Thread: To LD or not to LD?

I honestly think that it is something that could help you, but you would probably go through a lot of crap to get out to get out of it. I have had some terrible terrible lucid nightmares, but I am the kind of person that feels like they are worth it (all the fear and pain and tortue are worth the insane memory and waking up finally to me) and I have had some that i am literally crying on the ground begging myself to wake up, kissing the DC version of my wife goodbye because I think that I will probably go insane before waking, barely able to move because of weeks of torture.
Here is a thread I made about how starting lucid dreaming is going to be and deciding if it is right for you.
http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...e-told-me.html

As a kid, I had a similar problem of being stuck in nightmares and a false awakening loop, far before I knew what lucid dreaming and reality checks were. I was stuck as a 5-6 year old running from my bed trying to get to my parents room only to have myself be dragged into a side room by a monster and have my limbs detached. If I stayed in my bed, I would have my room catch fire and burn alive. It all felt real and I never knew if I was awake or not running to my parents room. After dealing with this for about a year, I learned emergency escape techniques for a 6 year old. I would either pull a button out of my pocket and press it which would cause a robotic arm to reach from the ceiling and carry me out of the dream. That or I would breath very fast and shallow which would force my body to wake up.

All in all, learning to be lucid has helped me overcome nightmares and I hope it can help you as well!

I do not think that Lucid dreaming is harmful for the over whelming majority of people, in the case of mental illness I would imagine the risk is also minimal that the experience in itself would cause any harm, the main way I could see it being dangerous is if the person used the 'idea' of lucid dreaming to further isolate themselves from consensus reality, but almost any notion could be used for this purpose. The methods of lucid dreaming seek to increase a persons awareness of reality and their own cognitive processes, things in my mind which run counter to the key traits of mental illness.

In part Ryan Hurd had this to say on the subject.

“In fact, lucid dreaming has recently been linked to resilience, the ability to maintain stability during and after traumatic events. Lucid dreaming is used clinically to help cope with nightmares, and is considered by many psychologists to promote psychological growth and encourage problem solving.”

He did leave open the possibility that Lucid dreams could potentially exacerbate certain fears.

"These dreams won’t make you schizophrenic, but without proper support, they can agitate your mental state and possibly re-strengthen the fears that came up in the dreams."

So it is a mixed bag, my interpretation is that the benefits out way the potential risks. Since you are already experiencing bad dreams I think that Lucidity could help mitigate the horror and anxiety of the situation. Nightmares are in large part so frightening because being non-lucid while they occur, we think they are real, and of course if you genuinely think that you are 'really' being attacked by monsters fear is a appropriate response. I have a few times become lucid in the midst of a bad dream and then quickly turned things around, my horror turned to amusement, and then into a sense of power over my situation. While non-lucid we are at the mercy of these images, but when lucid we have the freedom to choose how we react based on more accurate information, we can choose to ride it out with the comfort of knowing it is not going to hurt us, we can choose to change it into something better, or we can choose to wake ourselves up, all of which is better than being stuck in it while thinking it is actually happening.

However, I should add that like 'Him' and 'Sensei' I too early in my LD career have been stuck in lucid dreams for what seemed like very long periods of time, bracketed by frequent false awakenings. I did come across some scary things, I also did have the concern that I may go on dreaming forever, which was disconcerting of course. But over all this kind of 'bad trip' is extremely rare, and I think it was just my inexperience which caused me to contemplate the idea of never waking up so seriously, and thus work myself into ball of nerves. All of this should be taken into account, that is the potential for turning bad non-lucid dreams around, and the potential for lucid dreams to go sideways.

Source:

http://realitysandwich.com/164556/lu...ental_illness/

I suppose I already have the fear of not waking up in non lucid dreams but I'm not sure wether or not I'm gonna LD or not yet.
Thanks for the responses though!

I don't have the experience as those here,so I won't speak much,but pro tip. Wiggling your toes,when you actually have sleep paralysis,and keeping your eyes shut will help a lot. How I got over it,before I even started LDs.