Curing Anxiety Using Lucid Dreaming

Is it possible to cure anxiety using lucid dreaming? And if so, how?
Please this is a very serious topic for me.
Please leave a comment on your thoughts. Thanks.

I would think that a better 'cure' for anxiety would be meditation, just letting yourself be at ease.

if there are specific things that trigger anxiety for you in waking life you could use lucid dreaming to experience them without anxiety. Like you could practice talking to strangers or girls or whatever. but i'm no clinical psychologist! i'm just a flying tangle of delicious pastas! :D

I cured my anxiety by using the WILD method. I had very bad anxiety for a while and I always thought that I was having a heart attack. I even fainted once and was taken to the emergency room. But as I was meditating in bed relaxing and trying to pass into sleep consciously my anxiety would always act up at a certain phase and my heart would skip a beat. Usually when that happens I would tense up even more and try to make it beat regularly. Then I would be paranoid about it. As a child and a young adult I never had anxiety and I would WILD almost every night naturally without trying. But this was a roadblock to my WILD practice. It always took me out of the meditative space and I always gave up and went to sleep normally.

So, what I did was this: I asked myself "what am I afraid of?" and it was dying. I was afraid of dying. To hell with it I thought, I will do my WILD practice and if my heart skips I will not react. I will continue to be in a relaxed state. Even if I die, I will go into death meditating. I got to that phase of my practice where the anxiety would always come. My heart skipped a beat but instead of reacting I just surfed through it and immediately I was in a lucid dream. It was like snapping your fingers, that is how fast the transition went. I had an epiphany: I was afraid of dying and I was afraid of anxiety which created a nasty feedback loop where I was always anxious to a degree. This fear of death and this tenseness is what was keeping me from consciously dreaming, since dreaming is related to death. It was keeping me from an expanded consciousness because I felt I had to always make an act of will to hold onto my body which also was willfully holding on to day-to-day awareness.

I cured my anxiety by being ruthlessly honest with myself and facing the fear and going through it. Because nothing can really harm you if you face it. But the trick was learning how to relax even when afraid. Breathing is the key here. Deep slow smooth breathing. Filling the whole lungs, especially the top area of the chest where all the tension and fear is held. Effortlessly breathing out. In fact, just let your body exhale for you. Immediately inhale as deeply and smoothly as possible, stretching your ribs. I used to be afraid to breathe because it would make the dissociation worse, but that was because I was hyperventilating. But if I slowed down my breathing too much it felt like my heart would stop. But knowing that all the physical symptoms of anxiety are all caused by the mind and have no reality in themselves, and knowing that nothing can harm me if I lived on my terms, and knowing that letting go of control could be fun rather than dangerous, and knowing that death could not destroy me, I could breathe through it. If you can breathe, you can heal yourself.

Hey thats a good tip! Thanks!

That was lovely. Thank you. <3

By the way, I used to have anxiety aswell, and meditation was what done it for me.
I had been having anxiety attacks since i was a young (5 or so) but i never knew what they were. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and i'd just be freaking out. My parents didn't know what was going on.
I started meditating halfway through highschool (still in HS right now, 2nd last year) and I haven't had any attacks for a while now, 6+ months. I'm not sure if you've been given this advice, but just make sure you control your breathing.

Good luck, bud ^_^

I agree with what's been said here, that meditation and being honest with yourself are probably the best ways to work through your anxiety. Meditation is naturally calming and will help bring you a peace from anxiety, as well as allowing you to see where the anxiety stems from. Learn some basic breathing exercises and begin with focal/void meditation, you should be able to find plenty of information on the internet :)

I believe ShockWave is also going to be running another semester of his meditation class in the DVA in August. It's a great class and taught me a lot about meditation, I really recommend you join it when it starts!

What sort of anxiety are you talking about? General anxiety? Anxiety about a particular upcoming event? Stephen LaBerge describes strategies to reduce anxiety about upcoming interviews, performances, etc.... He also discusses using lucid dreaming to increase waking life self-confidence. I could share one of his exercises with you, if you like. I have yet to attempt using a lucid dream for these purposes (having a bit of a dry spell), but I still find his book, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, very interesting. Also, reading something intellectual about lucid dreaming is good for increasing the likelihood of lucid dreams, in my experience.

Of course you can. Practice the social situations your anxious about in a dream. Or tell your subconscious in a dream "I will NOT be anxious"

A friend of mine cured her anxiety through a suggestion by her therapist. In her lucid dream she would say "I will be anxiety free today." After a while of doing this, she's day "I will be anxiety free all week," and so on. She said it's worked for her. It's worth a try. :)

I guess perhaps you could do the same thing through mantras? Instead of inducing an LD you induce peaceful feelings :D

I've seen a few people on here in the past say that they stopped suffering from depression once they got into lucid dreaming. I too haven't had any bad depressive episodes since I started LDing. As anxiety and depression can be related, it might be something worth looking into?

It actually helped me to realize that many celebrities also suffer from anxiety. The ones that I remember are Johhny Depp, Oprah Winfrey, Scarlet Johanssen, etc. I don't know why it helped me, maybe because of the comraderie and realizing that I am not the only one whose mind is more powerful than their body.

When I think of curing anxiety I think of it as being able to feel completely at peace and happy with your life, like a child who's not yet started analyzing anything and acts spontaneously and enjoys every moment.
Can you reach that state by using lucid dreams?

For example, I tend to feel a lot of stress and discomfort when I meet lots of new people at once, like if I start at a new school with new classmates, and I would kinda like to get rid of that kind of stress with the help of lucid dreams if that's possible.

Good topic. Very interesting.

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