Waking almost instantly

[rezza]

Hi folks. Since my last entry in my dream journal here on dream views, I have atained lucidity quite a lot, and more and more often as time goes on. In fact The past few days it has been at least once a night, sometimes 2 or 3 times. "Hooray!" I should be exclaiming, "I am a proper Lucid Dreamer!" Alas no. Since that last entry in my dream journal, every single time I have had a lucid dream, I have woken up almost as soon as I attain lucidity. Generally, whenever I realize that I'm dreaming, I get this huge adrenaline rush and my mind feels like its expanding to the point of shattering my cranium (which really is nowhere near as unpleasant as it sounds, it actually feels warm and comforting), my muscles all go tense and feel very strange, then a sort of white light engulfs me and I wake up. All this happens in the space of a few seconds, and I have tried shouting and saying a few things to stop me waking up, but to no avail. I have tried concentrating really hard on staying focused, but its incredibly hard to think when your mind feels like mine does when I become lucid. A side effect of this strange automatic waking is that when I do wake up, my whole body feels incredible for a minute or two afterwards. My muscles have a kind of warm glowing feeling as if they'd just done a workout, and my head feels very warm and fuzzy, yet still quite clear. I can easily fall straight back to sleep in this state, and equally easily get up and do productive things straight away without the usual 15 minutes of bleary-eyed drowsiness I have in the mornings. Basically, while this situation isn't all bad, because its certainly still nice when it happens, I miss having real lucid dreams. Even though if this happens at a reasonable waking up time in the mornings it makes getting up a snap, I'd still prefer to be able to have real lucid dreams. Has anyone else ever been in a similar situation as this? Anyone have any advice for me? I haven't really been keeping up with my dream journal recently either, because I always seem to remember at least a few dreams per night very vividly anyway, should I start this back up again? Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!

[Seeker]

Congrats on all the great progress! You say you can easily fall right back to sleep? Have you had any luck with MILD? Perhaps the second time, you will not wake up quite so fast.

[rezza]

Thankyou Yeah I can fall back asleep very easily after this happens. And MILD is my way of inducing LDs in the first place... and it often works for when I fall asleep again after this has happened. But when I become lucid for the second or even third time in a row I just wake up straight away again I think I might have to stop feeling excited about lucid dreaming... but every lucid dream I've had has been absolutely amazing, so I can't help but feel excited when I notice that I'm dreaming.

[Seeker]

I know you'll get it! Hey, I live near Bristol as well. Bristol Tennessee!

[rezza]

OK, time to try again. Tonight I'm going to try to stay as calm as possible when (if) I have my LD. Snoozes ahoy.

[gameover]

Just focus on your surroundings and you should stay with them. What you're describing used to happen to me all the time. I'd feel like I'm transcending all dimensions, and either wake up, or instantly lose lucidity. Now the moment I realize what's going on, I start running and flying. Good luck.

[rezza]

Originally posted by gameover Just focus on your surroundings and you should stay with them. What you're describing used to happen to me all the time. I'd feel like I'm transcending all dimensions, and either wake up, or instantly lose lucidity. Now the moment I realize what's going on, I start running and flying. Good luck. Thanks for the inpuit, I'll give it a try...

[Ev]

Waking from a lucid dream is easy to counter. Just remind yourself : every time you wake from a LD, you dont move much, relax and fall back asleep really fast. Dont even think much That is a cool method, as it will induce WILD most of the time (depending on how much you moved) Generally WILDs are more "calm" , as you dont get that "I just won a lottery" rush...

[Ales]

I belive you have only one problem - you are overexcited. Overexcitement is the thing that kills most of the lucid dreams. I am struggling with it also. Just tell yourself before you go to sleep: "When I have a lucid dream, I will remain calm, as if nothing special is happening" I believe that is the key to a longer lucid dreaming. Don't get overexcited.. Every very strong emotion is a LD killer. Try everything you want in your LD, but don't get too emotional with it. I belive the most important thing is: Don't ever forget that you are also the OBSERVER of your dreams. It's kinda hard to explain, but it's a good thing to do in reality also - do a particular action, but also be AWARE that you are performing this action...It's a sort of self observation. I know this can be hard to achieve in your dreams, but if you practise you will soon see the results... By the way, how long have you been experiencig lucid dreaming? If you LD as frequent as you say, I don't understand how can you be so excited in every LD that you have. I have been LD quite frequenty for only a month now and I must say that realised I got used to it a little. This means If I know I am dreaming I don't get so excited as the first time I did it. I mean - everything you do for the first time is very exciting, but then you sort of get used to it, don't you? Oh, and don't neglect the dream journal. You remember a few dram per night vividly, but what after a week or a month? It is all lost... ALES

[rezza]

Yeah thanks for the help Ales - I had sort of worked out that becoming too excited was the problem, and at last I had another lucid dream which I didn't instantly awake from. As far as how long have I been lucid dreaming - well not very long, to be honest. A few months. But the period of about a week before I started this thread I was LDing a lot, multiple times per night, but waking straight away. I seem to be back in my regular schedule of one LD per few weeks again now.