless you change your attitude. What I mean by this, is that your anxiety is merely a response to psychological stress, and not the other way around. Once you define the cause of that stress and rationalize it, your sleep should have a much better quality, as so will your lucid experiences.

There's many tricks and aids to dream control, but they help nothing unless you realize you are dreaming and actually understand the implications of it. First of all, lucidity is merely recognizing you are dreaming, and that doesn't mean the dream will be flooded with logic and sense. Many times, you may just wake up, others end up in another different dream scenario, etc. Dream characters are actually just projections of people (and representations of many aspects of your life) that many times act in a way you would expect them to. It's nowhere close to being uncommon that they try to convince you that you are in a dream, as it is nowhere uncommon that you become less logical and with memory gaps when you become lucid: after all, you are merely increasing the brain activity in certain parts of your brain and depending on how much increased activity they have, you may still experience a noticeable gap in your cognitive skills, especially in terms of short-term memory and self-awareness.

A quick thing that you should ask yourself right away, even before you do something about the "lucid issues" is "Am I getting quality sleep?" If you feel tired, with a bad mood, midly depressed, and your habits are changed due these occurrences, then consider seeing a doctor right away. Even though this forum is filled with many experienced people in lucid dreaming, none of us can help you in the same way a psychiatrist can, and that's something you need to be real serious about if you feel that you're experiencing an actual "condition".

Back to lucid dreaming. So as you've read above, changing your mindset is actually the first way to change what's happening. You need to understand that you're in a dream, and that nothing harmful can happen, even if you feel extremely anxious or scared. In fact, the sooner you start to follow that principle of lucidity, the sooner your anxiety towards the experience will diminish. Many lucid dreamers experience "scary" situations at some point, and many of us even have "lucid nightmares", but they can be overcome with simple rationalization. You may think it's hard to be logic, but from the moment you are dreaming, you can actually teach yourself to follow this simple guideline, which translates into a more quiet mind in face of everything that is happening. After that, you should actually notice that you're resting at that very moment, and the opportunity you have is one that doesn't come that easily to most people. You're in a dream: you can alter it to have relaxing experience, to find a bit of adrenaline, to fulfill your fantasies, to experience calm sensations like a good swim in your favorite beach. Even if you find yourself so trapped in the dream, that doesn't mean you have to be victim to your own unsciouss processes: you can take the lead by calming yourself down and changing your experience with intent, and with a resolute mind of someone that is used to lucid dream, because by this point, you certainly seem like it :)

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Originally Posted by vysero

B) I am completely cognizant to the fact that I am dreaming. However, I have never made any attempts to control the dream. I believe this is because in the dream I am not thinking logically. For instance, I can never remember where I am sleeping in real life wherever I believe I am asleep is usually more related with the dream sequence that it is with reality.

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Unconscious lucid dreaming. It's kind of a gray area. They are technically lucid dreams, but you don't get the full effect, at all.