Dream characters getting in the way, halting my progress

Can anyone relate to these experiences I'm having? In multiple LDs I've had, dream characters have gotten in my way, making it so I can't progress. Like for instance, I'll be walking in a straight line and they will get right in front of me, preventing me from going anywhere. I try to go right and they do too, getting in my way.

Dream characters have also beat me up and set me on fire in order to make me more lucid and aware. The pain I felt and the act of visually seeing myself get beat up would cause me to realize, to a greater extent than before, that none of it is real. I'm starting to think that there is a lot more to these dreams then I had originally thought. Once, when someone with a big stick was about to beat me up (note that this was around the 3rd time I experienced that, so when I saw her walk up the stairs with a large stick I knew immediately what was about to go down), I started to get really scared. At this she remarked "You know you're only making this harder on yourself".

I know some people believe in dream guides and such, but how do you make sense of it all? These seem like real people to me! It just doesn't make any sense...

Any thoughts?

I've had dream characters get in the way too. I've learned the best thing I could do is ask for what they want and try to satisfy them the best I can. Once they're satisfied they're more likely to go away or otherwise let me go.

According to Robert Waggoner it's simple, just find your desire to connect with that dream figure, talk to it.

Lucidly Conversing with Dream Figures, with Robert Waggoner - YouTube
Lucidly Responding to Frightening Dream Figures, with Robert Waggoner - YouTube

Stephen LaBerge said something similar, so did Beverly D'Urso. Basically there's something for you to learn here, before you can move on.

As an alternative, you could kill them :P

Haha, that's funny :-) If you asked Carl Jung he might say these are elements of your shadow self, or, our shadow self. Embrace them.

This is so interesting... In my first somewhat lengthy Lucid I became aware in a girls bedroom. There was no one there except a fat beefy barbarian who was totally out of place, guarding the door in the room with me. I happily exclaimed that I was lucid, and that I had to leave to try things like laying an egg, and he just glared and wouldn't let me through. I tried a few things like commanding him to move or using "the force", but nothing worked. Finally I really looked at him, and I blurted out "Ok, I know I have to solve your problem, and I promise I will, just let me have fun first!" and he begrudgingly moved over and let me outside to complete the TOTM...

Now I feel like I have to solve that guys problem.... What does it all mean o.o

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Originally Posted by RavenOfShadow

What does it all mean o.o

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"Seek and ye shall find."

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Originally Posted by Caboose128

Once, when someone with a big stick was about to beat me up (note that this was around the 3rd time I experienced that, so when I saw her walk up the stairs with a large stick ---> I knew <--- immediately what was about to go down), I started to get really scared. At this she remarked "You know you're only making this harder on yourself".

I know some people believe in dream guides and such, but how do you make sense of it all? These seem like real people to me! It just doesn't make any sense...

Any thoughts?

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Hi! Let's see if I can clear anything up. Please focus in on the part I have put in bold.

Dream guides and entities are a possabilty, but at this point you will need to learn more basic skills before you could make heads or tails out of what was going on. Let's instead look at the more likely cause. Dreams respond to your thoughts and expectations. In this case you had a strong thought that the DC was going to do something. That fact causes the DC to do it.

Keep that in mind and please read this lesson from the DVA. http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-yoga...-thoughts.html The skill takes a lot of work, but just understanding the concept will hopefully make things more clear and easier to control.

I've had a DC throw obstacles in my way -- at least I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

I became lucid when I noticed my deceleration while being dropped down into the entryway of a strange house. It was my second LD and I decided I was going to just explore this house and not try anything crazy, so I opened the door in front of me to go into the next room. It was empty of furniture with bright green walls, but the second I stepped inside a swarm of bees attacked me. I waved them away with my hands and a couple seconds later I realized I needed to just will them away. I crossed the room and entered the next room, also empty of furniture but with bright red walls. The second I stepped in the room I was covered in gum and had to will it away again. This sort of thing happened in every room I entered and I became REALLY annoyed that I couldn't just explore my first lucid dream house! I eventually got to a big room with high ceilings and saw a DC that looked like a bodybuilder with bright red skin, blocking the window and grinning at me. I somehow knew he was the one messing with me, but I didn't know anything about lucid dreams at the time and I was quite terrified of him. He felt like an actual separate consciousness and I didn't think I could will him away like all the other stuff. He laughed at me, and I immediately lost lucidity and was transported into a sex dream!

