Questions about Lucid Dreaming and trauma?

[KasCanFly]

Hi there, I wasn't sure whether to put this as my introduction or as a here, but as it is going to essentially be questions, I figured here was probably the best place to put it - although feel free to move it if I'm wrong! Ok, so, I'm uneducated about Lucid Dreaming and whilst some of my future questions might pertain only to generic queries, my initial questions are personally relating to me. I have PTSD and various other conditions including a dissociative disorder stemming from over a decade of complex childhood abuse. One of the many ways this affects me is nightmares, which is where Lucid Dreaming comes in. If I could in reduce my nightmares I would be very much relieved and LD'ing definitely seems to be something worth looking into for that. Problem number 1: On a personal issue I have a problem, my nightmares relate to my abuse and abusers, if that were lucid, I'm fearful that it would be more re-traumatising rather than helpful. I do understand that LD'ing is supposed to be you being conscious that you are dreaming and that you have control over your dreams, I also understand there is such a thing as Lucid Nightmares where that control is lost, however you are aware that you are dreaming. I am terrified of the idea of my nightmares being more vivid and/or me being able to remember them better. How common are Lucid Nightmares and in a case with PTSD would LD'ing be helpful to control general nightmares or treacherous, possibly exposing you to more than you can handle? As it stands my sleep is riddled with nightmares and I wake up many times every night from them, with varying degrees of remembrance, but sleep still feels a little safer than being awake where instead I get flashbacks and panic attacks, if I lucid dream will it seem more dangerous when I sleep? Problem number 2: When I'm awake, my dissociation affects me to the extent whether I wonder if (and often am convinced) I am dreaming, I don't really know reality exists when I'm awake, even more so around sleeping and waking - I've woken up and thought I was still dreaming or on a few occasions, dead before - on one incident several hours passed and I was more than a little pissed off that my Social Worker phoned me in my new found afterlife and it took most of the rest of the day to realise I was awake. I am scared on a daily basis of waking up and being back when the abuse was still going and also separately of not waking up and another part of me waking up and I would not be in control of my own body. If I have so little hold on reality should I be messing with making my dreams more real, won't this add to the confusion or will in fact help? Problem number 3: I'm tired when I wake up, exhausted from the previous night, it's a never ending cycle of tiredness. I feel oddly both too aware and barely aware of anything at the same time. If I lucid dream will I not be more tired in the morning from having been conscious during my sleep? Can I choose to dream normally after gaining the ability to dream lucidly? And finally from what you've read here (obviously depending on your answers), do you think that Lucid Dreaming could be helpful for me/something that I should consider or do you think I should avoid it at all costs? Thanks for reading, sorry for the length!

[JoannaB]

In answer to 1: Yes, I think Lucid Dreaming could help with your nightmares. I think your focus would be on gaining control, and changing nightmares into positive experiences. No, lucid nightmares are not common, I believe, and basically you would need to ensure that you learn control as early as possible, and expect it, and then your expectation would make lucid nightmares even less likely. You would need to make sure not to worry about lucid nightmares because if you expect them, they would be more likely to happen. In dreams expectations often change the dream. In answer to concern 2: The only negative I ever heard for lucid dreaming is that it is not recommended for people who cannot tell the difference between dream and waking because if you are convinced you are dreaming while waking then doing stuff that could hurt you or others would be a problem. On the other hand, if you just avoided doing stuff that you would regret if you were wrong and it was waking when you were convinced it was a dream, that might help. Bottom line though: given this part of your problems, you are one of the few people who would need to consult a doctor to help determine whether lucid dreaming is right for you given this condition. In answer to 3: I think if you are exhausted whenever you wake up, your problems may be with NREM sleep. Do you get enough restorative deep sleep without dreams? Also if you generally were to wake up from deep sleep, that could explain being exhausted. Anyway, lucid dreaming is not any more tiring than regular dreaming. Given number 2, I would say you should consult a doctor to see whether lucid dreaming is right for you.

