Thread: Lucid Nightmare

This has come up many times before. Many of our members (though not myself) report having died in dreams numerous times, and they are still here to tell us about it. I'm sure you'll get replies from some of them.

Originally posted by TygrHawk
This has come up many times before. Many of our members (though not myself) report having died in dreams numerous times, and they are still here to tell us about it. I'm sure you'll get replies from some of them.

I can confirm that. I've died tons of times in my sleep (in fact, I died a few times in the same dream just last night ) and I'm pretty sure I'm still among the living (I can't say anyone I've talked to today looked like a skeleton or was transparent).

If you think about it, dying in reality when you die in dreams would make no sense at all. Remember that everything in your dreams aren't actual objects, but dream objects. Technically, everything is an illusion, including you. What you see as yourself in dreams isn't your actual body. It's your dream body. When this dream body is mortally injured, your waking life body will be sleeping soundly, just like when you turn off your pc in a dream, it won't be turned off in real life (I actually tried doing this in a LD once :sweat2: ), and just like when you pinch your dreambody's nose, you will still be able to breathe, because you're breathing with your actual body and your actual nose is not being pinched.

I hope that was convincing enough. ^.^

P.S: When you become lucid during a nightmare like that, remember that confronting your pursuers is often the best thing to do. That is, confronting them in a nice and polite way, asking them why they're trying to hurt you and whether the matter can't be resolved in a different way. This way, you might be able to get some insight from your subconcious as to what's causing the nightmare.
If the pursuers won't listen to your words, defeat them by force, you will always win in your dreams (seeing as you can't die ^.^ ). Never run away, as this might cause the nightmare to return.

Thanks for your reaction.
And you're totally right, off course. I've also died numerous times in my dreams, and that didn't effect me at all. But i can't say i actually experienced really béing dead in my dreams. I just died and moved on . I don't think anyone can say they were actually dead in their dreams, can they? We just don't know what it 'feels' like.

But maybe this is getting a bit to complex now. You're right about confronting your nightmare-characters with their behaviours. Problem was that i wasn't fully lucid. I was struggling to obtain full lucidness, and that took about all of my energy. Strange in a way, i'd thought that there was no 'in between'. You're lucid, or you're not. But this was the second time i experienced this situation. I know that i am dreaming, but i'm not able to fully let go of the situation. Strange. And scary...

At least once in my dreams, I have died, and even hung around whilst "dead" for a while afterwards. This dream was very vivid to me for some reason.

I was in a swimming competetion with one other person, and the winner would have to take their own life. My father was the judge. I won, and knelt down, holding the knife, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything, so my dad killed me, with tears in his eyes. (Pretty gorey slicing of the throat that I saw from a third person view.) Later that night (in the dream, not in the real world) my parents were in bed reading, and I was a ghost, sitting on the bed talking to my mother. As our conversation continued she was less and less able to see, hear and touch me, until finally I was completely gone.

Greatly saddened, I wandered through the bedroom wall to the front lawn, sat down and watched the stars and contemplated things. (What things, I can't remember.) When I awoke I was dead sure I could never commit suicide.

Not really sure how much meaning can be found in this dream for me. I've always been really close to my parents, and our strong relationship continues to this day. I've honestly never given suicide more than a passing thought. The whole thing was kinda weird and moved me in some way, although it was years ago and I don't remember really what "lesson" it taught me.

But I digress, not sure that you can die from a dream. I heard somewhere that you can make a person so firmly believe they've been mortally wounded that they can have a heart attack and die, but I have nothing to back that up. So don't take my word for it. (Also, dying in a dream = death in real life sounds suspiciously Matrixy to me.)