Thread: using fear in lucid dreams

I did read somewhere that you can get rid of phobias using lucid dreaming. This is also one of the main reasons why I got interested in lucid dreaming.

I can't seem to find the article where I read about this, but here is a quote from a similar article:

The dream space creates an accurate reflection of our fears and sometimes even exaggerates them. However, in dreams we can create scenarios that are not real to project our fears onto their landscape, and through practice overcome them. If the dreaming environment is even somewhat similar to the real environment that we are afraid of, then we could use the dream environment as practice to abolish our fears when faced with the real environment.

One other useful purpose for lucid dreaming is being able to practice new techniques and strategies. In the same example, this particular person who has a fear of public speaking might like to test out a new technique with his audience. In real life, this could be quite a risk if the technique is unconventional, such as opening with a sentence that might be controversial. In the lucid dreaming realm he could practice this a number of times to see how it comes across before adopting the technique in real life.

Originally Posted by Ekyu

could it be that it wouldn't even effect u one bit? Cause u experienced it so many times on mutch worser things in ur dreams.

I believe this is possible. For example, let's say you have arachnophobia. As soon as you see a spider you start to freak out. You can use a lucid dream to walk into a room filled with hundreds of spiders. Do this several times, and next time you see a spider in real life, the fear should be a lot less. You were already locked in a room with hundreds of spiders several times before, so why should just this one spider scare you now? (I don't know if this example actually makes any sense at all; I'm not good at explaining things in the middle of the night. )

Originally Posted by Ekyu

Is it possible that u would be in complete control of ur fear in real life aswell?

I don't think you can be in complete control of your fear. As I tried to explain above, you should be able to get rid of phobias using lucid dreams. However, there will still be things that will scare you (for example, using the bathroom and realizing too late that you are out of toilet paper ).

I hope this helps somehow.

That's a huge question Ekyu, and I'll try my best to answer it.

There is definitely a correlation between what happens in Lucid Dreams and real life. There is research showing that you can practice guitar in your dream and have that extra practice translate into real life skill.

If you consciously create the worst nightmare possible, then I would expect that you will slowly become comfortable with that situation, especially if you create it 100-200 times. This is all about the process of desensitization that occurs in real life. A shy person can push out of his comfort zone socially enough to become outgoing and comfortable. It's not that the content itself is inherently scary, its the perception of that experience. As a result, confronting those mental images repeatedly will change your perception and thus your experience.

Conclusively, if you are deathly afraid of heights, you can imagine flying or reaching the tops of mountains. If you do this enough and confront that fear (especially in the safe environment of a lucid dream where death can't happen), then I would assume that this would also translate into your real life experience because you are changing your subconscious interpretation of the event/situation.

To answer your ultimate question: I doubt humans could ever be in complete control of our fear, but we can take gigantic strides to overcoming it and facing it. If we feared nothing then we would be irrational, but if we stopped fearing these random mental constructs such as public speaking that have no tangible consequence then our lives could be massively improved. This is essentially exploring and communicating with your subconscious. This type of self-communication is one VERY interesting aspect of lucid dreaming.

Maybe talk to a dream character and ask these questions or search it on google in your dreams.

~CK

I got rid of all my fears for a short period of time after creating and fighting with a DC that contained the mental representations of all my fears. Though for me its so dully without fear that I had to go and bring back my fears from that DC <.<

Interesting, this could also be used to help victims cope with their traumas.

Very intresting answers, and yes, i would say it could help with traumas. although facing something like that is gonna be almost impossible to get over it completely, cause u will need to face the demons of that period constantly over and over again.

It might help with some people but i would say it's quite dangerous cause everybody is different and in some situations this is gonna make it worse cause you gonna keep yourself locked each lucid dream in that stage of your life. (this is for the big ones though)

But smaller ones i think 80-90% (random number ) of the people could handle that easy, aslong as it's not little children.

But the biggest challenge is ofcourse to create so many lucid dreams, atleast a couple each week to get a good effect. if the time period is to long between lucid dreams it's gonna reduce the effect, so i would say these kinda things for many people only gonna work when they have some magical pill or something like that to let them enter a lucid dream that last atleast a couple minutes.