CanisLucidus

Here was a lucid dream where I had fun but ran into some serious dream control trouble. Still wondering what I might have done differently here.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #9: Sunny Day "Sleep Paralysis" (August 14, 2012)

I'm walking outside of my childhood home on a bright, sunny day. I'm drinking in the scenery "lucid living" style. I get the sense that I'm dreaming and find myself lucid.

I'm calm and I rub my hands together, enjoying the beauty of the scenery. Everything looks very vivid in this dream, with none of the darkness I'd struggled with before. Just to check, I ask for "maximum lucidity" anyway, but nothing additional happens.

My hands look surprisingly normal so I study the sky for a while, enjoying the look of the clouds and the fact that I can stare into the sun without feeling any discomfort.

When I try to move, though, I suddenly realize that I'm flat on my back, completely paralyzed. It's as if the idea of my physical, paralyzed body is intruding on the dream scene.

I struggle to move for a bit, not succeeding. Finally, I attempt an in-dream out of body exit. (This would be a second dream body exiting what I know is my first dream body -- a delightfully weird idea.) I manage to peel a second set of arms out of my paralyzed arms. As my new head and torso start to exit, though, the dream scene collapses and I'm awake in bed.

This one's a real head scratcher. I'm not sure what I should have done differently here apart from trying not to get that mesmerized by the dream scenery. Perhaps I just need more practice with OBE-style exits.

An alternative idea that I had was to imagine that I'm getting dragged down into the ground. That's a bit too "Nightmare on Elm Street" for me, though, so I don't know!