Overcoming the Old Hag Syndrome

**LukeSkyy** · 07-13-2011 10:34 AM

Hey guys,

I've been aware of lucid dreaming techniques for a couple years now, but have not really been trying to lucid dream, I more just try to experience it when it happens. Lately though, I have been having the same thing happen to me frequently. I will drift into sleep, and my environment will be the exact same as where I fell asleep, my dark bedroom. As soon as I become aware that I am in a dream after looking at my hand and having my fingers criss cross/become slightly invisible, I FREEZE suddenly. I become completely paralyzed and often times lay in my "dream bed" for what seems like forever. It is a little frightening honestly, laying there alone, in my dream, in the dark, not being able to move, and not having any power over when I wake up or what I can do in the dream. How can I overcome this? As soon as I realize I am in the dream after a reality check and become frozen, how do I regain my ability to move freely and continue to control the dream? Since I am always in a dark bedroom when this happens, being able to teleport to a sunny day, or having a dream girl apear in my bed would be cool, anything other than being frozen there by myself haha.

**SilverBullet** · 07-13-2011 12:11 PM

This kinda stuff happened to me to when I first started wake induced lucid dreaming. I don't want to force any beliefs on you but I think it's because the energy body or dream body isn't developed enough yet. The only true way to overcome this is to keep lucid dreaming and you'll get used to the laws of the dream plane. Then you'll be able to move. For me it first started with not being able to move once I was in the dream in my bed. Here is my first WILD Later on I was able to move but it wasn't easy. It felt like my legs were weak, or the room was floating on water and moving back and forth. Over time I learned to get used to the dream and now I have no problems at all. When I transition into a dream now, I can just get up. I've done around 70 something WILDs by now.

**LukeSkyy** · 07-13-2011 08:35 PM

ok cool, but what techniques do you use to get up easily? what do you focus on to overcome the sleep paralysis? I get stuck in my bed and I can look around but there is nothing I can do to move or get up.

**SilverBullet** · 07-13-2011 08:39 PM

Originally Posted by LukeSkyy

ok cool, but what techniques do you use to get up easily? what do you focus on to overcome the sleep paralysis? I get stuck in my bed and I can look around but there is nothing I can do to move or get up.

Well, one thing I did was slowly wiggle my fingers then move from my fingers, to my arms to my shoulders and then I can get the rest of my body and get up.

**Robot_Butler** · 07-13-2011 10:16 PM

Think of your dream body as your imagination. Right now, the only thing you have ever known is existing in your physical body, in physical space. It is what you are used to. It is what you default to as soon as you become lucid. In this situation, you are not really trapped anywhere. You are asleep, and imagining yourself in this situation. You are imagining a dream bedroom, a dream bed, a dream body. None of this is real. It is just a habit to think of yourself in this context.

When you find yourself in this situation, just imagine something else. Imagine being somewhere new, with a new body. To get started thinking this way, use a recent vivid memory. Chose something that comes to mind easily and engages your physical senses of movement, speed, touch, ect. Then, just run through the memory a few times in your mind, and follow it into a new dream.