Thread: Hey I'm new :) & my own experiences

Hi! I'm new, i'm 19 female and from the uk. My name's Katie

I recently became interested in this topic when a friend brought it up a few days ago, it wasn't something i've bothered to think twice about but since then i've been curious. (:

I've never really "controlled" a situation in a dream, but I have terrible nightmares constantly. I can have at least 2 seperate nightmares a night, and I wake up feeling exhausted, even if I've slept 10 to 12 hours. I sometimes wish I could have some control, or to avoid certain areas of nightmares.

I do however have this weird thing, I'm not really sure what to call it or what it is (i'm guessing "lucid"?) but, when I'm dreaming, i'm often aware in the dream, that i'm dreaming (if that makes sense lol). I remember most of my dreams clearly, even a couple that stuck with me since I was little. In one dream, i was dreaming of myself falling asleep on the sofa. I kept trying to stay awake (this was the actual dream, hopefully i'm not being too confusing lol) then in the dream i looked around the room and things were moving, at that moment i thought "i'm dreaming? i'll go to sleep and i'll wake up then". I remember that clearly, it was really odd.

But the ones which scare me the most, are when I'm having a nightmare, and in the nightmare I know i'm in a dream. But i feel powerless, because I can't wake myself up, so i just wait there and let the person hurt/kill/torture me and i can feel the pain, but i just give up and elt them do what they want in the hopes i'll wake up. I find that quite disturbing.

Anyway, thanks for reading and nice to meet everyone

Hi Katie and welcome to Dv, the dreams when you know you're dreaming are lucids dreams :p that's what this forum supports . If you get them all the time then you are a natural. Once you are lucid, can you control anything?

It's a shame about the nightmares, but if you become lucid then you can confront those nightmares. Also you will know its a dream and can't physically hurt you.

Hey NeAvO! Haha thank you for the reply! Ah i'm going to have to get used to all these terms and names for dreams, usually i just call them "odd" lol.

When I'm lucid most of the time it's more like i know that it's a dream but i can't really do much about it, the only times i tried to control anything (which is usually rare but has gotten more recent) was when i tried to get myself to wake up while in a dream, in the dream i kept jumping out of windows to wake myself up because someone was chasing me. (i'll never admit that one in public lol)

That's actually true, the one good thing in the nightmare is that I know it will all be over eventually, that's probably why alot of the time i'm ready to just give in, let them (whoever it is in the dream) do what they want (most recent i let them shoot me - then i woke up) and then just wake up and get out of it.

xx

edit: hi Serith! just saw your reply after i clicked send :p! thanks for that, i'm going to check it out now!

xx

Welcome to dreamviews!

Your experience of knowing that you're dreaming while you're dreaming is called lucid dreaming, and with practice, you can use it to control your dreams and deal with your nightmares.

One of the main reasons people develop lucid dreaming is to deal with nightmares, since even if it's not developed further than you have, it at least lets you know that you'll eventually wake up. However, it can be developed further, you just have to know how. I suggest reading this article on overcoming nightmares, it has a lot of good information on the subject of overcoming nightmares through lucidity.

I have very few nightmares so I have not practiced some of the techniques used to eliminate them. But in principle - the fact that you're lucid should give you all the tools you need to control and eliminate your nightmares.

There are different methods I've read. Laberge addresses this in "Exploring the world of lucid dreaming". Rinpoche addresses it in "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep". But the gist is you need to relate to the dream characters with compassion and acceptance - understanding that they cannot hurt you in any sense. That should eliminate the immediate unpleasantness of the situation.

In principe, if you understand the deeper root cause of the nightmare, you should be able to eliminate that as well.

Example - let's say you have a nightmare about being unprepared for an exam. If you get lucid - get up in front of the class and tell the teacher this isn't important, I graduated a long time ago and I don't care to participate. Furthermore, I'm not going to let this bother me going forward. Then just walk out.

To help your dream control try to take deep breathes and relax in the dream (do you breathe in dreams?):p Well any way once you know you are dreaming just keep thinking that "This is a dream". Then try to slowly lift up your arm, just try to be gentle and slow and do it carefully.