Lucid turned to Nightmare? Even I am confused. +intro

[GiraffeMan]

I guess to get the best help for this I should tell a little about myself. My name is Andrew, I'm 18 and live in Oklahoma. I am going to college in Colorado in the fall to study psychology. My LD experience is splotchy. When I was 15 I got into it, read all i could find on the internet, had a few lucids then got distracted and left the subject. I started up again exactly a week ago. I've read pretty much everything the internet has to offer, and a couple of books on the subject. I do reality checks all day, meditate, focus on awareness, dream journal bah blah. I went into this knowing that the only thing to fear is fear itself. I even visualize myself vanquishing demons and the scariest possible characters I can in meditation to prepare myself just in case. I guess you should never underestimate the subconscious mins's ability to know the most f***** up things that get to you. Alright here goes: went to bed at 10:30 woke up and 1:30 and went back to bed. The entire first part of this dream is fuzzy due to the second half, so I'm not sure if I was fully lucid. I am walking around a giant college campus and become lucid. I realize I am in a towel and expect to be wearing clothes and sure enough I am clothed in exactly what I want. I start exploring and find a newsstand to walk around. The dream characters begin to look at me weird so I walk away, looking behind me as I do so to make sure none of them follow me. I go into the giant school and possibly do something before I end up in a room with some friends from high school. I decide that I want to ride a roller coster, so I expect to see one on the other side of a door that is in front of me. I open the door and outside is a man with a cart like the ones used at airports to carry luggage. "Is that the roller coaster?" I ask, to which the man responds "No, it's down there." I look down a hallway and and see the building open up to reveal one of those roller coaster that you sit in and dangle your legs from. I hop on, along with some friends from high school and strap in. The roller coaster feels real, however I remember thinking that it was duller than real life. During this time I also feel connected to my "real" body. I decide that I want the roller coaster to go into outer space, "see" it going there, and sure enough we start drifting into space. It feels amazing, but I believe that I lost lucidity at this point at least slightly. We crash land on a planet and I remember expecting that I could breath in space and that I had telekinesis so I could push the wreckage off myself. Then I fade into full dream state as the x-men arrive to save us. They get us back to earth and almost take off without me. I grab on to the back of a truck as it takes off but have no strength to pull myself up. I expect to be strong and immediately pull myself in. I decide that I want to see an old crush from high school, so I am surprised when I arrive at my best friends house. I go along with it and walk inside(I really don't know if I was lucid or not at this point. I honestly just think my dream self thought he was lucid) I walk inside and see my friends mom sitting in her usual chair and ask "Where is she?" excitedly. She points to the kitchen and I am surprised to see one of my exes cooking. She looks good so I try to kiss her but she refuses. I then decide that I want to wake up so I can write this dream down. I remember thinking "Best Lucid Dream ever!" This is where it gets freaky. My first false awakening type experience. Any Lucidity I was holding onto was let go of as I thought I wad entering the waking world. So this part was just a dream, a vivid, messed up dream. I wake up in my bed and grab my dream journal to write down my dream. It looks weird and I can't write correctly but I don't even notice. I leave my room and see my dog who runs to me. Everything was very happy at this point. I go into the kitchen where my stepdad is and start getting some food. He starts yelling at me and starts a huge dramatic fight. I run out of the kitchen into a room where my sister and cousin are. I franticly throw something out of anger(very unlike me) and immediately feel ashamed and apologize for it. I leave that room and run into my mom. I ask her if she heard what he was saying to me and this is the worst part, I remember it so well. She looks at me and says "Drew, I know you've been trying to kill me. We saw the gas levels in the house." It was like a movie. I felt sick and just started bawling. Everyone in the house surrounded me and if they were saying anything I could't hear it because I was crying hysterically on the ground saying "I don't even know what that is! I swear I don't know what you're talking about." I woke up sweating and freaked out. I never have dreams like that... and it was only 3:30... In Robert Waggoner's lucid dreaming book, he says that whenever you stop directing your focus in a Lucid dream unexpected things start to happen. So maybe since I thought I was awake and stopped directing my focus, my subconscious just took over. However, why such an emotional situation? The only thing I could think of is that my subconscious has a sick sense of humor or maybe trying to shock me to lucidity. I mean I have had family problems in the past, but everything is resolved now. I just wasn't expecting that kind of horror, my first thought upon awakening was "Maybe I should't be messing with my subconscious." After being awake for a few minutes the fear went away. Any other views will be extremely appreciated. Thanks

[lonewolf101]

way i see it, you kinda challenged your subconscious and he/she simply accepted it. you said you basically prepared yourself for any scary stuff like demons from scaring you. and you told yourself that you wont get scared. So maybe your subconscious thought outside of the box and instead of scaring you with obvious things like monsters, it attacked you emotionally on things and topics you're probably sensitive on, like your parents screaming at you, or your mom suspecting that you wanna kill them. or anything emotionally scarring. so in a nutshell, i think your subconscious wanted to prove you wrong

[melanieb]

Welcome to the forum! Scary experiences aren't necessarily from the loss of lucidity. They can happen in any dream and can be initiated by a million factors ranging from your dream content to what you had for dinner. Last night aliens invaded the world in my dream and the experience was incredibly realistic. It was terror and futility. Thankfully it wasn't real. Your family issues might have left some lingering anxiety in you, a perfectly normal situation. Most people have periods in family life that are less than serene. Basically what I'm saying is you have nothing to worry about judging by your reported dream. **Thread moved to Dream Interpretation.