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I know it sounds weird, but I think it will be a bigger slap in the face to tell myself that I'm dreaming. Anyone else feel the same way? I've been trying to have a lucid dream for about 6 months, on and off, so I'm getting kind of annoyed... I don't really get that scared from watching scary movies, so anyone have any ideas on how to induce some?
-Mirai
Try to get your self stressed out, like I sure would be if I left my studying undone just before the exams. That's all I can think of , but, I still don't recommend doing that nor getting nightmares by purpose. Just keep practicing ADA and regular RCs with really questioning your worlds reality. Naturally waking up in the middle of a night works quite well for me, I usually use the toilet and get some fresh air to the bedroom before going to sleep again. OH and they say that cold air increases the chances of nightmares, not quite sure if it's true but I would give that a shot.
If you're that desperate to have a lucid dream, you can try visiting this site.
Read about Thirst Induced Lucid Dream or Urinate Induced Lucid Dream. In a nutshell, the concept is you go several hours without water, hopefully dream about drinking some, and you realize you're dreaming. The other is you drink lots of water before bed, dream about going to the bathroom, and become lucid.
These are the most extreme methods I know of that work, but aren't used often for obvious reasons. So if you're risking having nightmares to lucid dream, I'm willing to bet you'll suffer one of these methods to have one instead. I'd sooner do those if I were you. Don't go looking for nightmares, especially if you've yet to have a lucid dream. Worst case is you'll scare the hell out of yourself and be frustrated it was all for nothing.
Honestly it is hard to have nightmares because they seem to come from insecurities. :P
If you want to LD so bad then why dont you just pick something and stick with it. Trying off and on for 6 months is like trying off and on for anything for 6 months. Basically just wasting your time. :/
Wow, I didn't except such fast responses.. Thanks! :D
I think I will just try to do a WBTB followed by a WILD, or a DEILD for a month every single night. You're right Brandon, I should just stick with something!
-Mirai
Stick to it. This is what I would recommend. It will work, it just might take some time. :)
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...technique.html
Simple, but seems pretty effective. I will try this until I get a lucid dream :)
-Mirai
^^Great advice by Brandon! :)
Hey, we've got all the expertise you need, awesome tutorials, and skilled lders, no need to advertise other places as sources for lucidity. A little bit of dedication and curiosity is required and having lds is worth every little bit of effort you put into it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Screen
Best of luck and if you have other Qs - we are here to answer them. :)
Yeah, I'd say that it's nearly impossible to give yourself a nightmare, seeing that nightmares are sprung out of the fear of having one, insecurities, etc. So yeah, I'd have to fully agree with Brandon. - Pick a tech of your choice that suits you effortlessly, maybe even tweak it a bit for yourself, and put it on an extensive trial period, call it an experiment. :cheeky: If that doesn't work, on to the next one!
Nightmares almost lead me to an LD before. Like I'm having a scary dream then I teleport into my bed (in my dream) and I tell myself I wanna wake up then I do. It's like I know I'm dreaming.
I don't recommend striving for a nightmare, to be honest.
Remember, a nightmare is a dream that makes you feel bad in some way when you wake up, and this doesn't just mean getting chased by demons or some other stereotypical nightmare like that, but it can also involve more complex emotions like seeing a friend die, arguing wildly for no clear reason with someone you know well in waking life, and anything that makes you feel gloomy when you wake up.
Do you really want to experience that?
In any case, you can probably trigger nightmares just like you incubate any other experience in a dream, in other words by exposing yourself to scary things in waking life, like watching scary movies (I recommend The Shining for that) or simply thinking a lot about horrific events.
But then again, it would be a much better idea to incubate something that's actually pleasant, like telling yourself that you are going to fly or meet your crush or whatever, and then doing a Reality Check as soon as this happens.
In my case, I struggle with falling asleep around 7am if I want to sleep in and was woken up (such as to say goodbye to my husband), because often times I have an intruder false awakening dream that I've woken up and an intruder is breaking into the apartment. Likewise, sometimes I'm just afraid of oversleeping, which will trigger a false awakening in which I cannot wake up. I now actually use this fear, anxiety and anticipation of scary false awakenings to my advantage to lucid dream.
You can trick your brain into thinking you're scared. The dream in which I finally flew (in signature), right before I went to bed I was a little scared, thinking, oh, I might get stuck in my dream again. But I calmed my fears and said, sure, I might, but I also will lucid dream and can try flying. So, technically, I wasn't anxious anymore, but instead excited. The combination of the anxiety, excitement and anticipation led to a lucid dream.
You should really try going for lucid dreams early in the morning and create an anticipation. It doesn't have to be fear, it can be excitement. Know that it will happen. But be careful... sometimes it leads to too much thinking and you can't fall asleep! This has happened to me a few times as well.
Personally, I've used lucid dreaming to conquer my fears of falling asleep and facing a false awakening. Every time I become lucid, I completely forget my fears and am just excited to try out something new. It is the best.
Wow, I just figured out how effective this was. I induced one on Sunday night / Monday morning. I don't know what made me think of this thread while I was in SP, but it worked for sure!
I might want to look into this a little more.
Chances are you are having plenty of nightmares but are not remembering them, along with other lost dreams. As you probably know, recall is the most important step in making your dreams more lucid.
