Several strange occurrences.

Hello everyone,
I am posting this thread both here and on reddit, I hope it's fine. I'm really excited about what happened and I am hoping it will help me become a lucid dreamer again.

I started lucid dreaming years ago and succeeded almost immediately. At first I could only fly around, then with practice I could control them more and more. This was extremely fun but also got scary due to my anxiety. I also had an extraordinary experience when I'm almost sure I talked to my subconsciousness which I may explain in a separate post.
Unfortunately I wasn't ready to face my fears so lucid nightmares got worse and I had to stop. But I couldn't remove my past reality checks from my subconsciousness so ever since then I get a lucid dream from time to time.
With time my 'powers' in LDs got weaker and for the past year or so the only thing I could do was fly around and even that I did poorly, like there was an energy bar above my head and after some time I'd always run out of it and fall down.
Also (again, due to my anxiety I suppose) all of my LDs during that year would start with me waking up in my room, something scary happening, me jumping out of the window in order not to face it, flying around for a minute, falling down and walking around. Almost no control of the dream.
I was very recently dealing with something scary, I won't go into too much detail because some would call it paranormal while others would say it was brain tricks and this is completely unimportant. But after that I did a lot of thinking and my fear went away. I'm not afraid of darkness, sleeping alone and ghost stories anymore and when something alarming happens I can keep calm.

So, to the point: Last night I had 3 surprise lucid dreams. All of them super vivid and in all of them I had absolute control. I even remembered tricks that I barely ever used but read about them years ago when I was into this (for example, my go to technique to stay in a dream was always swirling around but yesterday I was rubbing my hands together). It was an absolutely amazing experience and nothing really scary happened this time, there were some mildly scary occurrences but I didn't freak out and handled them well.
Do you guys think that this may be my brain telling me that it's time to start lucid dreaming again? That the anxiety is gone and now I can enjoy it? I really missed it during those years I wasn't practicing and every once in a while I considered doing this again, but I didn't feel ready to face my fears so I would always postpone this decision.
Also, do you think that if I start lucid dreaming again I will have all of my forgotten 'powers'? I know that we can only speculate and I will have to see but I'm interested in your opinion.

Another thing: you know how dream characters always freak out or say something stupid when you ask them serious questions or tell them that it's a dream? Well yesterday for the first time in my life a dream character actually admitted that he's in a dream.
I was walking around this beautiful park and I saw this guy, thought that I'm gonna try asking him something serious to see his reaction. So I walk up to him and say 'Hey, could you describe to me how it feels to dream?' and he starts laughing. So he laughs and laughs and then says 'You sneaky bastard, I cannot believe that you had guts to say it to a lucid dream character'. I was completely shocked. He wouldn't say anything else so I went to plant some mushrooms, which I will describe in a minute. In another dream I had this night I asked the same question to another DC but they just kept laughing and it got a little creepy so I walked away.

The park I was in was really beautiful and it looked like a mix of reality with some sort of a fairytale, reminded me of the game Aion I used to play years ago. There were some glowing plants around and after I almost got kicked out (but saved it by rubbing my hands together) I got this idea to plant some magic mushrooms that I would treat as potions :D So I imagined mushrooms with different colors, one color for staying in a dream, one color for dream control and one for vividness. And then I ate them. Now, I don't really know if it worked, I didn't get kicked out of a dream for a longer while after eating them, but my dream control and vividness were amazing from the start so it's hard to say. Do you guys think it's possible? I mean whatever you believe in in a dream right?

Lastly, my dream ended with me walking up to a closed gate and instead of opening it, I imagined that it's made of chocolate and I ate it. Oh did I miss it or what.

I think it is possible, but only based on your conviction in this. If you truly believe that it will work then it usually will, at least to an extent, and barring any outside influence or weak sleep state to begin with.

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Originally Posted by salsashark

It was an absolutely amazing experience and nothing really scary happened this time, there were some mildly scary occurrences but I didn't freak out and handled them well. Do you guys think that this may be my brain telling me that it's time to start lucid dreaming again? That the anxiety is gone and now I can enjoy it?

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I don't think you can hope to get the right answer for this. A dream is an expression of the internal self free from influence. Fear and your reaction to that fear form how your dream progresses from moment to moment. You being ready to start again has a lot less to do with your anxiety being absent than the way in which you process your anxiety. Your response to nightmare-aspects dictate whether the dream continues down a path of darkness or you can chose to direct it another way.

Are you ready to return to lucid dreaming? I think you never should have left. In my opinion your logic was backwards. You have the opportunity through dreamwork to find new ways of bringing your anxieties back into balance.

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Also, do you think that if I start lucid dreaming again I will have all of my forgotten 'powers'?

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:) I think that if you return to your dreams they will return to you in turn.

