blackouts in lucid dreams.

[jamesplague]

Almost every time I have had a lucid dream, or become lucid in a dream, I get about 10 seconds in the dreamscape, and then my vision starts getting black areas (which makes me panic a little bit), and then eventually my whole vision turns black, the dream ends, and I wake up. Just yesterday, I tried to breathe deeply and slowly to clear the image, but it still blacked out on me. has anyone had this problem before? how can it be fixed?

[JollyRoger]

Here are some things to try. Yell out "increase clarity" or yell out "increase lucidity" or try rubbing your hands together, or spin around as fast as you can!

[Woozie]

Most of my lucid dreams go black before I wake up. In some cases I will even notice DC's becoming inactive and frozen. Like I was in an online computer game that just crashed. Anyway, maybe it's the excitement that's causing the blackouts? Are you new to lucid dreaming? Because alot of people who are just starting out will have a bit of trouble sustaining their first few LD's due to too much excitement

[jamesplague]

Yes, I just started out a few months ago. I had my 1st self-induced LD (WILD) yesterday, but my 3rd LD. I think you are right, I usually do get pretty excited, because of the transition from in bed, to the dreamworld, it feels amazing. Hopefully I will continue having LD's and I can get past this stage.

[seeker28]

Going blind or having blackout is fairly common for people new to LDing. One of the best things you can do when you start to notice the black areas is to ignore them. Do your best to have NO EMOTIONAL reaction to them, whatsoever. If you want to know why, here is a link: http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=57283 It is a bit long, but well worth the read, and I believe, contains information that is valuable to anyone who LDs. Hope this clears the problem up!

[jamesplague]

Going blind or having blackout is fairly common for people new to LDing. One of the best things you can do when you start to notice the black areas is to ignore them. Do your best to have NO EMOTIONAL reaction to them, whatsoever. If you want to know why, here is a link: http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=57283 It is a bit long, but well worth the read, and I believe, contains information that is valuable to anyone who LDs. Hope this clears the problem up! So, if my vision goes black again, and I ignore it, and dont panic, what will happen next? EDIT: This really reminds me of the non-lucid dreams I used to have when I was younger. I used to get black areas, or sometimes alot of the dreamscape would become black, but it didn't bother me, and the dreams just went on. Im pretty sure the reason for the blackouts while LDing is my excitement when I realize that I am actually am having a LD, because i've been trying for a while.

[RunflaCruiser]

Ive lost the vision once. I got excited and flew up through the ceiling. I lost all visuals but flew around for quite a while in the pitch black. I had all the other sensations which still made it cool atleast... Once I was flying and it was pitch black, like the night sky over an ocean, but eventually flew to a beach. so maybe if you wait, or expect it, something will happen. I think I heard it called limbo, or dream limbo or something once.

[NASCAR]

or try rubbing your hands together, or spin around as fast as you can! That actually sparked a lucid dream last night. A DC got me to spin around, the hand rubbing came naturally. Neuron sparks ensue. I realize I am in a dream. like the night sky over an ocean, but eventually flew to a beach. You, sir, have just got this month's monthly challenge. Congrats.

[arne saknussemm]

Just remain calm. It's the anxiety of the dark state that wakes you up.

[seeker28]

So, if my vision goes black again, and I ignore it, and dont panic, what will happen next? If you ignore the blackness and go on with your dream you will eventually re-gain your sight or the dream will eventually come to an end. I've had several blind dreams. Most of the time I eventually was able to see again (when I was no longer thinking about being blind, and was caught up in the dream). A couple of times the rest of the dream was "blind."

[jimothyjim]

I have had that several times before, never got back from one myself because they make me paranoid, I dunno how to get rid of them but personally find I get them when I think too much. More of a prevention method, but try not to overthink things, keep calm, s'all good.

[apachama]

This happens to me sometimes. I breathe and don't attempt anything fancy. I sometimes put the fact that I'm dreaming to the back of my mind. I might try to remember the fact, but I prioritise staying in the dream.

[Mew151]

Sounds like when you get out of bounds of a video game if you ask me

[TexMurphy]

Heh, it went all black for me when I had my first and only LD to date. Then I tried to spin and rub my hands together, but it failed and I had a false awakening.

[SKA]

When i read "blackout in lucid dreams" I thought of my own experience. A year or 2 back I'd have lucids where I'd be lucid for lengthy memorable periods. Lately I've been getting brief moments of Lucidity only to be washed away into an unconscious dream again in 10seconds or so. My overall DreamRecall has been terrible the last year but lately I've been having a little better recall, yet most of what I remember is unspeakable in words and remains abstract. just below the Surface you know?. Need to sleep with a higher state of consciousness.

[Funnel]

One time I had success by talking myself through it. Kept me focused long enough for the image to come back.