[Goldenspark]

Good answer JoannaB. Hey KasCanFly, I would only add a few things; First off, I'm hardly an expert lucid dreamer, and my experience is limited, but I would suggest you read up about it some more. It might help you to understand about lucid dreaming and the differences between waking and dreaming realities. That could help rationalise things in your own mind. It might also help you to understand a bit more about what to expect from lucid dreaming, what it might be able to do for you etc. On your problem 1; I think you are right to be wary. No one on this forum can know what might happen if you start trying to LD. I have read a few stories where people have been able to confront their nightmares in a lucid nightmare, and in doing so have nullified them, but it's no means certain. On a more positive note, as JoannaB said, lucid nightmares do seem to be rare. Your subconscious may prefer to LD about something pleasant, and if you do have some level of control, you can make it that way yourself. You might start doing that in your waking life right away, by way of distraction. On problem 2; Read up on here, and elsewhere, about reality checks. If you are not quite sure what is real and what is not, reality checks should be able to help you both in waking life and while dreaming. But bear in mind that if you are dreaming, doing a reality check might make you lucid. You may want to be prepared for that. On problem 3; Problem 3 might make it very difficult for you to LD anyway. If you are not getting good sleep it will be more difficult to LD. There might be another issue, and that is maybe because of your fears, you may be fearful of lucid dreaming on a subconscious level, and that could stop it happening. One thing I would suggest is you get some professional help. Now that you are aware of lucid dreaming, and are thinking about it, it is possible it may happen at any time, just because you are thinking about it. If you are sleep deprived it could also happen while napping, not just when you sleep. It might be a good idea to prepare a strategy for what to do if you do have a lucid dream that is not what you want. Don't let any of the above put you off the hope that you show in your post. Positivity is everything with lucid dreaming! Good luck!

[JoannaB]

Another thought that occurred to me: you say that you at times are convinced you are dreaming, even though you are actually awake. Have you ever thought that you were dreaming, and you were actually dreaming? If yes, then you have already had a lucid dream because that's all that lucid dreaming is: knowing one is dreaming when one is actually dreaming. If you already are lucid dreaming, then the question is not whether you should lucid dream, but rather what you should do now that you have lucid dreams. And yes, learning about reality checks may help you ensure that you are less likely to reach the wrong conclusion about whether you are dreaming or awake. And then yes, learning about control would benefit you. If I were you, I would definitely avoid doing anything dangerous or wrong even in dreams because as you say, you have been wrong before. And I would still consult a doctor, but then the question to the doctor should not be whether you should start lucid dreaming if you are already at times doing it, but rather what other advice they have for you given your sleep problems and how to do this safely. Best!

[svance22]

I feel I relate to your feeling of dissociation, and sometimes, I feel that "reality" isn't real, and like i'm "stuck" somewhere.. I feel sometimes, and had nightmares, where I believed my dream was an alternate reality, and that I would be stuck in that place, unable to wake and come back to real "reality" I'm very interested in hearing about your experience with dissocoiation, because I've never met any one who understood what i was feeling, but i think that you would understand..

[Goldenspark]

When I was about 9 or 10 years old I used to have a wierd nightmare that only occurred when something (mildly) traumatic happened to me, not in the same league as abuse, just normal kids fear type stuff, but with a very strong, super intense emotional feel to it. In the nightmare It was like I was in a sort of circular maze, and there was some kind of monster chasing me round and round towards the centre. The curious thing was it usually felt like I was not asleep, like it was real, but there was nothing to see, it was all dark, almost like just a feeling that it was a maze with a monster. That sort of gave me a feeling of dissociation like you describe, svance22. I think I also had SP at the same time, since I could not move. I guess that with a more traumatic experience, the intense emotional stimulus could make this effect 100x worse?