Anyway, I can see why you want to have nightmares. Consciously having them is better than unconsciously finding yourself in them, on top of being able to change anything for personal preference. It's also like watching a horror movie - you do it to get a thrill, and it serves as a sort of release of tension regarding other stresses in your personal life. But even more so, it's like some kinds of meditation, where letting yourself be aware of negative thoughts and feelings will dampen them and eventually strip them of their power of you.
Do the MILD with thoughts of nightmarish things.
I am going to experiment a little bit with this. I will also try to use some music with a darker aura to it to help induce them.
You might find this thread interesting and maybe even helpfull. Especially post by sageous. http://www.dreamviews.com/general-dr...ml#post2060075
Try the WILD technique after WBTB? Won't guarantee a nightmare but if you can get it to work, it'll give you a better chance at lucidity.
I encourage you to pursue it, but I personally don't think it's going to lead to a 'text book' nightmare. unless, of course, you are ale to drain fear to the very depths of your subconscious mind, that is. Anyways, Good luck!
Also, - @SinisterDezz - Nice Signature. SAO Is this shit!
Try eating a heavy spicy meal right before bed. Old wives tale
Thanks for the help everyone! So far no luck, but I haven't been focusing on it as much as I should. I think I am going to be very religious about this starting Monday! :)
EDIT: I have to say though, some of my dreams are getting a little weird, not always scary. Last night I had a dream, that I was on my computer, and all of a sudden a bunch of my teeth came out. I was spitting them out onto my desk, and there was blood all over myself as well as the desk. It was really weird...
-Mirai
Oh, I know what you mean. Most of the people here are arguing that oh, no, you don't want that since nightmares are bad; but I've found having dreams in which something so immensely bad happens that it's downright unrealistic to be fairly effective in triggering lucidity for me. If you're not in too much of a rush, you can come to realise through those powerful emotions that what's happening is literally too bad to be true. Although, of course, you'd need to have good lucid preparation beforehand for any of that to work.
As long as we're throwing out old wives' tales, I remember always hearing that eating a shitload of candy would give you nightmares. Pretty sure that's just a way to keep kids from eating a shitload of candy though, heard similar things about chocolate, etc. Seems anything people have difficulty controlling themselves over causes "nightmares", so definitely take all these ideas with a grain of salt.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricSheep
While this is most likely true, even with myself, it depends highly on what the dreamer considers to be nightmare material. I have nightmares on average ~1 a year. I have plenty of dreams all the time that others would label as nightmares, but I do not view them as negative, scary, or anything of that nature, and whilst in the dream I do not feel negative feelings either. Bad things just happen to be happening all around me. Like lots of violence, people getting killed, shooting, stabbing, running, hiding, not all like action movies, in fact very few, but such things happen and at no time is it ever grounds for me to confidently say that I had a nightmare. It isn't limited to violence either, stressful situations and other things that people would find nightmare material just aren't that way for me. I can't force myself to feel like it is, it's just not. It's definitely got to be unique to the dreamer, maybe not even in regards to mindset and perception but also brain chemistry. I know when I used to be prescribed adderall that when I would stop taking it, for the next two nights I would have extremely vivid dreams, but the content would be overwhelmingly negative. Still not enough to be a nightmare, but the overall tone, feeling, and atmosphere was... wrong. On top of all that, I suppose it helps my case a lot that usually my dreams are very abstract, sometimes extremely so. They are highly nonsensical, non-sequential, and often just flat out bizarre. The ones that seem to be less abstract are the ones that could be considered nightmares though, yet they still aren't nightmares.Quote:
Originally Posted by AirRick101
Idk, I'll quit my ranting and raving there, just thinking out loud, er, well, through text really.
I feel the exact same way - nightmares usually result in lucidity, and dealing with a nightmare is a challenge and an opportunity to solve a problem in a creative way. However I haven't had a nightmare since the age of 7 or so...
Also, you might be expecting that if you want nightmares your brain will do the exact opposite - this situation applies to a lot of things. Really, there isn't any reason for it if you think about it. You just expect it to happen and it happens. Moral of the story: just don't expect the undesired result, there is no rational thought behind that! Do it and it will be fine!
One night, I had about three nightmares. Hell, the whole night of dreams was a nightmare. It invoked fear in me so strong that I woke up much, much earlier than I usually would, trying to not fall asleep again.
Funny thing about those nightmares, by the end of the night, after trying to fall asleep again even though I had nightmares already, I actually had a lucid dream at the end. It was right after seeing a skin corpse with utter blackness for eyes, it screamed a howl, making an O shaped sound with it's mouth, filling me with a fear you'd never want to feel again. Anyways, when I had this lucid dream, I was in my room, a false awakening. I saw someone I knew from school sitting on a chair to the right side of my bed, she was very, very obese in this LD, I poked her with my foot, and out of fear that something might come after me, I started to hit myself in the side of the head with my fist, trying to wake up. At this point I started to lose lucidity after my eyesight started to disappear. My eyes wouldn't open, I used all of my memories of my room to try and get downstairs, to try and find someone to help me, save me from this nightmare. Everything was dark, I eventually got down stairs and saw my brother and father facing one another, I could see the light, it gave me so much joy to see their faces, familiar ones.
You say you want to have a nightmare now, but in the end, it may ruin your whole night. Doesn't mean it won't though, I've had lucid dreams where it started out as a nightmare and I eventually stopped it and moved on, but having several nightmares in one night just isn't fun, at least to me.