I woke up feeling like that was my lucid dream training level and I failed my test :(

Now I know I should have just confronted that f-er and I'm looking forward to meeting him in another lucid dream so I can finally do so.

Ok, I think I've had enough of this. It's your dream so Kill them!!! Kill them all!!!!!!! Mwahahahahahaha! That's what I'd probably do if they keep and doing this... So yeah...:banana:

Even when you're lucid it's easy to forget that the entire dreamworld and everything in it is created by your subconscious. Everything there represents something that exists in your mind. Little details like a plant you see in the corner of the room might be nothing more than an actual plant you saw outside a shop while you were awake during the day, and your mind is simply processing that memory. But things which seem to force themselves upon you, like this person with a big stick who attacked you, have more significant meanings. They are something which your subconscious wants (knows you need to) face up to and deal with.

Like TwilightShawn said a few posts back, often the most effective ways to deal with it is to just go up to that dream character and ask what it is that they want, or why they are attacking you. What yo're really doing here is asking yourself the questions; "why do I want to halt my progress", "what is it that's so important to me that it's getting in the way of my lucid dreaming", it's a kind of reflective introspection. Through doing this you will often gain a better understanding of yourself. In the long run this is usually more beneficial than simply supressing those thoughts and actually takes less time than developing that fairly difficult skill anyway.

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Originally Posted by sivason

Hi! Let's see if I can clear anything up. Please focus in on the part I have put in bold.

Dream guides and entities are a possabilty, but at this point you will need to learn more basic skills before you could make heads or tails out of what was going on. Let's instead look at the more likely cause. Dreams respond to your thoughts and expectations. In this case you had a strong thought that the DC was going to do something. That fact causes the DC to do it.

Keep that in mind and please read this lesson from the DVA. http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-yoga...-thoughts.html The skill takes a lot of work, but just understanding the concept will hopefully make things more clear and easier to control.

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Hey there! I see what you are saying, and would agree most of the time, but this seemed to be something totally different. Of course my perception could have been wrong, so I'm not trying to jump to any conclusions. But yeah, the reason I immediately recognized what was going to happen was because this has happened multiple times in the past, well that and from the first moment I saw her I noticed she was carrying a big stick/mallet for beating people! It didn't seem like something I manifested myself, but who knows, maybe my subconscious did it without me processing the information. I noticed her intention right from the get go. The thing is, every time this happens they're doing it for a reason, to make me more lucid. Which makes sense, seeing and feeling myself getting beaten or set on fire would instinctively train my brain to better understand that it's not truly happening. Seems more like dream guide business to me, always helping me on my way!

I believe a similar situation I found myself in a LD can be applied to my theory here. It was one of the longest and most lucid dreams of my life. Dream characters were even trying to teach me how to hallucinate, since my mind couldn't break free of it's own conditioned expectations of reality. But anyways, at the very end of the dream I was being led through this hallway. I saw a note on one of the doors that read, "Some crazy shit is about to go down, signed so-and-so". Now I had no idea what was about to happen at this point. I got led into this room and a bunch of my friends and people I knew were sitting around in a circle. They told me they were about to provide me with a "moment of complete mental clarity". I got strapped into this chair. The back of it was constantly bending backwards to the point where I kept feeling like my back was going to break. My fingers were constantly being pushed further and further towards these blades (or that's what I thought they were), but actually whenever my fingers would make contact with them it felt more like putting your fingers into a fan or something. It was just the thought and fear of feeling these sensations that was getting to me, but whenever I felt my back break a little more or my fingers touching the spinning blades again, I'd instantly get more calm and aware of it all just being a dream. This lasted for about 1 minute, about 3 or 4 cycles of moving back and forth from being afraid of the sensory information in front of me, to then in turn using it to make me more lucid. Unfortunately I got too scared at the end, bolted out of the chair and woke myself up.

Anyways, the reason I tell that story is it seemed to me pretty relevant to what I was presenting above. Dream characters helping me on my way, teaching me info, and in extreme cases beating me with sticks or placing me on these incredible contraptions made for promoting lucidity. IDK how I'd even be able to come up with a machine like that! But who knows, the subconscious is a powerful thing, so I'm not dismissing that entirely. It's just happened too many times for me to believe that. I mean, I didn't even know a moment of complete mental clarity would even be possible!

You said dream guides and the like are a possibility. Have you had any experiences with them thus far? What can you tell me about them? I wanna learn more and this seems to me to be the only possible explanation at this point! Well that or shared dreams/astral dreams would make some sense of it too. Not many people post about those on here though so I don't have much to go on!

