Thread: Lucid dream, the most horrible experience in my life. HELP!

Originally Posted by pepsibluefan

Isikt It is highly unlikely that it will happen to you the first time, it is nothing to worry about. You're right, most people rarely have lucid dreams. (The people who don't try to go lucid) I am sure you have nothing to worry about, I hope you consider staying around dream views though. ^_^ We are here for support.

I’m going to try the ostrich approach so I’m afraid I have to stay away from DV. I might come back after a while if it gets better though.

Originally Posted by cessna

I'm sorry, but that comment was not to make fun, but rather point out the irrationality of your fears (as most phobias are irrational). If your door is locked and you have a smoke detector, please explain to me what can possibly happen to you that couldn't have happened while you were awake?

Ok, I must have got it wrong then. It’s only that it has already been pointed out twelve times in this thread that my fear is irrational. I get it.
So you think all people that die in their sleep lives without fire alarm and locks? I’m not saying that it’s at all likely, but you can’t tell me that I’m perfectly safe if I lock my window and expect me to believe you.

Besides, who decides whether a fear is rational or not? There is no certain limit where rational fears are separated from irrational. A fear is a fear, whether it’s irrational or not is a matter of interpretation.

I get that you are just trying to help, thank you for that. I’m sorry if I sound unfriendly. It is not my purpose, I’m just having a really bad day.

Originally Posted by Howlgram

Hey Insikt, if you are religious praying kind of works to sleep calmly, i am just saying xP i guess it is like some sort of meditation, well, imo it is silly but i just want to help, and that is how i slept calmly when i was a kid and i had nightmares, lol. Btw, im not religious now

No, I’m not religious .

btw, how have your nights went since the horrid experience?

It has taken forever to fall asleep so I’ve been kind of tired the last days but otherwise I’m fine. No dreams or anything.

I mean no offense to the OP, but this thread is just an eye opener how some people will continue to choose ignorance over awareness because of fear. In other words, for some, it's true that ignorance is bliss. It's a little surprising to those of us who seek more awareness in or waking and dreaming worlds, but to each his or her own. It feels strange saying this...but I wish you luck in continuing to remain unaware that you are asleep.

Originally Posted by Insikt

Besides, who decides whether a fear is rational or not? There is no certain limit where rational fears are separated from irrational. A fear is a fear, whether it's irrational or not is a matter of interpretation.

No, there's a definite line between rational and irrational. If you're talking about people dying in their sleep from heart attacks or strokes - that can happen just as well when you're awake and has absolutely nothing to do with dreaming.

But if you really believe that your spirit leaves your body when you're dreaming and that it might not be able to get back somehow - that's completely irrational.

Originally Posted by nina

I mean no offense to the OP, but this thread is just an eye opener how some people will continue to choose ignorance over awareness because of fear. In other words, for some, it's true that ignorance is bliss. It's a little surprising to those of us who seek more awareness in or waking and dreaming worlds, but to each his or her own. It feels strange saying this...but I wish you luck in continuing to remain unaware that you are asleep.

Non taken.

Awareness of what? I did seek awareness, I had a lucid dream and I came back with fear and knowledge of that lucid dreaming is nothing I like. What is there to gain for me in trying to lucid again? What can I find - what can I learn about myself that is so impossible to learn during the day?
I’m sure you’ve all learned a lot from your dreams, gotten to know yourselves better. But dreaming is not magic, answers don’t just appear from nowhere. You already had all the answers your dream gave you, they were there all the time, only you couldn’t make the connection. That is what dreams do, they help you put the pieces that you already have together so that you can understand them. But that could just as well been done from thinking.

I think a lot. Once a year I go to my summerhouse in the country all alone. I spend a week there, just thinking and writing and looking out over the lake. My friends and family think I’m crazy. Why would I want to be all alone in a cottage for a week, missing all the great parties? I tell them that I miss them a lot and it gets a bit boring but I have to do it to get rid of all my stress. But in fact, I value this week alone more than all the parties in the world.

Dreaming may be the most effective way for you to find your answers. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only way - or even the most effective way for all of us. There are many ways to seek wisdom, non better than the other. It is easy to assume that your way is the best, just because it works for you. But in the end, all seeking has the same purpose and should therefore be valued the same.
For me, trying to have more lucids wouldn’t be seeking. It would be self-destructive.
I guess I’m a thinker- not a dreamer.

