Difficulties in dreams

[duke396]

Are seemingly easy physical tasks difficult or impossible for you in dreams? Ok don't judge, I'm generally not a violent person. But a lot of my dreams (non-lucid) involve situations where I need/choose to fight... and sometimes I can barely swing my fist (or move my legs in some cases). It feels like I'm exercising underwater, there's so much resistance that I never noticed before I tried. I've had many dreams with guns involved, and they always work somewhat properly except for weird things like a bullet being backwards in the magazine or a revolver with two cylinders and doesn't seem THAT odd at the time. But when I shoot my attacker, even in the face point blank, it has little or no effect. Sometimes there is a visible wound and sometimes not. Once I dreamed I was driving my car, I pulled out of a driveway in reverse and when I switched to first the clutch kept slipping and I kept moving backwards and no matter how I revved the engine or let out the clutch, it still kept slipping until I went into a pond. That is a little abnormal, usually in dreams where I drive nothing goes wrong but its another example of the same feeling. I've heard this sort of thing is somewhat normal... Anyone else have these experiences? Is there a way to make things just work like they're supposed to? It's a very uncomfortable feeling. I wonder what causes it? Anxiety or fear of the situation (either in the dream or in real life?) Usually I'm calm enough until I see the non-effect of my action and get frustrated. Thoughts?

[Puffin]

I enjoy fighting in my dreams too; I think most lucid dreamers try it at some point. If you feel heavy or restrained, imagine that there's no air resistance. This may sound stupid, but I had that issue in a dream once, so I practiced kicking and punching in waking life - I felt how the air moved around me as I did these actions, and how little resistance there was. If you can emulate that feeling in a dream, it may make it easier to fight, and also make it more realistic. It's sort of the same concept with the gun (but in that case, you don't want to try it in waking life!)... Visualize the bullet leaving the gun. Imagine the bullet going foward through the air, and the recoil of someone (or something) that's been hit by it. For the car, imagine the feeling of being pulled back into your seat as you visualize the scenery moving past you, and not coming in front of you, which is what happens when you go backwards. Anxiety and frustration definitely makes these things worse - it's mainly just a control (and sometimes confidence) issue. As you get more practice, it should become easier. Try increasing the vividness of your dreams; that could help too - drink a few glasses of apple juice, or take vitamin B6 a few hours before bed.

[Marm]

Lol Puffin kicking and punching IRL ftw I don't know to be honest. In my dreams I can pretty much do anything on command. Anyways, Puffin is correct. Anxiety and such are mental blocks and serves to hinder the control you exert in your dreams. Try meditation by visualisation. Imagine positive, relaxing senarios and just take some time to appreciate it. Through practice, you can have much better control in your dreams and hopefully do whatever you like! Have fun and good luck!

[duke396]

Puffin, you make a good point on the air resistance and visualizing the bullet and its end effect. But for a non-lucid dream it seems like it may be a little difficult. In fact, it seems like it should force me into lucidity because it isn't realistic? That makes me want to start a whole new topic in the Lucid section about dream signs not working lol. In any case I will definitely try that. It makes sense, but the thing is I do know how it's supposed to feel and what's supposed to happen when a bullet hits someone, it just doesn't go how I expect it to. In a lucid dream, I control the environment by "expecting" things to happen instead of trying to force it, and it just happens. I think the main cause is the anxiety of it. In real life I hate to fight and it takes a lot to push me to that point. But I thought that after doing it enough times in my dreams I would get over it especially since I usually don't feel that anxiety or fear until after my efforts to hurt someone fail. The one with the car was confusing to me because I reversed just fine, but I couldn't stop or go forward. I think you're right though about paying attention in real life. Maybe I take it for granted and in the dream I just have to work for it a little. Oh, and I had forgotten about the B6, thank you for reminding me! PieMan, I do meditate but usually for other reasons. I'll give it a shot. I believe meditation and a small amount of pure chance helped me to achieve my first lucid. I've never fought in a lucid dream though, so I don't know if it applies then. I've been too amused with trying to change things for it to even cross my mind; I'm still pretty new to lucidity.

[Puffin]

Yes, in a non-lucid it presents a much greater challenge. However, no matter how unrealistic the dream is, if you haven't developed awareness and skepticism as to whether or not you're dreaming in real life, then next to nothing will cause you to become lucid. Often you become aware and then test to see if you're dreaming or not by looking around for a dream sign, or doing an RC. The type of control you're describing is called passive control; it's the easiest and most likely to succeed next to active control (or "forcing" everything). But some dreams, no matter how good the method of control is, just don't work the way you want them to. Perhaps you just need more dream clarity (that's another possible cause for poor dream control), which is solved by taking supplements or other clarity-boosting food and drink. But then again, sometimes clarity doesn't have anything to do with control, and it's just the dream itself. I've had a few dreams in a row where my control was practically shot, even though I was drinking apple juice by the bucketload and using very passive control; maybe you're just lucky to be getting them one after the other. In that case, it should end soon. But either way, keep working at it - it's definitely frustrating when things don't go the way you want, but it'll work eventually!

[duke396]

However, no matter how unrealistic the dream is, if you haven't developed awareness and skepticism as to whether or not you're dreaming in real life, then next to nothing will cause you to become lucid. Often you become aware and then test to see if you're dreaming or not by looking around for a dream sign, or doing an RC. I've had so many dreams that upon recalling them I ask myself why in the world I didn't become lucid when (x) happened. But that's how I became lucid for the first time, I got in the passenger side of my car and the steering wheel was in front of me. I became aware but everything faded to black and I woke up. Since then I've had two that I actually got to experience, and both times I just randomly blurted out "I'm dreaming!" for no apparent reason and became lucid. I'm going to practice taking the time to do the reality checks during the day because MILD seems to work best for me (I've had no luck whatsoever with WILD techniques) and the reality checks can only help that. In fact because of the way my two main lucid dreams happened, I've recently started to say "I'm dreaming" to myself or examining clocks during the day when I remember. I've slacked off in the last year or so on my dream recall and my efforts to become lucid for various reasons (time, stress, etc). I'm working on it again though because I'm very interested but I'm having to adjust my sleep schedule slightly so I have time to write them down when I wake up. And just coming to this site is going to help, my recall is already getting better again just because of the thought energy I'm putting into it. I used to have excellent dream recall and clarity (but no lucids) and would even wake up between dreams to write them down. I'm excited, my latest lucid was last month and that's really what got me back into it. It was so much easier to actually stay in the dream that time, I know if I can make myself do RC inside a dream or even just say I'm dreaming that I can do it. If I could just recognize my dream signs, I'd be golden. I'm trying to track down my common ones to kinda plan my reaction to them. I get what you're saying about using the RC to confirm that you're dreaming (and I'm reading through your guide as well). I feel like I don't even need confirmation though, because the moment I suspect I'm dreaming my consciousness shifts. And maybe if I fight while lucid it will help my fighting when not lucid Bah I'm kinda rambling again, I tend to do that lol.

[duke396]

Update to this. I had a lucid dream early this morning (its in my DJ) where I fought even though I didn't really want to and things went a little better than they usually do in my non-lucids, but I still had some issues. I concentrated on my bullets and a knife hitting and stopping my target. I never saw a wound but I stopped a total of 4 out of 6 opponents. Well one is questionable because I ducked before I could see whether he fell or not. Then directly after that dream I had a non-lucid where I got into a short bar brawl with a guy, and I didn't experience the heaviness I was talking about