[KasCanFly]

I feel I relate to your feeling of dissociation, and sometimes, I feel that "reality" isn't real, and like i'm "stuck" somewhere.. I feel sometimes, and had nightmares, where I believed my dream was an alternate reality, and that I would be stuck in that place, unable to wake and come back to real "reality" I'm very interested in hearing about your experience with dissocoiation, because I've never met any one who understood what i was feeling, but i think that you would understand.. Certain levels of dissociation are normal with everyone, then there are dissociative disorders, these are on a spectrum and I sit at the higher end of that spectrum. My dissociation could read from a symptoms list, it's almost disconcertingly accurate, here are some of the main ways I experience it on a standard level. Dissociation makes me feel detached and the things I experience from dissociation vary from being on autopilot for much of what I do, staring of into the distance completely unable to move my stare, feeling like I'm trapped between the two worlds and as a result a part of and also not a part of either of them, I can't feel pain, everything is less colourful, I lose hours and hours on end on a daily basis, I can't remember getting dressed or sometimes going out (I ended up 200 miles away on a train once when I suddenly came aware, my brain was safely taking me to a friends but aaaaggh!) but I am and that's always a surprise, I can't connect the dots of my own memory and I've ceased to exist, like I'm turned off in a very literal sense or tuned into the wrong radio station - actually it's more like I'm tuned into white noise and everyone else has a station Depersonalisation makes me feel like I'm watching myself do things but have no control over whatever it is that I'm doing, other times I feel as if I'm living someone else's life except I know that's not the case, but it doesn't feel like it's me. It feels like the world has become vague/hazy - I just can't grab hold of anything, nothing makes sense, it's kind of dreamlike and less real, and everything seems to be lacking significance. Also recognitions of my own sense of self become less stable and it's really difficult to remember every day things or anything linearly. Derealisation is similar but rather than self directed, they are world directed. The world feels alien like I'm looking through a camera, mild fisheye lens, fog, or in more extreme cases through binoculars that are round the wrong way (but instead of blackness, its like a weird filmy fogginess). For me I get this more when I'm panicked and sometimes it seems like the walls or floor are rippling, that the floor is going to fall away. I'm scared and the more scared I get the worse it gets. All in all incredibly difficult to live with and on top of all of that I'm so filled with self-doubt that even though I know I'm awake I can't really trust myself to believe anything I think which means I'm incredibly confused all the time. I would love to reduce the nightmares but really I don't know if the possibility of a good thing is worth the risk of adding yet another bad thing - my sleep bad as it is, is better than being awake because I'm so tired and even if I wake up, I wake tired, at least mostly I don't remember my nightmares or not for too long, they sort of fade, they're just constant. I'm concerned that by making them more real that I not only risking making my sleep more terrifying than it already is, but add another level of confusion to my awake life too. I think I do want to be able to LD but only if I know I can do it safely and it will help, but I'm too confused. At the moment maybe I just need to wait and some time longer thinking about it.

[svance22]

Certain levels of dissociation are normal with everyone, then there are dissociative disorders, these are on a spectrum and I sit at the higher end of that spectrum. My dissociation could read from a symptoms list, it's almost disconcertingly accurate, here are some of the main ways I experience it on a standard level. Dissociation makes me feel detached and the things I experience from dissociation vary from being on autopilot for much of what I do, staring of into the distance completely unable to move my stare, feeling like I'm trapped between the two worlds and as a result a part of and also not a part of either of them.. Depersonalisation makes me feel like I'm watching myself do things but have no control over whatever it is that I'm doing, other times I feel as if I'm living someone else's life except I know that's not the case, but it doesn't feel like it's me. It feels like the world has become vague/hazy - I just can't grab hold of anything, nothing makes sense, it's kind of dreamlike and less real, and everything seems to be lacking significance. Also recognitions of my own sense of self become less stable and it's really difficult to remember every day things or anything linearly. Derealisation is similar but rather than self directed, they are world directed. The world feels alien like I'm looking through a camera, mild fisheye lens, fog, or in more extreme cases through binoculars that are round the wrong way (but instead of blackness, its like a weird filmy fogginess). For me I get this more when I'm panicked and sometimes it seems like the walls or floor are rippling, that the floor is going to fall away. I'm scared and the more scared I get the worse it gets. I can relate very much to this.. the best way i've been able to explain it is that i feel like im "not from here" like "im trapped in a body in a world im not a part of"..but its so hard to explain to someone who never felt that way. its nice to know that i'm not the only one. lol sorry to hear your inability to remember things, or with the incident with the train, scary.. the only thing like that with me is that when im driving, i suddenly realize that im ten minutes past my destination, and have to turn around, or i end up driving to somewhere i wasnt originally planning on going, like my car just wants to go to acme all the time.lol