Ways to wake yourself up when you are dreaming / lucid dreaming?

**BnT** · 12-05-2012 06:03 PM

Hey I noticed my girlfriend has a lot of frightening dreams in comparison to me and often becomes lucid ( she was doing this before I had even introduced the notion of lucid dreaming to her and explained what it was ) but she lacks a great deal of dream control which we are trying to work on.

I told her if she is lucid in a frightening dream she should blink or try and close her eyes to wake herself up but she attempted this last night and it didn't work for her.

Could you give me some more idea's that work for you on how to wake yourself up from these dreams until she has mastered some aspects of dream control?

Thank you!

**dutchraptor** · 12-05-2012 06:34 PM

Well I wouldn't advise her to try leave the dream, since dream control only requires focus and leaving the dream will not teach how to turn the tables but here are some tips anyways.
1) Set an alarm on your stopwatch in the dream expecting the dream to collapse once you wake up.
2) Try feeling your walking life body, try extend your feeling beyond the dream
3) Try falling from somewhere really high
4) close your eyes and imagine the unniverse collapsing around you and that when you open your eyes you will be awake (I like this one because when it fails you find yourself just floating in a black space and from there you can chill out and do anything.

It can be hard to wake yourself up but in general things like closing your eyes, sudden excitement and annoying itches are the easiest but also the most uncomfortable ways of waking up.

Good luck

**GuitarShot100** · 12-05-2012 06:42 PM

When I was young I had the same problem, the best way is try to feel your real body, it wakes you instantly. But there are other ways like stop breathing, pinching yourself, etc

**Spyguy** · 12-05-2012 08:36 PM

Close your eyes, stop focussing on anything. Things in a dream only exist as long as you pay attention to them, so if you close your eyes and focus on the fact that it is a dream, you should be back awake in no time.

**Sensei** · 12-05-2012 11:03 PM

I close my eyes and open them again. This time I try to imagine both my eyes opening. It took me a while to perfect it, and as soon as I did I never had a nightmare again.

This was from ages 5-9 it has been 12 years no nightmares.

**The Cusp** · 12-06-2012 02:12 PM

Killing yourself in the dream is a surefire way to wake yourself up. Jump in front of a truck, jump off a building. Just be really sure you're dreaming.

**BnT** · 12-06-2012 03:14 PM

Thank you all I have given my girlfriend some pointers and it at least of she is having trouble controlling the dream she can wake herself up if it gets too much ( I don't like the idea of her freaking out in a dream world :p ).

**Matte87** · 12-06-2012 05:45 PM

If she can't close her eyes, she could try to cover them up with her hands. Or do what The Cusp said, that's how I woke myself up from nightmares as a kid. Pretty entertaining aswell as you know you're dreaming

**roman67** · 12-07-2012 10:35 AM

Blink your eyes, open and then close it. Stop focusing on anything.

**L4xord** · 12-08-2012 01:11 AM

Hmmmmmm.... She could wake up. But the golden rule with lucid dreams and nightmares is "Do not wake up.". I really strongly recommend she tries to work with her nightmares and her dream control. I struggled with this (and still do a bit).

One surefire way I reckon is to talk and say "STOP!" to your nightmare or ask the monster "why are you doing this?"

Another method is obviously to fight your nightmare, but this requires a lot of dream control so this is rather hard to do.
Find the nightmares weakness, for example if the nightmare is about snakes, call a mongoose (they eat cobras). Or if it is a knife wielding psychopath, take inspiration from Scary Movie and chuck a piano at him.

Try a mantra like "I am in control!" Also it is recommended you shout these in your dreams as that will give them power.

And most of all, lay off the horror movies!

**Tradl3s** · 12-08-2012 05:59 PM

tell her to get a sword and fight the damn creatures. or fly her ass outta there xD

**Tradl3s** · 12-08-2012 06:00 PM

but seriously, tell her to shout "wake up" really loud.

**Carrot** · 12-08-2012 06:40 PM

The fastest way for me to wake up from a lucid is to make it unstable. Many things can be done to make it unstable, it depends on individuals, usually it's things that are strange and often weird to me in waking life that makes my lucid the most unstable, example being doing things that can't be done in reality or you wouldn't do in reality like walking through a wall/mirror, killing yourself or just trying to shake the dream world as much as possible.

But I think it would be even better if you can explain to her how to control her dream and how nothing in the dream world is real and can harm her physical body, besides pain in lucid dreams can't kill you too and if you can have control over it, you might not feel pain either.

**Mr Sandman** · 12-08-2012 06:44 PM

I always try to "go to sleep" in my dream, works about 80% of the time.

**MrOMGWTF** · 01-07-2013 09:29 AM

Falling backwards, and moving/shaking your arms as fast as you can while falling. It'll generate a hypnic jerk which will wake you up.

The fall should be flat hard.

If it's soft enough, and you're not moving anything while falling, it'll teleport you to random scene or the scene you're thinking about. It can also generate a FA, so if you wake up, do a RC.