You already had all the answers your dream gave you, they were there all the time, only you couldn’t make the connection. That is what dreams do, they help you put the pieces that you already have together so that you can understand them. But that could just as well been done from thinking.

Yes and no.

I wouldn't say the subconscious exactly "has all the answers", but it does hold those things (memories, thoughts etc) that we've repressed from conscious knowledge, so it definitely can be very helpful to get in contact with it. However you can't really do that through conscious thought. In dreams is an excellent way. Probably the only other way would be through therapy - another person can see things about us that we're unable to see ourselves. Dreams do show us those things though. If you're adept at interpreting dreams or if you can attain lucidity and aren't afraid to face your "inner demons" you can get very useful therapeutic value from lucidity.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Yes and no. The subconscious does already have all the answers, it's true, but conscious thinking can't get to them all.
…
Where did you ever get the notion that you might not be able to wake up from your dreams? It goes against all scientific knowledge - it sounds like some medieval religious belief.

Bold: I do not think that is true. The subconscious play a big part in our lives, often bigger than we are aware of. But I do not think that there is a locked door between our subconscious and our conscious minds, a door that is only open to us in our sleep. I don’t believe that lucid dreaming or regular dreaming is the only way to find awareness or knowledge or whatever one seek. Also, I’d like to point out that I am not planning to stop sleeping or anything. I’m just going to try to avoid to have lucid dreams.

The answer to your question is simply lack of knowledge. I did not know that it was physically impossible, and therefore I found it frightening.

Lol, I changed my post, but I see I was too late. I thought that whole last part sounded a bit unfair. Sorry about that.

But you're showing another lack of knowledge if you believe that all unconscious material is available to conscious thought. Repression is a well-known fact. And it accounts for many irrational fears.

Don't worry, I didn't mind
Yes, repression is a fact. Only I do not believe that the thoughts and memories that we repress are put in a locked safe-deposit at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. I do not think it is easy but I believe that you can learn ways to get in touch with your subconscious, other than dreaming.

However, I’m not saying that lucid dreaming is not a great way for you to learn more about your subconscious. I’m just saying that it might not be the best way for me.

Originally Posted by Insikt

Only I do not believe that the thoughts and memories that we repress are put in a locked safe-deposit at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.

Well no - if you understand the way the unconscious mind is structured, they're placed in the Shadow. A good way to visualize that is to think of the conscious mind as a pair of eyes on the front of your head and the repressed material is in a basket on the back of your head, so that no matter which way you turn they're always hidden behind you.

There are ways to pull that material into conscious awareness, such as automatic writing, word-association, and rorschach ink-blot tests, but these thing are best interpreted by a professional - the person who has the repression to begin with will fail to be able to properly interpret their own test results.

But I'll stop arguing with you...

Lol, you don't have to stop. I find it very interesting to see other persons points of view. But I can understand if you don't want to. After all I might go to America and burn down your house when you're asleep just to prove my point. You know, me being paranoid, insane and schizophrenic and all.

That basket on the head image was really cool, but then how can our unconscious mind send us signals (or whatever it is that it sends) and give us phobias? Has it drilled a hole through our cranium that somehow is only accessible one-way? No, if something is accessible one way it is also accessible the other way.

Sounds crazy but next time you think you might die in a lucid... Let it happen. Nothing will harm your physical body and you'll most likely wake up either in bed or in a false awakening. Either way you wont be so terrified of dying in one again.

Originally Posted by Insikt

Lol, you don't have to stop. I find it very interesting to see other persons points of view. But I can understand if you don't want to. After all I might go to America and burn down your house when you're asleep just to prove my point. You know, me being paranoid, insane and schizophrenic and all.

()

Originally Posted by Insikt

That basket on the head image was really cool, but then how can our unconscious mind send us signals (or whatever it is that it sends) and give us phobias? Has it drilled a hole through our cranium that somehow is only accessible one-way? No, if something is accessible one way it is also accessible the other way.

So then, a woodpecker sitting on the back of your head pecking at your skull isn't real because you can't see it?

You can basically think of them as 2 different minds existing inside the brain that don't communicate with each other very well. Because one communicates with symbols and images (subconscious/unconscious) and the other with words (conscious). The subconscious is like a quiet kid sitting in the back of the classroom thinking to himself, while the conscious is a loud rambunctious kid running around shouting all the time. You don't get to hear the sub-c until the conscious one is sleeping or very quiet - like in meditation.

