Thread: HELP!! Lucid= panic

You must be a natural. After how many hours of sleep do these experiences usually occur? Early in the night? In the morning?

As for advice, what you want to do is have a plan and remember it when you become lucid. Start with something really simple. Looking at your hands is a common choice. When you become lucid, just try to remember to look at your hands. Count your fingers, from right to left. Whatever happens after that is okay. If you want to wake yourself up after, that's okay for now. The real goal is to bring some memory and rationality into your mind. With some practice, you'll be more calm and collected. You can choose to act instead of just react.

Ok, so last night while I was dreaming for some reason I was curious to see if I was dreaming. I decided to follow some advice I found on here by holding my nose and trying to breathe thru it, and lo and behold I could. So then I knew I was dreaming and I tried to relax myself so the panic would not set in... and at first it worked! Finally I didn't have that panic to want to wake myself up... didn't last very long tho, I saw a very frightening image and forced myself awake... again I agressivaly fell back asleep and then knew I was dreaming (which I did the nose thing again, just to make sure, which made me start laughing in the dream, it was really cool to be able to pinch my nose and still breathe thru it- for some reason thats what triggered my sense of having some sort of control ) This time I felt a little more at ease, but I still could not control my surroundings/actions of the dream. Eventually I would get freaked out again and wake myself up... this repeated several times before ending. But now I seem to be finding a little more control. I forgot to do the hand thing. I dunno, I guess my biggest anxiety about knowing I'm dreaming is the slower breathing (which I tried to control last night for the very first time) and also for some reason when I have these dreams the fear of getting stuck in them, never waking up always enters my thoughts...? But it was awesome to be able to control some portion of the dream and fear, which was very calming. Just thought I'd share my progress. I will definitly keep working on this.