Thread: Lucid Nightmares

I was plagued by lucid nightmares a few years ago.
I never actually found a way to wake myself up (maybe someone else will have a suggestion for that) but I did find a couple of ways to deal with them.

The first involved mindfulness and learning to relax in the dream.
If you know you're dreaming, you can focus on recognising that the situation isn't really happening.
If you're lacking strong dream control (which I always was in these nightmares,) you can focus inwards instead, using the same techniques that you would to calm yourself in waking life. For me, that involved entering a meditative state, focusing on my breathing, and watching my negative thoughts/emotions as an observer instead of being consumed by them.
Once I stopped focusing on the feeling of being trapped in the nightmare, I'd often wake up naturally anyway.

The second involved confronting the situation in the dream.
I've had a few bouts of lucid nightmares featuring different themes, but this particular one was a recurring theme of being chased/restrained by doctors.
A fellow member of DV, PercyLucid, coached me through this time and encouraged me to invite the doctors into my next lucid dream so I could confront them willingly.
He suggested I ask them the following questions:
- Who are you?
- What do you represent?
- Is there something important I must know?
I did this in a lucid dream and got some insightful answers. The nightmares stopped immediately and haven't bothered me since.

It's interesting to hear that things repeat in your nightmares. Loops and cycles were prominent in many of my lucid nightmares, too.
Do your nightmares tend to have similar themes/feelings or do they vary?
I wish you luck in resolving them so you can enjoy your lucidity!

Oh, and welcome! I see this is your first post on DV.
Why not tell us a bit about yourself in the Introduction Zone?

I had a recurring lucid nightmare when I started lucid dreaming. I was stuck to the bed, looking up at a spider as big as the ceiling. I knew it was a dream after a while, then focused on calming down (as Dreamer suggested). Once I had done that, it stopped. I still occasionally had the lucid nightmare, but I knew it was a dream, knew I wasn't really stuck to the bed, so I just got up and walked out of the room and into a different dream. I haven't had it since.

I still get them occasionally, but this time it's pitch darkness with "things" either swimming or flying in the darkness depending on whether it's black water or just darkness. The worst one lately was of a face made of smoke in darkness which suddenly became as big as my field of vision and said in a low, deep voice "Suicide is silence". The sheer terror of that one woke me up immediately.

I agree with ~Dreamer~ ! Ask some probing questions. "What do you represent?" usually leads to an interesting revelation, turn of events, and shifting imagery for me. Another tip that works for me personally: If I want to get out of a dream situation / wake up, I have had good luck with just closing my eyes. Generally, closing my eyes will cause me to awaken; on the flip side, when I open my eyes, I am sometimes in a different dream environment. Best wishes!