Lifetime Nightmare sufferer first Lucid Dream last night... couple questions

[chris1004]

So I have a fairly unique situation and wondered if anyone could help and or point me in the right direction. I was adopted at a very young age... around 10 mo. There was abuse and things but I have no memory of that, I had a great childhood and I am well adjusted and happy in life. I have however suffered with nightmares almost my entire life. Not every night, but when I do have them, they are very violent and extremely vivid. I can remember my dreams, some of them I still remember from years ago! So I was introduced to Lucid Dreaming.... right up my alley... Last night I tried a technique for recognition by looking at my hands... it worked! They looked fuzzy... so I had a few minutes of lucidity and then I woke up, repeated that all night. Here is the weird part. At one point in the night, I was faced with a few very disturbing images of people standing in front of me. When I woke up in real life, they were still there momentarily and I could not move. Are there any ways to avoid this type of experience? or should I work it out? Excited to start this experience, and amazed it worked the first time!

[Scionox]

Congrats on lucidity! That experience on waking up sounds like sleep paralysis to me, it's pretty rare unless you have sleep disorders, in which case you would prolly have experienced it earlier, so i don't think you should be worrying about it.

[Finnegan]

I find that sometimes when I wake up suddenly from a dream, some part of my mind is still sleeping causing things from the dream to appear around me, or I'm still trying to move a remnant dream body instead of my physical one. If I want to fully wake up from sleep paralysis I stabilize my perception in the same way I would a dream, focusing on the area around me, and how my body feels in the bed. I have to synchronize my mind with that to dissolve the dream, and then gently move my body.

[JoannaB]

I agree with everyone that this was sleep paralysis. Moving on to other subject of dealing with nightmares through lucid dreaming: Lucid dreaming is great for that! If you have nightmares but your life is a happy one, you should hopefully be able to consistently recognize nightmares as dreams because they are so different than every day life. While waking up from a nightmare is one way to escape it, and you could train yourself to wake up, the better ways in my opinion are either to then try to change the dream thoroughly by leaving the s ene of the nightmare or perhaps even better either confronting your nightmare or changing it into something friendly or ridiculous or empowering. Anyway in my opinion this is absolutely one of the best uses of lucid dreaming. Years ago when I had gotten fairly good at lucid dreaming (am returning to the hobby now after years of absence), I remember I actually learned to like having nightmares because they provided great opportunities for empowering experiences.

[chris1004]

Thanks for the words of encouragement! This is going to be a process I have decided... Last night tried again to no avail. Only remembered a very small portion of my last dream. I think the problem of waking everytime I become lucid, is going to be the hardest to get through. Any tricks to staying in longer?

[Scionox]

Sounds like you might need stabilization, when you get lucid try to engage all of your dream senses and feel objects in the dream is technique i would recommend as well as rubbing hands, for more check out this tutorial: Dream Stabilization and Clarity Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views . Also do you have a dream journal? If not, start writing it and it will help you to improve dream recall. Also try to stay in bed for a while when recalling dream after waking up, that might help with dream recall as well. More tips about dream recall in this tutorial: Dream Recall Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views .

[chris1004]

I can fly!! I can fly!! It was so amazing. About 4 days with no lucidity, and last night I listened to a sleep meditation audio before I fell asleep.. Actually think it made it harder for me to sleep.. Later in the night though, I came to lucidity in a fast way!.. Driving down the road way over the speed limit and zipped right by a police officer. I realized I was dreaming and reached down to touch my wedding ring, and strangely it felt exactly as it does in real life. Didn't matter, I was already lucid, so figured " I better do something cool, before I wake up" so I jumped out of the car and watched it land in the lake.. As I looked up and flew about 100 ft up in the air. Stopped, did not fall, and thought " fly through town" and I just took off. It was awesome! Woke up shortly after finding my wife at a shop downtown , I seem to get excited when I meet people I know, and wake up... Keep on trying!

[JoannaB]

Congratulations! Sounds like an awesome lucid dream!

[Scionox]

Congrats!

[chris1004]

Really glad I found this site, so much good advice and support. My wife likes to sleep and not know what's going on... Thinks I'm weird to spend time "working" on sleeping. You guys get it! Lol.

[TranquilityTrip]

I can fly!! I can fly!! It was so amazing. About 4 days with no lucidity, and last night I listened to a sleep meditation audio before I fell asleep.. Actually think it made it harder for me to sleep.. Later in the night though, I came to lucidity in a fast way!.. Driving down the road way over the speed limit and zipped right by a police officer. I realized I was dreaming and reached down to touch my wedding ring, and strangely it felt exactly as it does in real life. Didn't matter, I was already lucid, so figured " I better do something cool, before I wake up" so I jumped out of the car and watched it land in the lake.. As I looked up and flew about 100 ft up in the air. Stopped, did not fall, and thought " fly through town" and I just took off. It was awesome! Woke up shortly after finding my wife at a shop downtown , I seem to get excited when I meet people I know, and wake up... Keep on trying! Glad you enjoyed it, so how did flying feel? Any cool sensations?

[chris1004]

It was very dark and over the water on our bay here. The feeling you have in your belly when your on a rollercoaster was there and it was pretty incredible that the wind still exists in my dream, because I wanted it too