Oh and InfiniteMinds: I never really saw the need to ask any of them what they're true intentions were. I always knew they were just there to help me and make more lucid, like I said above they even told me this once! I just feared the physical side to it due to my lack of lucidity. I never really viewed them as nightmarish/hostile, and I feel like that's the best time to apply that skill which you're referring to. But thank you for the advice! I just feel like if I would have asked them what they were up to they'd just tell me, "Well, making you more lucid of course!" and then I'd be in the exact same position I am now hahaha

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Originally Posted by Caboose128

Anyways, the reason I tell that story is it seemed to me pretty relevant to what I was presenting above. Dream characters helping me on my way, teaching me info, and in extreme cases beating me with sticks or placing me on these incredible contraptions made for promoting lucidity. IDK how I'd even be able to come up with a machine like that! But who knows, the subconscious is a powerful thing, so I'm not dismissing that entirely. It's just happened too many times for me to believe that. I mean, I didn't even know a moment of complete mental clarity would even be possible!

You said dream guides and the like are a possibility. Have you had any experiences with them thus far? What can you tell me about them? I wanna learn more and this seems to me to be the only possible explanation at this point! Well that or shared dreams/astral dreams would make some sense of it too. Not many people post about those on here though so I don't have much to go on!

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I have met somewhere around a dozen specific entities in the dream realm wich is basically astral. I started with experiences oddly like yours. It is weird, but the interacction before they accepted me was a lot like bullying. This was around 20 years ago. The very first time I noticed a DC that seemed more than a DC he knocked me down and pressed his knee into me. Then i was always feeling observed and would see figures just out of the perifery. They ended up being 3 entities from an astral realm and eventually the leader, a stern and scary women, presented herslef to me. \ That was terrifying to say the least and I bolted. In trying to get away, I ran into two others and was scared to death. In my mind these 3 entities were completely real and somehow were confronting me. Then I found out that they could freeze me in my tracks so I was helpless.

It took very little time after this and i had met and talked with all three and was made a student of the frightening stern woman. Before long I learned how they had paralysed me and could do the same to them. After many many dozen training sessions (always something new and challenging) I was introduced to others. After about 12 years I was given access to a large astral city, but have been banned from entry at least 3 times. I currently am banned, because I made it clear that I was sick of my LDs being held to strick moral codes. I asked to be allowed to please just have some normal LDs without them watching. I think they more or less gave me the finger, and will make me grovel a little when I get bored of my own LDs.

So, I imagine something like that may be happening to you. You may have touched on astral realms in your LDs and got someone's intrest. I will offer some advice. They will not relate to you in a clear pleasent way until you do two things,,, learn to use your voice in your LD and specifically state out loud that you would like for them to help you. Then next is you must have good enough dream control for them to bother teaching you.You may already have enough control.


A final word of caution,,, if you indeed have real entities observing you, try not to be nasty or violent. Anything you act out that you would not want anyone seeing,,, well 'they' are seeing, and may decide you suck. Instead put on a real show of dedicated training of various skills or completion of lucid tasks, they will take you much more seriously if you do.

Hey thanks for the reply that was fascinating! Looks like I got a lot to look forward to!

A couple questions: What do you mean by they paralyzed you and you eventually learned how to do this back? Like paralyzed physically or something bigger like they could halt all progress you were making in the astral?

Also, when you say use your voice and specifically state that you want them to help you, you aren't referring to your actual vocal chords, are you? I took this to mean to make sure you're true to your intention on having them help you, am I right on this? I think I'm slowly starting to learn just how true this actually is. In the beginning I was hostile towards them, viewing it as some big conspiracy, always heavily playing the victim card because they wouldn't just explain everything out right, leaving me confused and frustrated. Now I'm starting to learn that all those emotions I was expressing was based in fear and anger, and by acting on them I ALWAYS end up feeling worse in the end. Now most of the time we get along, but still sometimes I find my subconscious getting over whelmed with emotion and it just completely getting out of my control. Oh well, I figure with time this will improve.

Again thank you for the advice! Do you have any other cool stories or tips you could share with me? With over 20 years of experience I'm sure you've seen way more than I could even fathom at this point. Oh and btw, did you ever figure out who the stern looking women who became your teacher was? That's the weird thing with me and spirit guides, the ones helping me are always in the form of my family or friends, never anybody I haven't met. I always thought that spirit guides would be beings who you did not previously know, or is it just different for everyone?

