Dream characters boycotting my lucidity!

[111]

Hey everyone! So it's a few time that's happened to me, that DCs will look at me strangely or offended when I speculate about the fact that I might be dreaming, or, even more frustrating, they tell me that I'm not dreaming when I ask myself or the dream if I'm actually dreaming! The thing is that when they tell me this, I feel ashamed that I could have ever thought about such a silly possibility or I just laugh at myself.. Right now I'm a bit of an insecure person and sometimes I am too concerned about what other people might think about me.. but I'm working on it and maybe that's why I believe in what my DCs say without even questioning again the reality of what I'm perceiving.. could that be an explanation? And I've read a few posts about this topic, so it's not something that happens only to me; does anyone have an explanation why some DCs seem to not want to admit that they are just part of a dream? Thanks for your time!

[DawnEye11]

I guess it could be that your insecure but its good that your working on it. Just remember to be confident and if you make a mistake don't sweat it. We all make mistakes. : ) Some DCs don't admit their apart of it out of pure randomness. Its like a coin flip. You have two possibilities so one pops up and they go along with it I guess.

[Oneironaut Zero]

This happens pretty often (and as you seem to have read, it happens to a lot of people). I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are struggling with a 'logic center' in our brain that is generally off, when we are dreaming. There are times when I have a lot of trouble flying/levitating, and I've come to the conclusion that our subconscious mind is constantly trying to get us to adhere to waking world norms. For instance; I sink when trying to fly, because my subconscious mind is telling me that there is supposed to be gravity. Even when we know we are dreaming, that element of 'logical doubt' is still rattling around in our heads. I think it is the same for many dream characters, because our logical mind is portraying them as other people, so they naturally respond as a normal person would in waking life (by denying that they are your dream character). Getting this to happen less often may come with experience and confidence, but don't let it discourage you. It is very common and, to be honest, I tend to enjoy proving those types of characters wrong.

[anderj101]

This happens to me quite often too. My DC's will start to get a panic look on their face when I'm starting to go lucid. Sometimes, they'll even freak out and run away. Sometimes, most often when I don't have enough awareness to snap into lucidity, they will try their best to distract me back into the normal scene. I suggest to just look them right in the eyes and give the most confident smile you possibly can while going fully lucid.

[111]

Thanks for your responses :-) Oneironaut Zero, thinking about it, your explanation really makes sense. I'm reading Stephen LaBerge's book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" and he says that when we dream, we're being "fooled" by our minds into believing that what we're experiencing is waking reality. I'm still struggling with the idea that our brains would ever do that! Because, why does it behave like that? Isn't it much better if we consciously experience our dreams? And that is, maybe, for any reason why we actually dream.. For example, only becoming lucid we can actually and fully overcome nightmares.. if nightmares should train us to be prepared for unpleasant situations, it's strange how being scared and woken up in the middle of the night sweating and having a horrible day helps us, instead of facing our fears with all of our strength (most of the time maybe) and lucidity.. But thanks again for your advice! I'll work on being more confident also in my dreams

[blazingnyancat]

I noticed when I was semi-lucid it's like I know I'm dreaming but I can't control my actions, nor the dream. They have semi-fear that I may become lucid, are they afraid you would do things to them like touture? What's wrong seriously.

[starletdreamer]

What you experienced is something very similar to what I'm experiencing. My reality checks are not working properly. I was dreaming and I did the palm-finger check and no matter how many times I looked at my hand it didn't change! Regardless I knew I was dreaming. It bothered me though because I could always count on my hand being a reliable reality check until now! Maybe this is a practice toward more self confidence! I like Anderj's idea of staring them straight in the eye and doing something fully lucid like flying.

[111]

Just tonight I had a dream, which had a setting quite disturbing and creepy actually, in which I could hear a voice of a far away dream figure asking me if I wanted to follow him/her tutorial on how to stabilize a dream or become lucid! In fact, I knew it was a dream, but I was not very in control of it and I also felt that the scenario was going to collapse.. But the dream was too creepy and I wasn't lucid enough so I just laid on the ground closed my eyes and returned to waking reality, while I could hear the voice of that dream figure fading away. Thinking about it now, that could have been quite a nice opportunity to learn something new :-/ I think that this dream figure actually wanted to enhance my ability to lucid dream! It's fascinating how different from one another dream figures can be.. As you guys already said, maybe those dream figures who try to ruin your lucidity are really just a part of your most insecure self and they're "collaborating" with the part of our mind that is responsible for making us believe that what we are experiencing is reality.. Maybe our brain actually uses other dream figures to inhibit our lucidity because as social beings, we can easily be influenced by what other people say, especially when our critical faculty is off. But the question why remains..

[Laurelindo]

It takes practice to convince your dreaming self that logic and physical laws don't apply in the dreamworld. You are very used to how the physical world works, and therefore it can be hard to suddenly try to convince your brain that you are in a world that doesn't necessarily have to work that way. If you for example try to daydream about walking through walls, you will probably still find that those walls are solid, and that's because you are used to them being that way. It's the same thing with dreams - you expect something to be a certain way, and this makes your brain simulate it just like that. So the reason why dream characters deny that you are dreaming is because you would expect those reactions from people in waking life. But dream characters probably have less problems with the idea, and are more like "nope, you are not dreaming", whereas people in waking life would probably react "eh... what? dream? this? ... ... ... I don't... understand ... what are you talking about?".

[FryingMan]

DCs can be really tenacious trolls. In my first LD I got lucid in a room with a lot of DCs, and I noticed that they were all *staring* at me, like: "what do you think YOU'RE doing?!". Pretty funny/weird. My DCs (only when I'm lucid) have so far have proven very meek (except my wife once who challenged me), quiet (they don't speak until spoken to) and easily controlled.

[Oneironaut Zero]

I'm reading Stephen LaBerge's book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" and he says that when we dream, we're being "fooled" by our minds into believing that what we're experiencing is waking reality. I'm still struggling with the idea that our brains would ever do that! Because, why does it behave like that? Isn't it much better if we consciously experience our dreams? Many scientists believe that dreams offer a sort of 'testing ground' for uncomfortable or unusual situations; wherein our minds are giving us exposure to these (often intense and emotional) scenarios, so that we can start building neural connections that dictate how we might respond to them in waking life. For such a thing to work (if that is actually what is happening), our brains need to be in a state of 'suspended disbelief' - where we accept what we're witnessing to be reality. That way, the adrenaline will flow, the fear/joy/hate/etc. will be 'real', and we will have all of these other believable 'life-experiences' that we don't generally have while we're awake. Of course, that is just a popular theory, but it makes sense.

[vudooscience]

I just had something like this occur for the first time the other night. I was in a nightmare, two men were plotting or something. Wanted my body dead so they could use it for some trafficking scenario. Anywho, I became lucid in mid conversation with these two men. Once I realized I was dreaming, I interrupted the one man who was threatening me. Was basically like, don't talk to me like that. I'm only dreaming. Stfu. He argued with me. I told him I was lucid. He said no, you aren't. Which threw me off for a moment. But I argued back. Then, I used dream control to kill him. Fell to his knees and shrunk to the size of a sour patch kid. ( For some reason when I murder people, they shrink into little people. ) I showed him who was boss, tho. Fuck that guy.

[Runeword]

This has happened to me a lot too. I think it's because there is some type of protection between the conscious and subconscious mind from direct interaction. Maybe lucid dreaming is the best way to overcome the divide? Regardless, it is really weird when I call out the characters for trying to fool me that I'm not dreaming and they give me a teasing smile.