Thread: Can't forget about my hands!

Hey all,

LD newbie needs some help here...

So I've been LDing for about 7 weeks now and numbers-wise I've been doing pretty good, I count 7 LDs in 7 weeks. But quality-wise only one of those was really worthwhile, the first one. The rest were very short.

I used to have a problem with getting too excited when I realized I was in an LD, I think I'm more or less over that but in the past 4 LDs I've had a different problem and I don't know what to do about it.

So usually I get lucid via false-awakening. I'll false-wakeup and then see something off in my room and do the pinch-your-nose-close-your-mouth-and-breathe RC, and this gets me lucid. But after I get lucid, I feel like I can feel my real hands in the real world in addition to my dream hands. My real hands feel very numb and are tingly from the forearm to finger-tips. This is a feeling I'm very used to because it usually happens to me before I go to sleep. If I move my dream hands, I can still feel my real hands staying where they were. And if I try to move my dream hands too far from my real hands, it gets harder and harder to move my dream hands and I wake up! The last couple of times I've tried to just lie still in the LD until I can't feel my real hands anymore, but before that happens the LD ends and I get dumped into a normal dream (albeit a pretty vivid and badass one).

Has anyone else had this problem and what might I do about it?

P.S. I haven't seen anyone else mention this technique, but I definitely have LDs more often when I go to bed a wee bit peckish.

Hmmm, it seems to me you might be receiving some input from your physical body, while in the dream. First of all, make sure that you go to sleep in a comfortable position where your circulation won't be obstructed. Then, when in the dream, try not to think about your body, because any thoughts of your physical body can increase awareness of it.

If there are movement issues with your dream hands, try to focus your attention on something else, while still engaging fully in the dream. This may give the issue some time to adjust and it can go away by itself. There are lots of things you can do while waiting like summoning items, music, DCs can help you out too. Be task oriented and forget about the problem as much as possible. Good luck!

Just some random thought - from no experienced dreamer in this sort of thing.
"I have not been there" - so rather the following are questions - not an answer.

Never had these famous OBE´s - out of body experiences - and as they are experiences - that is a perfectly neutral and correct term in my eyes - and it perfectly fits how you describe it.

But if you have a false awakening as you say - all that you perceive should then be a dream.

Except you have a neurological disorder concerning the suppression of perception of sensibility (pain an exception, I think) nerve impulses from the body.

FA as I understand it is having a dream, and from the dream-state - dream about waking up.
So you have not been in contact with your real body recently - but have been dreaming.

Could that be expectation and dreaming of having an OBE?
Maybe that could be gotten rid of upon knowing it is not a real WILD-OBE?
I read from DreamScapeGoat of a woman who got lucid by dying in her dream and dreaming a NDE after that.

In that case could it be that both pairs are dream-hands?
Do you feel one pair lying on the bed, and the others too - trying to solve out - and feeling difficulties doing that?
What about the rest of your body?

Or you are having a WILD - which I never did - and that seems the usual way to have such an experience - but coming from the waking state directly - not from a dream FA into a dream.

That I can more easily imagine - still having a rest of input or an "echo" lingering for a little while - or a long one, if you concentrate on it.
Do you FA from a prior dream or come from awake?

But whatever they are - what NyxCC says makes total sense - do not feed, what you want to get rid of with attention.

Hey thanks both

Originally Posted by StephL

Just some random thought - from no experienced dreamer in this sort of thing.
"I have not been there" - so rather the following are questions - not an answer.

Never had these famous OBE´s - out of body experiences - and as they are experiences - that is a perfectly neutral and correct term in my eyes - and it perfectly fits how you describe it.

But if you have a false awakening as you say - all that you perceive should then be a dream.

Except you have a neurological disorder concerning the suppression of perception of sensibility (pain an exception, I think) nerve impulses from the body.

FA as I understand it is having a dream, and from the dream-state - dream about waking up.
So you have not been in contact with your real body recently - but have been dreaming.

