Nightmares and some newbie problems...

Hi all, I hope some of you can help me out…

My first experiences with LD came as a child when I could realise that I was having a nightmare and could force myself to wake up… But can you change a nigtmare into a normal dream while lucid - any specific techniques?

But anyways, I’ve just started my journey into real LD’ing and I’m having some problems… I’ve had my first two LDs over the past two weeks, so there’s nothing to complain about there I guess, BUT!

My first LD didn’t last long, but I realised I was dreaming, because I rememberring thinking “this doesn’t make sense” (eventhough I don’t rember now what actually wasn’t making any sense) and at that moment I became aware of being dreaming, I heard someone inserting a key in my door, which threw me off, and scared me, as I thought someone was enterring my apartment in RL which made me wake up… Of course no one was enterring, it was just a part of the dream… But weird though, because it sounded SO convincing regarding the direction of the sound from my front door and to where I actually lied in bed… The thing that threw me off, was that when being lucid, I’d thought that I had total control over my dream and hadn’t expected something out of the blue.

My second LD was about (what I can remember of it anyways) me walking around a junkyard, when suddenly a watchdog came running at me and bit me in the hand. This didn’t hurt so I realised that I was dreaming… Then I told the dog to sit, which it did, and then I tried to see if I could fly. This also went well untill I wanted to fly in a certain direction (over to a building with the lights on inside) when I tried this I couldn’t and started to float off into oblivion, which frightened me, and I woke up.

My question is simple. How can I maintain control? (and not wake up by loosing control)

Sounds like an issue of the very common… Ask Sureal or Moogle, they oughta help you out :smile:

But i do have tips on how to prolong your lucidity, if that helps:

  1. Stay calm, excitement is the key to exit your dream.
  2. If your dream fades, rub your hands or shout out loudly “Increase lucidity now!” or “Lucidity X your digits here” or "Increase lucidity ##(#)%!).
  3. Don’t forget to freeze time by shouting “Stop time now!” and expect the dream lasts in days when it in fact lasts two minutes IRL.

My answer is simple: You gotta get it in yer head that everything you hear and see… is in your head!!! When you are lucid, try to realize that you’re in bed paralyzed and all sensory input is completely cut off from the physical world, and everything you percieve now is in your head. Yeah, the sounds will be vivid, so will the sights and sensations, that’s just the beauty of lucidity!! Once you have this engrained in your skull, you can and will enjoy total freedom. The other night I had a crazy WILD and was totally naked in my room and even told myself in my head (heh, think about that…) that I was completely paralyzed (had entered WILD from SP) and that I was awake 10 seconds ago, and now my body is being rested but I’m totally awake and living out these events! I was naked, but I was fully prepared for someone to enter my room because I knew it wouldn’t matter. I guess you just gotta continually ponder and learn of the realities and physical restrictions when dreaming to know that you’ll be fine when you are lucid, and that your dream body and dream world can have no restrictions whatsoever!

As for premature wake up, remaining calm is the biggest one. Stabilize the dream by rubbing your hands and FOCUSING your thought to how it feels, but always keep your eyes open. Again, I’ll refer you to my “R’s” of dreaming.

  1. Reality check
  2. Realize you are dreaming
  3. Rub hands and focus on sensation (or stabilize in another way)
  4. Remain calm
  5. Reassure yourself you have control
  6. Remember you’re still dreaming!
  7. Repeat at 3 (or 4)

Does it matter if you do 4 before 3? Maybe not… I have to stabilize the dream before anything else, including calming down, since I used to quickly wake up. You might induce lucidity some other way than RCing too (DILD) by WILD or VILD or whatever, but you should RC just so you have proof. Once you’re calm, tell yourself you have control and don’t forget the fact that you truly are dreaming. It might be tough to get lost in how real it all is.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the help, looking forward to trying out the techniques…

cheers

ps. Any idea on how to tackle nightmares?

You may want to look into “Theory of lucidity” section.There are few articles aout DCs and nighmares,related to well being.
Seems like its kinda important how you treat your DCs or dangers in nightmares to finally overcome them and gain from it in real life.
good luck.

It’s a common beginner problem, and it’s rather easy to tackle them. You have to realize you are in a dream, and that nothing can hurt you. If you’re not lucid enough, try shouting “I’m lucid !” until you fully realize that.

The principle is that your emotions and actions create the dream imagery. If you’re afraid, of if you run away, it will turn into a nightmare. You can just stop your emotion when you realize you’re dreaming, but it’s sometimes easier to change your actions. You can for instance attack the monster (kung-fu, bazooka, magical fire balls, etc.) or you can act more kindly, speaking to him, asking him who he is, why he’s here, etc.
When you change your reactions, you change your emotions, and thus the dream context. If you ask the “monster” kindly, most of the time he will become a friend, sometimes he will turn into a human, give you interesting answers, etc. If you attack him, he’s likely to flee, or you can defeat him easily. In the (much debated) “jungian-senoi” theory, it was said that you should ask him for a present when you’ve defeated him.

But the main thing to remember is that a dream is an illusion and that it cannot harm you. When they realize it, (which is easy :wink: ), beginners never experience lucid nightmares again.

I haven’t had nightmares for a very, very long time, but I am a little scared / have a phobia of basements. Almost all of my LD’s have been in the basement, so I confine myself to one room (the bathroom or bedroom, etc) and the door is always shut. I don’t want to open the door, so I try to fly or blast through the house, which is why I always wake up prematurely because when I try doing this, when I get between levels or go into the wood, it goes black and I wake up. My goal then is to open an LD-door. It’s just that whenever I open my bedroom door IRL in the morning or night, there is a subconcious thought that something will be there and so I brace myself. In fact, last night I braced myself and the belt hanging on my side in the room scraped the door and freaked the heck out of me, haha, that’s how strong my phobia can be. :smile: But I shall overcome! And when I do, well, then my dreams will be much, much longer!!!