Thread: Malicious DCs and frequent sleep paralysis.

I'm sorry you're dealing with this right now! I've had some of those auditory awakenings (loud noise, not necessarily screeching but a lot of times high-pitched noise). For me it happens when I have higher fear in my waking life, like how you said stress. Calming music really helps me.

It might also be the fact that you're just beginning to find success lucid dreaming, that you have subconscious doubts that you're in control, but you are. It's your dream, nothing dangerous can enter. Even death in a dream can signify rebirth or inner changes more so than any type of danger! That's scary and I can kind of picture it from the way you describe, but it might be as simple as trusting your control, and if you keep getting it, in your waking life, try to point out (out loud or to yourself) "it's not happening, so I'm awake" and then you're more likely to realize, if it is happening because you get a similar dream again, that you're asleep.

Some of the first things that worked for me are opening my eyes in the dream to at least leave that part of the dream, even if it means still sleeping but moving into another dream. When I want to do actions that are hard to do in a dream, like yell, or open my eyes, I had to do them more than once in the dream and exaggerate. Push them deeply closed, then open wide in the dream. Do it more than once. With yelling or running, even if it's in slow motion and feels like it's not working, don't give up—sound out every syllable, for example, and keep saying it until you can say the word as you would while you're awake! It takes some repetition but I actually yelled aloud (roommate confirmed, lol) when a dream was really bothering me because I didn't have a voice in it and was so angry with someone I had never resolved something with in real life. So I was able to speak and then it helped feel more in control, even if it was strange for my roommate, we laughed about it.