Could that be expectation and dreaming of having an OBE?
Maybe that could be gotten rid of upon knowing it is not a real WILD-OBE?
I read from DreamScapeGoat of a woman who got lucid by dying in her dream and dreaming a NDE after that.

In that case could it be that both pairs are dream-hands?
Do you feel one pair lying on the bed, and the others too - trying to solve out - and feeling difficulties doing that?
What about the rest of your body?

Or you are having a WILD - which I never did - and that seems the usual way to have such an experience - but coming from the waking state directly - not from a dream FA into a dream.

That I can more easily imagine - still having a rest of input or an "echo" lingering for a little while - or a long one, if you concentrate on it.
Do you FA from a prior dream or come from awake?

But whatever they are - what NyxCC says makes total sense - do not feed, what you want to get rid of with attention.

Hmm well I don't go directly from bedtime to the FA, no. It's always from a WILD or from a previous dream. This most recent time it was a WILD (I usually WILD both nights on the weekend).

I don't really feel the real hands on my bed, I just feel them at my side. I don't actually feel the bed itself. But that is always how I feel right before I fall asleep. My hands always start paralyzing before I fall asleep, I don't know if that's normal or not. While I'm falling asleep my hands and wrists get all tingly and hard to move (I can move them though and that wakes them back up). When it happens in the FA though the tingling is stronger and goes further down my arms.

So there's the pair at my side that I call my "real hands" and then there are my hands in the dream which initially are in the same position as my real hands. When I move my hands, my dream hands are the ones that move, but they kind of tug on my real hands and if I move them too far I wake up. It's possible that both pairs are pairs of dream hands but my hunch is that the real hand sensations actually really do come from my real hands, since the tingly paralysis feeling is stronger than I've felt while awake. Not totally sure though. The rest of my body doesn't feel unusual at all, just like a normal dream body.

I'll try what NyxCC suggested and just start doing things in the dream without moving my hands!

Think you could explain this a little more? I didn't quite get it:

Except you have a neurological disorder concerning the suppression of perception of sensibility (pain an exception, I think) nerve impulses from the body.

German works too btw, weiß aber nicht, ob das hier erlaubt ist??

I don´t actually know more about it - but I could look it up - there was something with sleep paralysis/REM Atonia not working and people moving for real in their dreams..
Maybe there is something known about sensibility as well.
I would simply start by googling.
But as I understand you now - I also think this is probably because of going from awake per WILD into the dream, and not having fully dissociated yet.

Originally Posted by StephL

I don´t actually know more about it - but I could look it up - there was something with sleep paralysis/REM Atonia not working and people moving for real in their dreams..
Maybe there is something known about sensibility as well.
I would simply start by googling.
But as I understand you now - I also think this is probably because of going from awake per WILD into the dream, and not having fully dissociated yet.

I'll look into it, thanks. That would suck though. I did have one very long lucid dream where I didn't have this problem so at least I know it's not unbeatable.

There are no unsolvable problems with dreams. Eventually with some experience you can find a way to deal with them. I occasionally get glitches with wilds like it being difficult to move mostly my hands, or even to walk. Being distracted has helped more than forcefully trying to move them. If you find another way around this, let us know!

Ok I had a chance to put these tips into practice last night and basically, they worked I went lucid and immediately asked the DC there with me to distract me. He started making funny faces for a short time, and then for the rest of the LD I just ignored the hands. BUT I still could feel them and I knew they were there, but keeping my mind mostly off of them kept me from waking. I sort of remember being able to feel more of my body, too, a little bit at a time, but the hands were always there with me. This LD lasted maybe 3-5 minutes and then I noticed I could hear the clock in my room, made the mistake of focusing on it, and woke up, gah! It's like my LDs happen just on the hair-edge of sleep and there are a number of distractions in the waking world that can get me if I'm not careful. That clock's coming down. Whatever other distractions arise I guess I'll just have to learn to deal with one by one, It would be nice though if I could just find a way to not have so much access to my senses in the real world during dreams.

Hehe - a DC pulling off comedy for you - what a sweet solution - good luck with this further on!

Hey, that's great! Congrats on the ld and good job putting the tips into action.