Thread: Sleep position affects my dreams

Hi quick intro , I'm new to DV but I have been reading these forums for about a year now . I have been having lucid dreams since I was a child but of course I never new what was happening and I had no name for it . I have had several WILDs ( feels good to attach a name to the experience ) and SP is something that I can achieve at will but before understanding what it was I just wanted OUT , very frightening for a child . I still have much to learn about dream control and this site has been more than helpful .
Back to the topic . My dreams are more vivid , lucid dreams come easier , when I sleep on my back , it has always been this way . The only problem is that my dreams are usually nightmares 95% of the time when sleeping on my back . Anyone else experience this ? or anything similar ?

I find that I get nightmares when I sleep on my side, actually.

What's frustrating is that i'm most comfortable on my back thats why I want more dream control .

me too. sorry. i am a beginner at lucid dreaming.. and really want to be able to do it.. no luck yet.

If you believe that you get nightmares while lying on the back, then you will get nightmares.
Just believe that you won t get a nightmare. (Or believe that you get a normal dream)

Silmare's got it right. If you believe something, it becomes placebo and expected. I once thought that sleeping on my side would immobilize me in my WILD dreams because all of my WILD's where I was on my back were more vivid, but the ones on my side were lacking. Then once, I forgot I was sleeping on my side, had a WILD, and it became one of my longest and most successful/vivid WILD's I've ever had. Sleeping on your back will not give you nightmares, anymore than sleeping on your side, front etc. will. It's all in your head, try using the nightmare (if its reoccuring) as a dreamsign to become lucid, and when you do, instead of fighting or fleeing from the fear, talk to it, show it love and ask what it represents so that you can solve the nightmare problem rather than having it keep reappearing. That idea I got from robert waggoner and stephen laberge (two experts in LD'ing).

Ever since I was a kid, sleeping on my back has always made lucid dreams come more easily. By the time I was in middle school, was when I started sleeping on my back purposefully, to experiment with inducing lucids, instead of just having spontaneous DILDs. Even now, I get them more frequently, when I lay on my back, but I also usually have a harder time falling asleep, so I don't do it all that often.

Lol, nice avatar O.
Usually I fall asleep easier while lying on my side.
And I agree you propably made it a placebo.

Originally Posted by Finlander

Lol, nice avatar O.

Thankya!

Thanks for all of the helpful replies . The placebo thing is something I never thought of , as if the subconcious is repeating a mantra of its own ( you will have a nightmare while sleeping on your back ) . Looks like I'm going to change that by repeating my own mantra while concious .

Sleep position is actually one of the current experiments on Stephen LaBerge's Lucidy Institute website. I haven't done it myself as I find it very difficult to fall asleep on my back. There might be something to it though, I mean they say lying on your back makes it easier to enter SP. Like others have said though, if you already have preconceived ideas of how positions affect you then it's probably largely placebo. If you can use placebo to your advantage though then that's always a good thing!

I've noticed that all of my WILD's are either on my front or side. I cannot remember what position I woke up in after the DILD's that I had though.

Personally, I can't WILD unless I'm sleeping on my side. But I almost always sleep on my side so it may just be a matter of comfort.

I do understand the placebo effect. I used to have a tons of nightmares as a child. Never liked to sleep on my back, preferred on stomach. And I don't think it was a placebo effect, because at first, for a long time, I didn't associate sleeping position to any type of a dream. Just later noticed, that every time I woke up from a nightmare, I was on my back. But since I realized that, I agree, that now it may be partially fueled by placebo effect.

What I found out now, when sleeping with raised pillows, almost to a half-sitting position (I like to sleep like this when having stuffy nose), I don't get nightmares, even when sleeping on my back.

Originally Posted by gab

I do understand the placebo effect. I used to have a tons of nightmares as a child. Never liked to sleep on my back, preferred on stomach. And I don't think it was a placebo effect, because at first, for a long time, I didn't associate sleeping position to any type of a dream. Just later noticed, that every time I woke up from a nightmare, I was on my back. But since I realized that, I agree, that now it may be partially fueled by placebo effect.

What I found out now, when sleeping with raised pillows, almost to a half-sitting position (I like to sleep like this when having stuffy nose), I don't get nightmares, even when sleeping on my back.

Thats the same thing I do ! Except for the plugged up nose I sleep on my side with raised pillows .

Whenever I try to sleep on my back I get an overwhelming urge to turn over. Most of the times I wake up from an LD I am on my back. Most of the times I've WILD'd was on my back.