Advice on a Dream, Pins and Needles

I’m new here, but have been lurking around for a couple of weeks, and just wanted to say hello.

A couple days ago I woke up in the night, then went back to sleep for about a half hour. During the half hour I had a pretty long dream, and at the end of it something caught my attention and made me become lucid (I think I was lucid, at least). In a way it was very weird since I haven’t actually been practicing trying to become lucid.

Anyways, I touched my face (in the dream) just to make sure it was really me, and it felt very tingly and strange (like pins and needles after your foot falls asleep), that’s when my whole body felt like pins and needles and I collapsed to the floor. I woke up a couple seconds after that.

My question is, has anyone ever felt pins and needles like that during a LD? It was the first dream I ever had like that, so any advice is welcomed. Thanks in advance!

Cat-Eye

No, but I have woke up feeling like pins and needles had poked me all over. It could be symbolic(the pins and needle feel).

Thanks for the reply!

When I woke up I could still feel them around my feet and legs as well. It probably is symbolic, maybe of a fear of mine or something, I’ll have to do some thinking on that one. :smile:

It sounds like its related to the vibrating sensation that happens when your body is paralyzed for REM sleep. Sometimes it can feel like pins and needles. It also sounds like you somehow triggered an awareness of your real sleeping body by touching your face… that awareness led you to wake up. The strange sensations produced by the REM paralysis can linger for a short time after you wake up. I often feel it most strongly in my teeth sockets and fingertips, but it kind of tingles all over. Did you hear any sounds? For me the tingling/vibrating sensation is often accompanied by a “rushing/ TV static sound”.

“It also sounds like you somehow triggered an awareness of your real sleeping body by touching your face…”

So when your lucid you’re not aware of your sleeping body? (Sorry to sound really stupid, but I thought you were…).

I don’t think I heard anything, there was probably a slight rushing sound, but it died down after a second or two.

Cat-Eye

For the most part when I lucid dream, I’m not aware of my sleeping body. Sometimes if I’m trying to WILD and I’m attepting to seperate my dream body from my sleeping body, I can feel both at the same time… but once I seperate and go into the dream, I can’t feel my real body anymore and I try not to, because I think it would make me wake up. When I’m lucid I have to concentrate somewhat on staying connected to my dream body by interacting with the dream world… like rubbing my dream hands together or touching and smelling things in the dream world.

You’re aware that you’re still in bed, but if all goes well, hopefully you won’t be able to feel your real body at all. Provided you’re in full control, all of your senses should be replaced with dream-senses, so you should only be able to feel, see and hear things that are inside the dream. Sometimes it can be a sign that you’re waking up when you begin to feel your real body over your dream body.

That doesn’t mean external stimuli can’t still find its way into your dream, though. If you were experiencing ‘pins and needles’ in your real body, it may well have transferred through into the dream. Equally, a sound or flash of light will sometimes also interfere with the dream. After all, it’s not as if your real senses are entirely shut-off - that would prevent anything from waking you up in case of emergency.

Anyway, welcome to the forum, and good luck with lucid dreaming. :smile:

Thank you for clearing that up for me, Mupo. Next time I have a lucid dream (hopefully soon) I’ll concentrate on not trying to feel my real body and concentrate more on the dreamworld. It was my first lucid dream in a long time, so I wasn’t really prepared for it, but who really is prepared for them? :smile:

Atheist, thanks for the advice as well (and the welcome). I think that I became aware of my real body because when I realized I was lucid dreaming I started to think about my real life and what or how I would wake up.

Thanks again for everyone’s help.

Cat-Eye