They could paralysis my astral form. It has to do with a strong connection that requires the astral equivelent of eye contact. Eventually I became more powerful at doing this then the woman. As to who she is,she is an entity living on the astral. She was not as big a hard ass after a few years. She would often cause me and her big male admirer to get in fights. At some point about 7 years ago, she married him. I felt she would still play us off against each other, so the other entity (of the 3 who I first met) took over my training. He one time revieled that he used to be a monk, but chose to live in the astral, until further notice. She may be someone similar, but I know some entities seem native to there.

I must explain the voice thing as it is very important. Think about going up to a DC and saying "Please move." In many cases you are really experiencing this like a silent movie, or an almost telepathic kind of interaction. However, dreams can include amazingly clear life like sounds.I am talking about being ableto replicate every feeling involved in talking out loud. Use your dream mouth and actually produce sounds, clear distinct sounds, while in an LD. Get good enough with it that yelling out short phrases is no problem. Then, when you see or sense that one of these entities is near, you say out loud "I could use some help." say that and something like this, "I am ready to meet you, please show yourself."

Hahah this is all so interesting! I think they almost have to be hard asses sometimes cuz us humans are so hard headed sometimes, it's the only way to get through to us! Did you see these entities every night without fail after enlisting their help? In regards to the revelation the monk revealed to you, did he say if he still had a physical form yet just chooses to remain in the astral? I didn't know that was possible! Or was he talking about just chilling in the astral until his next incarnation?

Sorry if it seems like I'm grilling you, all of this is just very intriguing to me, and it seems like most of the people here don't delve into this type of stuff. I think I understand what you're saying about using your voice, although I'm still a little confused. Every time I've talked in a dream I didn't really notice any difference between waking life speech and dream speech, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention enough. Does being super aware of the things you're saying make any big changes? Like how you said it's kind of like a silent movie or telepathy, is this because if we don't pay attention to our speech we'll kind of just go through the whole process unconsciously and thus leading us farther away from what we truly want to say?

Too true, about the hard ass thing. I was very hard to teach.

I did not see them except at their choosing. I could occassionally (years into this) go to the astral and roam around if I was lucky, but working with them was on their schedule. For instance I think I irritated the monk, because the monks do not want me fucking around with sex and random nonsense, but I asked for some space. Well, no show on his part for about a year now. If I asked him to come back he would probably before long. I am on extended leave I guess, until I am ready for more serious stuff. The woman would come get me about 20-30 times a year. She might actually talk with me and teach me things, or she might kind of screw with me, forcing me to control my anger and so on.

The monk basically meant he had died, but due to dream yoga training, he has simply took up residence on the astral for now, rather than be reborn. Aas far as the use of your voice goes, you will just have to try it out in your next LD. Simply stop and pay attention, then yell real loud. Just yell wahoo or whoop. See if the experience has vivid realistic sound. Not everyone will be able to produce clear sound. If you can, then attempt yelling "Hello" If you can here it like real life sound, then you are ready.

Almost every time I become lucid I get attacked by all the current dream characters present, which normally are always family its very frustrating as this always boots me out of the dream.

Once I was sitting in a hall with my family when I realized holy crap im dreaming, suddenly they all just went silent, stared at me and starting walking towards me, I jumped out of the damn window
to save myself and woke up :|

Hahah wow that's very creepy sounding Revoka!

And in regards to the voice thing again, say I'm not able to reproduce realistic waking life sound in the LD. What will it sound like? Just so I have a comparison to know if I'm actually doing it right or not! Will it be all muddled and distorted? Honestly I've never noticed a difference but I guess the awareness just wasn't there.

It could be imagined words that make no true sound. It could be muffled and jumbled. Just try it out and see.

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Originally Posted by Caboose128

Hahah wow that's very creepy sounding Revoka!

And in regards to the voice thing again, say I'm not able to reproduce realistic waking life sound in the LD. What will it sound like? Just so I have a comparison to know if I'm actually doing it right or not! Will it be all muddled and distorted? Honestly I've never noticed a difference but I guess the awareness just wasn't there.

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Interesting, I never actually recall hearing sound in dreams, never occurred to me.

Just relax and say whatever you feel like saying to DCs. I also sometimes find it hard to speak while lucid, as if it requires a great deal of effort, no idea why is that. But it seems the less you pay attention to it, the easier it comes out.