[i make it rain]

I would listen to Seeker about the emotional reaction. Most people get anxious or frustrated and lose the dream after the blackout. That isn't the only way, however. Once actually, I came back from a blackout with a happy reaction. I was just happy that I was in a LD and I just laughed and danced (I know it sounds stupid) and it worked. So first try no reaction, and if that fails just be happy and ignore the fact that you can't see anything by focusing on the fact that you are in a dream. Also, I like to stare at my hands (or where my hands should be because you can't see anything) then eventually everything comes back.

[Yosemine]

Quite honestly, I think the whole "too excited" explanation isn't true. A tutorial by BillyBob (a member here but he's left for a while) said something I've agreed with ever since. It basically stated that it doesn't make any sense for a dream to end because of excitement, or something like that. I'm sure you've gotten just as excited about something in a nonlucid dream and didn't wake up anyways. I don't know about you, but this made absolute sense to me and helped me a lot. I too suffered from very short lucids, but ever since I accepted that it doesn't make sense for dreams to just end when you get lucid, and that it's just a result of my expectations, my average lucid dream length climbed. Don't let people embed things in your mind similar to this either. You can read perfectly fine in dreams, you can turn on the lights, etc. Basically, I think you need to try to think about any logical reason the dream should end like that. I trust you won't find any except that it happened the first time, and now you expect it. I don't have many ideas about what to do when the dream blacks out, but I think that instead of trying to consciously imagine the scene, you should just kind of... wait. Three things could happen as far as I know; you wake up, have a false awakening, or the scene comes back. Because of the possiblitly of a false awakening, make sure to do a reality check afterwards. Also, to "clear the image" I found that the easiest way is to stare at something very close until you see the fine details. You are used to doing something like that in real life, so your body will automatically take care of it. Hope that helped a bit.

[Schmaven]

I had my first encounter with blackouts last night. They weren't total black outs though. It was like when I stand up too fast after sitting for too long and my vision starts to go. But I just focused on the DC I was talking to and my vision came back. It happened at least 4 times in that dream. Also, that dream was right after I had awoken after 9 hours of sleep and thought "oh, what the hell, I'm still tired I'll just roll over and sleep some more" and went into the dream. From my limited experience with blackouts, I'd say the best way to deal with them is to just ignore them and distract yourself with other aspects of the dream until they go away.

[i make it rain]

Quite honestly, I think the whole "too excited" explanation isn't true. A tutorial by BillyBob (a member here but he's left for a while) said something I've agreed with ever since. It basically stated that it doesn't make any sense for a dream to end because of excitement, or something like that. I'm sure you've gotten just as excited about something in a nonlucid dream and didn't wake up anyways. I don't know about you, but this made absolute sense to me and helped me a lot. I too suffered from very short lucids, but ever since I accepted that it doesn't make sense for dreams to just end when you get lucid, and that it's just a result of my expectations, my average lucid dream length climbed. Don't let people embed things in your mind similar to this either. You can read perfectly fine in dreams, you can turn on the lights, etc. Basically, I think you need to try to think about any logical reason the dream should end like that. I trust you won't find any except that it happened the first time, and now you expect it. I don't think it is the excitment itself, it is that more of your mind reacts and then thinks about the fact that you are dreaming. Then your brain really doesn't know what to do because nothing it senses is real. So you half sense things from waking life. For example, your vision goes black because in real life it is dark or you feel the pressure of the pillow on your face (which happened to me once). This is why I think it helps for you to rub your hands or something that focuses the mind on what it senses in the dream. If you realize you are dreaming, stay calm, and then go about your lucid business, your mind won't dwell on the "this isn't real" aspect. It is hard for me to explain but that is just my theory.

[Yosemine]

I don't think it is the excitment itself, it is that more of your mind reacts and then thinks about the fact that you are dreaming. Then your brain really doesn't know what to do because nothing it senses is real. So you half sense things from waking life. For example, your vision goes black because in real life it is dark or you feel the pressure of the pillow on your face (which happened to me once). This is why I think it helps for you to rub your hands or something that focuses the mind on what it senses in the dream. If you realize you are dreaming, stay calm, and then go about your lucid business, your mind won't dwell on the "this isn't real" aspect. It is hard for me to explain but that is just my theory. That's a good point. I think this is a more realistic explanation of what happens. There are a lot of people on DV that seem to think that the problem is wholly from excitement though. I also agree about focusing on your senses like that. Like I said, I like looking at things really closely to see the texture and feel it. It really helps. The only problem is that you can't completely shy away from the "this isn't real" or you'll be back in a nonlucid dream!

[Schmaven]

If I have blackouts in another dream, I'm going to see if I can turn it into being a blind person in whatever dream I was in, but keep the dream going. That would be interesting. Maybe try out echo-location and transform into a bat