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you know how dream characters always freak out or say something stupid when you ask them serious questions or tell them that it's a dream?

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I meet a good DC like this every once in a while and it's one of the most rewarding aspects of my dreams :D I think that you meet more with practice.

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I imagined mushrooms with different colors, one color for staying in a dream, one color for dream control and one for vividness.

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Haha very cool! I'm a fan of creative ways to manipulate dream expectations. Keep it up! It sounds like you have a lot of potential with your dreams and I hope you find some good ways to explore them!

I think that you might have accidentally hit the right things needed for a lucid dream to occur, like many do before they know what lding is about. Lucid nightmares are usually caused by stress or anxiety. If you can cut those out of your life, they will usually go away. This is of course taking away the idea of recurring dream, which, I imagine, is connected with nuetral pathways like an idea and a schema. If you go through that same one over and over, then when the thing that was causing you to go through that schema disappears, then you still end up in that schema, like water going down a worn pathway. Make sense? I hope so. I am going to sleep. Haha.

Also, with the mushrooms, I think that stabilization, vividness, and many other things can be accomplished through dream control, and so it makes sense to me that you can find something that works for ya like that. I have a watch that I push a button and it stabilizes the dream and makes it more vivid. ;)

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Originally Posted by sloth

I think it is possible, but only based on your conviction in this. If you truly believe that it will work then it usually will, at least to an extent, and barring any outside influence or weak sleep state to begin with.

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Thanks, that's what I thought too. This may not work as well as those techniques that make you focus in order not to get kicked out but I think that with faith there can be some effect.

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I don't think you can hope to get the right answer for this. A dream is an expression of the internal self free from influence. Fear and your reaction to that fear form how your dream progresses from moment to moment. You being ready to start again has a lot less to do with your anxiety being absent than the way in which you process your anxiety. Your response to nightmare-aspects dictate whether the dream continues down a path of darkness or you can chose to direct it another way.

Are you ready to return to lucid dreaming? I think you never should have left. In my opinion your logic was backwards. You have the opportunity through dreamwork to find new ways of bringing your anxieties back into balance.

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I agree and I think that I didn't really express my thoughts correctly. The anxiety didn't just go away like this, there was a thought process that finally led me to a change of attitude - scary things happen when there's fear and that applies to both dreams, reality and even paranormal if you believe in it. Running away from fear makes it worse while facing it makes it go away. But also I think that when there's no fear to begin with scary things may not appear and that's what I thought happened in this dream. So I let go of fear in real life which I think allows me to let go of fear in dreams.
I wish I never have left but then on the other hand perhaps when you're young, inexperienced and freaking out you can do yourself more harm than good.

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Originally Posted by Sensei

I think that you might have accidentally hit the right things needed for a lucid dream to occur, like many do before they know what lding is about. Lucid nightmares are usually caused by stress or anxiety. If you can cut those out of your life, they will usually go away. This is of course taking away the idea of recurring dream, which, I imagine, is connected with nuetral pathways like an idea and a schema. If you go through that same one over and over, then when the thing that was causing you to go through that schema disappears, then you still end up in that schema, like water going down a worn pathway. Make sense? I hope so. I am going to sleep. Haha.

Also, with the mushrooms, I think that stabilization, vividness, and many other things can be accomplished through dream control, and so it makes sense to me that you can find something that works for ya like that. I have a watch that I push a button and it stabilizes the dream and makes it more vivid. ;)

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I have one recurring dream but that doesn't worry me much because I could easily face it in lucidy and now that I think about it, I'm gonna have to, thank you! It's only scary in non lucid dreams and it makes perfect sense to just work on it while I have control. I also think that lack of anxiety in real life will limit the amount of lucid nightmares and that they can also be approached in a different way when your mind is calmer in a dream.
It's a cool method with the watch, do you use it for other 'powers'? I couldn't do it because when I look at my hands in my dreams they look like chicken feet and it amuses me so much I cannot focus on the rest. Btw, that's another thing. I never got this looking at hands reality check method, I think that if you expect your hands to look normal they should, right?

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Originally Posted by salsashark

But also I think that when there's no fear to begin with scary things may not appear and that's what I thought happened in this dream. So I let go of fear in real life which I think allows me to let go of fear in dreams.

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Two sides of a coin :) You're right, the progress doesn't have to start with dreams, and it sounds like you've done a lot of good for yourself in your waking. I wouldn't worry too much about lost opportunity or regret, it's just the path you take.

I have a small iron necklace that I wear constantly, in dreams I can just hold it and it makes the dream more vivid and stable and gives me a "boost" to my powers. I have an issue with bodies of water in my dreaming life and relying on my necklace helps me face it. Maybe you could try something like that with your mushrooms? Or another dream object?

Great luck! :)

I love your lucid dream. I hope I can have a magical dream too.