Thread: Perky's Dream Awareness

Many times throughout my life I have experienced awareness while dreaming. These occurences have mostly been while having nightmares of some sort. I wasn't aware that this is actually considered something one can practice to achieve longevity, I just thought it to be a defense mechanism that sometimes goes awry and also occurs in a more normal dream. In my case I have been able to sustain this state for as long as it seems necessary to remove myself from harms way in my dream and transfer it to something less scary / uncomfortable. In regular non-scary dreams it just seems that it kind of shifts in and out of awareness then back to non-aware when it happens. I am here to understand how I do this or how this occurs, maybe expand on it a little. I have always thought everyone does this and I guess they do according to the research I have read just that some aren't able to "control" it when it happens. I would love to be able to share how I do when I have nightmares, but I have no clue. I feel really confused and want to understand how this works.

I used to have the strangest dreams that were really scary. A hair held between two fingers, seen really close up. This would terrify me. As I got older, I would have the dream less and less. Once when I was a teen, the dream started, just the hair, extreme up-close between the fingers, right there, and then I thought I'm having this dream again. And then I realized I was thinking, and then I realized I was thinking while I was dreaming and i was realizing it. So I just reached out and took the hair and let it go and started to imagine what it would be like to be an adult and have an apartment and a job. (Creative imagination, huh??) I've never considered imagining things I couldn't do as a non-super human, i.e. flying, walking through walls. Or even practicing something while sleeping.

I'm looking forward to expanding my horizons and gaining new understanding about this process.