Thread: Lucid Nightmare

I've had a little over thirty lucid dreams, but it was only last week I had my first lucid nightmare. In my dream I became lucid in a store, and walked outside. Two men grabbed me, and another came up with a knife. He stabbed me in the stomach over and over again. I couldn't do a thing. Even though I've looked for nightmares in lucid dreams before, all of what I usually do, accepting and loving whatever it is, flew from me. I was helpless. And it's been a struggle for me to go for a lucid now. I've stopped ADA and MILD, which were my main methods to get a lucid dream. I've also stopped my dream journal. My lucid nightmare just took away all of my excitement, and I'm a little nervous it will happen again. I've even been staying up late to lessen my chances of a lucid dream. It was only today that I realized this. I kept giving excuses to myself for what I was doing. Can anyone help me on this? Please. I don't want to give up lucid dreaming, but it shook me to have this happen

I usually only have nightmares if something bad is going on in my waking life. Is that happening to you?

I guess the problem now is that you are expecting something bad to happen when you LD, so you are fearful and that could re-inforce the likelihood.

The only things I can suggest are, do a few positive, enjoyable things in your waking life, and re-inforce the good vibes by a suitable mantra before you try again.

It is likely to be a one off, just like nightmares are.

Actually no. Nothing bad was going on, in fact I am extremely happy right now. The past few weeks have been absolutely amazing. What's even stranger is I haven't had a normal nightmare since I was about five

That was exactly my thought. Even though I know worrying about it would make it more probable that it would happen, I couldn't stop myself.

Thank you so much for your advice. There is a dance tonight I'm going to which will be way fun for me, that should help. I love the idea of the mantra, that should help a ton.

Thanks for helping me, I should be able to avoid my fear now

If you were lucid then you could have controlled of the situation or, more simply, you could have simply flown away from these malevolent DC's. It sounds to me that this was a semi-lucid dream. I have had 100's of lucid dreams and I have never had a had a 'lucid nightmare'... not would I ever want one. I hope it does not happen to you again!

let us know how you get on. I hope I have helped!

There is no reason you should be fearful of your dreams, as they are nothing more than a part of your imagination and cannot hurt you in any way. Are you going to let some fictional guys your mind made up stop you from lucid dreaming? One bad experience shouldn't prevent you from experiencing the endless fun you can have while lucid :p

If I were you I would approach this as an interesting challenge, perhaps as your mind challenging you to take lucidity to the next level. Lucidity is a spectrum not just a yes no proposition: at the most basic level of lucidity we may vaguely realize that we are dreaming but have faulty logic and very little control, higher levels of lucidity may have increased awareness but still very little control and we may still fear dream aspects that we should not fear, at its height lucidity involves awareness that nothing in the dream can harm you and either ability to control or at least to accept your dreams as they happen. This may be a challenge for you to gain further lucidity. Your mind may be telling you that you should take lucidity to a higher level in the future. Also when I was really into lucid dreaming before (now I am just starting back and have not achieved any lucidity yet) but in the good old days I actually learned to look forward to nightmares because they often were a dream sign clue ing me in that it was just a dream, and then I would often try to befriend my attackers or challenge them fearlessly, and usually the end result was amusing or empowering or both! Good luck to you.

EDIT: Out of some reason this thread reminded me of the Spanish language taize religious chant Nada Te Turbe translated as Let Nothing Disturb You. I unfortunately cannot post the link here because I have only been a member for 1 day and the rules of this forum prevent me, but I encourage you to Google it. While this is a religious song, I would encourage you to take it to heart even if you are not religious or have a different religion. Literally this song is about do not worry because God is enough, and if you are religious that could certainly apply in dreams as well as in waking life. Even if you are not religious, and I hope noone will think I am blasphemous here (I am religious myself and I do not mean to blaspheme here), but in a way in our dreams we are God (we have God like powers and control) and that suffices. You may consider chanting this song to yourself if you think it would help. If this helps you, great. If not, please ignore it.

Thanks for all the information, guys! I think that faceonmars may be right, it could have been a semi-lucid dream. I've just barely gotten back into things, as after my last post I was having problems with my girlfriend, and just put dreaming on a pause. But I'm excited to be back, and ready to get lucid! A higher level of lucidity would be great, even though that was the first lucid dream I've had like that, most have been exceptional. And Joanna, I appreciate you adding the song. I regret that I haven't had time as of now to look it up, but I will make time for that tomorrow morning! Thanks again everyone. I am grateful for all the advice

I have to be honest, that sounds a little unusual to me now, but then I recall I wasn't always at my current knowledge and skill level with regard to lucid dreaming. You see when I find myself lucid in a dream others would call a nightmare, I'm no longer EVER really scared. Like for example, I remember a LD where i seemed to be in like the cretaceous time period and I'm just walking through a very foggy jungle when three velociraptors jump out of the bushes and start running at me. And all I did was very calmly reached out as the first one tried to bite me and I pulled it's lower jaw off and proceeded to kick it and the other velociraptors' butts.

So long story short it seems to me that your expectation of how threatening or scary something is directly controls how much it can actually ruin your dream.

As a side note when I dream of something scary it's usually zombies. A combination of playing the game Left 4 Dead and learning how to lucid dream better has made it so when I do dream of the walking dead it's no longer like "Oh no! There are dead people walking and eating people!" to now I kind of chuckle with a mischievous grin and think to myself "I wonder how many I can kill?" as I raise my sub-machine gun.

Untamedchaos, I'm honestly not sure. I haven't had a nightmare in so long, I don't know what to expect. That's why this was also strange for me.

i had one before. I was sitting on the beach looking into the sky. I see like a serpent in the sky that has lights like a UFO. Everyone around me starts screaming "what is that?". UFOs are a dream sign of mine so i look at my hands and i know whats going to happen next. The UFO explodes and sends a giant white light that blinds everyone while the explosion sends a huge shockwave throughout the earth. People are screaming like they are being skinned alive. It was so realistic, after i died a woke up and it gave me a good scare.

Okay, sorry, then if my advice/ experience didn't help any. The only other thing i can really tell you that might help if you do experience another nightmare is
A) Don't be afraid to die. It will happen. It might be unpleasant but it definitely won't reach the level of discomfort, as say, waking pain. I have died in my dreams in some of the most horrific fashions you could probably imagine- I've been shot, stabbed, eaten alive, sawed in half, been sucked into a black hole, watched a nuke as it fell on the city i was in, been bitten by a zombie and had to watch myself zombify, etc.
B) If you're good enough or you get good enough with lucid dreaming nothing should ever scare you, because every dream character or creature or threatening obstacle is a chump compared to you and your abilities.

If I could share another example, in one LD I was in a haunted house for some reason, watching tv for some reason, and the Clown from Stephen King's It pops his head out from under the sofa I'm sitting on and, again, I just kicked him in the face and he retreated and I had no more trouble with him that dream.
Now the same night within the same dream I lost a little bit of lucidity and for some reason I'm now being chased through a very 19th century looking cobblestone-y city streets by the grim reaper. At some point I think to myself- "Waitaminute-This is my dream, so I'll chase HIM." And as soon as I did this he somehow knew the tables had turned so he runs away from me!