Thread: Overcoming Nightmares Tutorial

I follow some tips described below to avoid Nightmares.

1) Understand what is causing your nightmares and deal with the issues before a nightmare had the chance to develop.
2) Go to bed without the fear of having a nightmare when you fall asleep.
3) Get through the night without a single bad dream waking you from your slumber.
4) Wake up in the morning after a full night’s sleep feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.
5) Get back your peace, your energy and your life.

Every time you use non-standard abbreviation in a tutorial without explaining what it means, God kills a newbie.

#1 is truth. Most of my nightmares come 'round when I'm neglecting my dream journal. If you're fully lucid, you know that your dreams can't hurt you. Much.

I like #3 as an idea. I have a recurring nightmare character, so I should really know by now that any time I run into him, it isn't real. I'll try the visualization next.

Originally Posted by lovesbmw

3) Get through the night without a single bad dream waking you from your slumber.

Gee, thanks, love. If you manage to not have a nightmare, you won't have any nightmares!

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

1) Learn how to lucid dream.

4) When you have a nightmare, and become lucid, instead of running away from your enemy, turn around and defeat your enemy. You may do this by fighting them, killing them, eating them, absorbing them, hugging them, telling them you love them, or giving them a gift.

I have to disagree here. Fighting your nightmare will actually sustain the very thing you're trying to overcome.

To properly vanquish a nightmare, you have to first understand how it's formed. Just like in real life, when something annoys you, you tend to focus more of your attention on it. The more you focus on it, the more it annoys you. Your focused attention blows things out of proportion, and that is what causes nightmares.

Fighting them just makes things worse. Ignoring the nightmare elements will dissipate them.

I had a nightmare last night. All I did was fight that thing face-to-face, and now I'm abit relieved. But later something else scared me, something that I just can't fight or vanish. Then, what should I do?

Wake up.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

I have to disagree here. Fighting your nightmare will actually sustain the very thing you're trying to overcome.

To properly vanquish a nightmare, you have to first understand how it's formed. Just like in real life, when something annoys you, you tend to focus more of your attention on it. The more you focus on it, the more it annoys you. Your focused attention blows things out of proportion, and that is what causes nightmares.

Fighting them just makes things worse. Ignoring the nightmare elements will dissipate them.

I agree ignoring is a great method for defeating terrifying dream characters or situations. Thanks for bringing that up.

Sometimes facing and defeating a negative dream character, is a good way to conquer it, also. Sometimes it's better to fight something, and sometimes it's better to ignore it. I think this call depends on the individual, and the type of nightmare they are having.

Here's an example from personal experience: For years, I would have dreams of monsters, demons, or murderers chasing me. At this point in my dreaming life, I had never discovered the concept of ignoring in dreams. When I became lucid, I would turn and faced my enemies, and killed them all with swords and chainsaws. I felt empowered, and relieved, then I would go fly or something.

At this point, I am going to go out on a limb, and bring up a concept which may get this thread moved. Whatever. There are two types of enemies you fight in dreams: Dream Characters, and Entities.

A Dream Character is a manifestation of your own mind, requiring your attention to exist. They will always disappear if you ignore them, and give your attention to something else. But, if you simply look away, but are still thinking about them, (like: I am going to try the ignoring thing, I hope that monster isn't still chasing me) it will exist because it's really simply a thought.

Sometimes killing a Dream Character is easier than ignoring it, because you may still have fear, which will keep your mind on that Dream Character, even though you are focusing on something else. If you kill it, you will no longer be afraid of it, which will make it easier to ignore in the future. For example, the second time you encounter the monster after killing it, you may say, "Oh, I already killed you. *yawn* Bye!" and go fly away, and do some cool lucid dreaming.

An Entity is another mind's dream body. It could be another dreamer, or something else. An Entity will not disappear if you ignore it, because they are existing as the manifestation of another's mind. Entities cannot be ignored out of existence. You must defeat them somehow if they are giving you nightmares. Fighting is one option. You may hug them, kill them, give them a present, negotiate or torture them. There are other possibilities, but my main point is ignoring will always work for defeating Dream Characters (once you learn to do it well, it is a skill you may have to develop) but ignoring will never work for entities.

Situational Nightmares:

Sometimes we have a situational nightmare, such as falling to our death, which does not involve dream characters. You can say, "this is a dream!" and dispel the fear. You could fly away, or choose to hit the ground. I used to have a strong fear of heights so, I would fall off of buildings often in nightmares. Sometimes I would not realize it was a dream, so I didn't wake up. I would hit the ground, get up, and say, "Oh! This is a dream."

After that happened a few times, I would become lucid in midair, then just let myself fall to the ground, bounce, and laugh. After that I began intentionally jumping off of skyscrapers in dreams. This helped me overcome my fear of heights in waking life, which helped these nightmares to stop. This is a way of defeating a situational nightmare.

This makes me realize I forgot a very important point: If you realize the nightmare is due to a specific phobia, and you overcome that fear in waking life, then the nightmares will disappear.

You could also ignore it. For example: You are falling down the side of a skyscraper. You become lucid. You say, "This is a dream. I am not even really falling." Now just by you ignoring the situation of falling, you stop falling and float in midair.

Thanks for the provocative conversation, The Cusp.