Scared to WILD?

I've been interested in lucid dreams for a long time and now I want to properly attempt a WILD, I've set my alarm for 6 am. But I'm scared, because I'm worried that it'll be terrifying; I have a really bad imagination, and if I have dreams then more often or not they're nightmares. I'm worried that it'll be 100x worse if I'm lucid, and I don't know if I can handle that. Is there any way to prevent lucid nightmares? What are the chances of them happening, and can I force myself awake if one seems to be starting? I'm also worried about sleep paralysis, I mean I've heard that's the wrong term or something but I've forgotten what the actual thing is, you know what I mean anyway, extremely freaky hallucinations, feeling an evil presence etc. Lucid dreaming sound absolutely amazing so I don't want to miss a chance out of fear, am I just thinking it's worse than it is? If things did start turning into a nightmare, do you think I'd be able to stop it somehow, by summoning a DC to help me or changing the scenery or something? Thanks.

Edit: the thing I'm most afraid of are werewolves. I know, it's embarassing and stupid but I always had an extreme fear and fascination with them when I was a child and though they don't really scare me in real life, I still have nightmares about them all the time and when one of those horrible mutant beats is chasing you through a dark forest it is suddenly not a joke. So basically if the first thing I see after becoming lucid is a dark forest can I get the hell out of there quickly if I want?

There's really nothing to be afraid of when it comes to lucid dreams. At least in my personal experience, becoming lucid doesn't make nightmares worse - they actually make them better. If you realize that you're in a dream, you can know that nothing's in it is real and none of it can hurt you. It's actually quite empowering, and it happened to me once in this journal entry. Being lucid can even allow you to confront the fear itself, ask it what it represents, and come to terms with it. At the very least, you can force yourself awake when lucid by closing your dream eyes and opening them forcefully until you eventually open your real eyes.

Here's a page in our wiki about nightmares: Nightmare Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

As for sleep paralysis, it sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. First off, it's very rare. Only about 8% of the population ever has an episode of sleep paralysis. Second, it's really all about expectation. If you expect scary things to happen, scary things will happen. The important thing, again, is to realize that it can't hurt you. Here's a little better explanation of what sleep paralysis is: http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...explained.html

I feel like this fear is brought over to these forums because of YouTubers exaggerating SP (Or Rematonia if you want to get specific), and they always make it seem like the "scary" experiences are the absolute worst thing in the entire world.

To be honest, my scariest moments in SP are not even that scary.
As mentioned above, it's really all about expectation. Usually, I try to focus on the goal rather than SP itself. I actually don't notice it that much anymore when I attempt to wild.

Hope I gave insight.

-Dezz

You should not fear sleep paralysis or the WILD technique. Before I began lucid dreaming, I was very afraid of sleep paralysis as well. Just keep in mind during the whole experience that it is only your imagination. The experience of lucid dreaming greatly overrides the bad experiences you could experience in sleep paralysis. It`s worth it :D

- Mark

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TooCoolForNames

So basically if the first thing I see after becoming lucid is a dark forest can I get the hell out of there quickly if I want?

---

Burn the forest down. =]

What is so scary about laying down for maybe 15 minutes and then rolling out of your body into a dream?

WILD has nothing to do with paralysis.
WILD simply means that you stay aware while you fall asleep, and this can go totally smooth without you ever even noticing any paralysis of any kind.
Paralysis is just a side-effect that some people may become aware of if they try to move during the WILD attempt, or if they wake up "too quickly" so that the paralysis state hasn't completely worn off.

Besides, paralysis in itself is not just completely harmless, but it is actually critical for your survival.
If you didn't become paralyzed during sleep then you would run around in waking life and mirror your dream activities, which would obviously be extremely dangerous.
They actually once did an experiment like this on cats, and when the cats didn't become paralyzed while sleeping they would actually "sleep-walk" their dreams.
There was no harm done to them though, and it was actually kind of interesting, because that is probably the closest anyone can get to "seeing" an animal's dreams, since their physical activities were exactly the same as their dream activities.

If you were about to experience some nightmare stuff in lucid dream then flip the table and alter dream
Let's say you saw a werewolf while being lucid in a dream

Stay calm and tell yourself that it's just a friend of yours in a plush suit that told you yesterday that he will most likely try to scare you.
Have confidence in your thoughts or words.

And if your still uncomfortable by fact that there's a friendly yet still a werewolf then ask him to take the suit down since you already figured out his plan :-P
This kind of dreams control is called by BillyBob in his tutorial a passive control

I'd suggest you reading up his tutorial aswell http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-cont...-tutorial.html