vivid dreams, sometimes lucid... but not in control...not sure what to do!

Hi there, new to this forum, so not sure where to start!.. I usually have a hard time getting to sleep. My boyfriend leaves for work at 5 am, so after he kisses me goodbye, I try very hard to get back to sleep. When I do, I often have vivid nightmares about everything, usually including animals (i have 4 cats and a dog) being missing or hurt. I have no children besides them! Very stressed at work, that sometimes comes into play in the nightmares. As well, a lot of my dreams are of moving to a different house or apartment, all of which have several rooms and halls and unexpected stuff. Usually I remember lots of details of these places/things that happen.
Other than that, without being too long winded... when i was younger (in my twenties/thirties) I always had dreams of being lost or having to navigate through tight corridors/stairways that may or may not have lead to where I needed to be.. and in my earlier years had recurring dreams of trying to yell or scream to make someone (who appeared to be in the room) wake me up but i couldn't produce a sound or movement. (still happens sometimes and is so frustrating to feel so awake but not able to catch anyone's attention to wake me).. and in childhood, dreams of trying to run away from disaster (bomb etc) but couldn't run fast enough as if in slow motion.
The recent morning nightmares, are just so real and exhausting me!! Any advice or could someone direct me to a thread for help?.. Thanks!

I have always had dreams where I was running away from people, it stopped just a few years ago. Almost always in slow motion or with no power in my legs or inability to run faster no matter how hard I tried. My advice to you is to imagine something that happens in a recurring nightmare but rewrite the story. So think of something you want to happen in the dream. Maybe your boyfriend being free from work and helping you out? I don't know, just rewrite the dream into something more pleasant. Then start by visualizing the recurring dream (or aspects of the dream), but change the story. So for example if your nightmare is about a masked man chasing you, imagine turning around and finding out it is your boyfriend who fell into a bucket of paint with his face. Keep imagining the thing you want to happen in your dream and really believe it will. Act it out in your mind and as you fall asleep keep repeating to yourself "I will have a nice dream, I will have a nice dream" about 30 or 40 times. Just imagine the recurring dream, but imagine different events and try to really believe that this is going to happen in your dream. I wish you good luck and really hope it will work.

You could check out the Dream Control section Dream Control to see if you can find some ideas about controlling things in your lucid dreams.

As for the non-lucids, I think ginsan's suggestion may work. I have seen that recommended in other places too. Good luck and happy dreams:alien:

When i was younger, i had bad dreams about being chased and unable to get away. I dealt with it by waking myself up, but I never realized that most people couldn’t do this. As time went on, I had actually developed a power of some sorts over the situation. For example say someone is about to harm me in some way. I would say to the person that they could not harm me because i could just wake myself up. Most of the time the situation would dissolve or if need be, i would force myself to wake up. Having said that, this was before i knew anything about lucid dreaming. Now, I never have bad dreams, and if i do, i preform a reality check or force a false awakening and go lucid. Once lucid, I am in control and will the situation away or do whatever i want. So i would suggest to learn and practice the LD techniques. When you say "sometimes lucid", are you totally aware that you are dreaming? If you are, do bad things happen during the lucid periods?

My 2 cents