Last night I had a nightmare. For a long time, since I was a kid, I have been able to wake myself up when a dream got too scary. This time I started to wake up, but in the nanosecond before I did, my lucid training kicked in and I realized I did not want to waste an opportunity, so I stopped myself from waking up by thinking, "go to a better place", and I did.

The difference between NILD and DILD is in a nightmare I realize it is a dream and I instantaneously try to get out of it by waking up, instead of realizing it is a dream and becoming lucid and using that information to make the dream better. This time I was very happy to stay asleep and change the dream to a better one in that instant before waking, but really after I had started the process of waking and was already out of the bad dream.

I'm sure other people wake themselves up from nightmares too. Thought this might be something to try, especially if you do it a lot. Maybe a subtle difference from DILD but I think people who do this will know what I mean.