Unconscious material does affect our behavior - for example by causing irrational fears. But it doesn't rise into conscious awareness. Repressed traumas or memories can however be brought into conscious awareness through therapy. And it also shows itself in dreams because dreams are created by the unconscious mind while the conscious mind is sleeping. If you're able to partially awaken your conscious apparatus while dreaming (lucidity) then you can become aware of some of the contents of your unconscious and deal with them. Either by facing your fears in a dream where nothing is going to hurt you, or by facing a nightmare character that represents your shadow or some other repressed part of your mind and asking it why it's here or what it wants with you.

Many people report recurring nightmares that feature dark shadowy figures chasing them and trying to kill them for instance. I know this isn't what you've been experiencing, I'm just using it as an example. The usual way we deal with nightmare characters is to run from them or maybe try to fight them. Both of these courses of action are wrong - in dreams just like in waking life, both of them will activate the kill reflexes of a predator (like running from a bear or attacking it). Now in waking life it probably isn't a great idea to confront a bear of lion and ask it what it wants from you - but in a dream where it's representing some facet of your own unconscious mind it's actually a great idea. These nightmare characters - if you run or fight them - become stronger and will go on the attack relentlessly until you're forced to wake up to escape them. But if you ask it what it wants often it will change into something smaller and more harmless (maybe a stuffed animal version of itself or a puyppydog or something) and give you some vital piece of information that you've been repressing - thus ending the recurring nightmares and allowing you to see whatever you were repressing before, which helps you to get over it.

In your case apparently the knowledge that you're dreaming frightens you because you're afraid you won't be able to get back to your body. This could stem from some kind of traumatic experience you had when you were younger - I don't know, maybe being briefly abandoned by parents, or - who knows? You may or may not be aware of what that experience is (if it is caused by a traumatic experience). But you see... your unconscious mind is very chaotic, and it isn't usually aware of what your conscious mind is doing - but in a lucid dream you've got both of them in contact and can consciously direct the activity of the unconscious to some extent. You can cause fragmented parts of it to integrate, thus eliminating the problem.

Ok, end of Psychology 101 lesson!

This has been a real educational experience. I can't say anything on the unconscious mind since I don't know anything about it. I never personally have used lucid dreaming for solving problems. I am way out of my league here.

But I do like to add I think the unconscious mind is a very unique place, it controls things that we do not think about. Like for example digesting our food, and other involuntary movement. Since we only use 10% of our brains who knows? Maybe Dream Guides in our lucid dreams are our sub conscious talking to us. It is very interesting.

Wow… that was really interesting, I actually printed it out. Not at all like those endless psychology lessons we have at school about how every boy wants to marry his mother and kill his father. I was forced to write a long essay about that once (probably the reason for my suspicion to psychology).
I still don’t believe that dreams are the only way to “communicate” with your subconscious, but if I got it right you don’t either. (You mentioned therapy and stuff like that.)

Okay… so I’m thinking I might have a “trauma”. Might not be it though, I was not exactly a child (fourteen) and I remember it and all so then I can’t have repressed it? I’m not quite sure how that repression thing works. But I’m writing you a pm about it anyway, I don’t feel comfortable writing about it when a lot of people can read it.

Ok, looking forward to it! But understand - I'm not a psychologist or anything - I'm just a guy who's interested in the subject and has read a lot about it. I might or might not be able to tell you anything more than I already have.

But you can be fully aware of something that happened to you and yet it might have done some damage in your mind. Repression doesn't necessarily mean that you can't remember what happened, only that the negative thoughts it caused might be repressed and you might not be aware of how sever they are or how they damage you. One sign of repression is denial - such as someone continually saying "there's nothing wrong with me" or ignoring problems that are obvious to others.

Pepsibluefan - involuntary actions aren't really controlled by the unconscious mind so much as by the brainstem itself. It's outside the confines of what would be called the mind as far as I know. It's more like just a little microprocessor that runs systems the way your computer in the engine of your car helps regulate things there - and yet it isn't really a computer that you could go online with or anything. Also all that stuff about only using 10% of our brain's capacity is just an old myth used by fans of telekinesis and telepathy and the like - no scientific research ever suggested any such thing.

Insikt - I kept thinking your name meant insect in Swedish, but I finally Googled it, and it means Insight! Awesome.

Okay, that's all right. If you can’t help then it will just be as usual, I doubt it will make it worse.