Are there lucid nightmares?

Hello everyone. I'm writing a post in this forum because id like to understand more of what is happening to me.

A lot of times I have dreams in which I gain awereness that I am dreaming. Even though Im aware that its a dream, I have close to no control of what I do in my dreams, the people present or where I am.

Most of these dreams are harmless, but sometimes I get what Im calling lucid nightmares, in which I am aware that I'm in a nightmare but can't stop being terrified of everything Im seeing. Normally its just terror stuff like kids with dead faces or ghosts with terrible shapes. When I become aware I try to force myself wake up but it takes a long time, and I can feel in reality that I am pressing my teeth because they really hurt. Other thing is the music., these dreams come with incredible sophisticated music that I can't understand how I am making that up in my mind.

When I wake up normally I am so frightened that I avoid falling asleep again, and it takes a while until I am sure I am no longer dreaming, since everything feels so real that it becomes really hard to tell de difference.

Does anyone have anything to say about this? It happens more when I am really tired but for some reason am having trouble sleeping (jet lag, preoccupation, stress, etc).

Also,I dont know if any of this is related, but I can add that for several years I experience waking up with feelings of numbness growing in my little and ring fingers. I always assumed that it was just me sleeping on top of my arm until it started happening in both hands at the same time (I cant sleep on both of my arms, right?).

After a lot of testing, I found out that this numbness feeling happens everytime I fall asleep on my back, with my hands on top of my belly. I will eventually (and surely) wake up feeling numbness in little and ring fingers most times. Rarely, I wake up when the numbness is more advanced and it is spreading to the other fingers and hand. After I wake up slowly regain feeling.

The worse episode was when, 4 or 5 years ago I woke up without being able to move of feel anything in both of my arms, at which point I went to a doctor that told me that it must be me sleeping on top of my limbs (how come?), or can be problem on a nerve that goes through the elbow, but would only explain numbness in little and ring fingers. This was such a one-off problem That I am not even sure if it really happenened anymore, or if it was just a dream

Welcome to the forum!

Yes, lucid nightmares are possible, though they're typically no more frequent than regular, non-lucid nightmares. Emotions are amplified in dreams, both lucid and non-lucid, so it's not unheard of to be terrified of something even though you know it is a dream. Though you can usually wake yourself up once you know you're dreaming, I would advise training yourself to stick around in the dream and reassuring yourself that nothing can hurt you in the dream. Perhaps try to associate the feeling of becoming lucid with calmness, so that when you do realize you're dreaming you can stop being scared. Often nightmares signify that your subconscious is trying to get your attention, so you can even ask the dream why you are scared, or what the scary elements represent. I've had numerous nightmares that I've managed to turn into pleasant experiences by becoming lucid.

As for the numbness (I'm not a doctor, this is just my opinion from my experience with LDing), it sounds like it might be some mild Sleep Paralysis caused by a run-off of REM Atonia. REM Atonia is the normal process that happens every night where your brain "disables" your muscles when you go to sleep, preventing you from acting out your dream motions in real life. Typically REM Atonia wears off when you wake up, but sometimes if you wake too fast (or if you have some kind of sleep disorder), you become conscious before the REM Atonia wears off and discover that you can't move your body - a condition known as Sleep Paralysis. This would explain your experience with both of your arms being numb (though like you said, it very well could've been a dream as well). As for the general numbness, my opinion is that your REM Atonia isn't fully wearing off - it dissipates enough to allow you to move, but there's enough residual to still give you a bit of numbness in your extremities. It also makes sense since REM Atonia/Sleep Paralysis episodes are typically more common when sleeping on your back or when you are exceptionally tired.

So in summary, you may have a mild sleep disorder that causes some minor REM Atonia run-off. Overall it's nothing to worry about - like I said, REM Atonia is totally normal and completely safe - just a minor inconvenience.

Hey :)

Thank you for your reassuring response !

About the nightmare, it is really hard to control it. The dream is constantly "resetting", meaning, I find myself back in bed with the feeling that I woke up, but suddenly more weird things start to happen again. And my awareness of being in a dream is not very stable, most of the times I just forget it, and only when something triggers me is that I realize its a dream again.

One moment I tried to fight it.. I approached the dead face kid to attack him, and the moment I grabbed him everything changed and the dream took a different turn.

I guess it is possible to control it, but I would need a lot of practice. I did make decisions in dreams in the past, but honestly they didn't seem mine, it was more like I was watching a version of myself making decisions. All I can do is have the ocasional lucid thought, like "This must be a dream, at least I know that I'm in my bed resting", or the conscious intention to wake up.

Thanks for your response.

I have had my fair share of lucid nightmares. What I've learned is that in dreams, expectation is the same as reality.

Say you're being chased Friday the 13th style by a masked murdurer, just hug them. I've tried that and they tend to turn into something harmful. Just my personal strat that I use if I can remember. My trouble is that I sometimes get killed before I could remember to do that.

Good luck with your lucid nightmares though.

Fortunately, lately this has been stopping. Since I can't avoid "going lucid" quite frequently (every other week or so), I really tried to make something about it in the actual dream.
Two nights ago I was having a normal nightmare (not a lucid one), where I was losing my teeth. Since this happens a lot on my nightmares, it triggered me and I became lucid as I have never been before.

I was picking up some of my teeth from the floor "Teeth? Again? Come on, this is obviously a dream", and even thought "Good, this means I am at home in bed" Somehow I became relaxed and started levitating to further prove to myself that I was in a dream. Then I tried to go through the wall to go fly outside, but for some reason I couldn't. Then I tried to go through a glass window and it worked. The dream I was having before, just went away.

I was happily flying over a very detailed landscape and thought "I'd like to try and be in the middle of a combat war or something", and tried to change the scene to a war scene, but nothing happened. I was happy flying anyway.

The only thing that I don't understand, is understand if I am actually lucid dreaming, or I am dreaming that I am lucid dreaming.. can this question be answered with full certainty? It really felt as if I was acting on my own will, and even remembered where i was IRL.

This lucid dreaming thing is quite fun, I wonder what kind of useful can be done with it. Can I, like, replay conversations or even try to memorize stuff to use IRL?

Glad to hear it's improving! :) Yes, once you get over initial fear and start to fully understand what is really happening when you're dreaming, lucid dreaming is a valuable and fun experience. Developing the ability to better control and steer your conscious thoughts is one of the keys for controlling what happens in dreams. In fact, LDs are probably a good way to practice and hone this skill, and it can be helpful in waking life, too: Difficult, stressful situations can be much easier to deal with, for instance, when you've learned how to loosen the effect negative thoughts have on you and steer yourself toward more rational, positive ones.

There are probably an infinite number of things people can do with LDs. They can be used to have fun adventures of anything you can imagine or to realize dreams or desires that can't happen in waking life. Some have used them for self exploration and looking for answers to personal issues or weaknesses, and some even use them to try to create transcendental experiences that are unlike anything that could be experienced in waking life. You may want to browse through some of the threads on this forum; I've gotten tons of inspiration and ideas that I never would have considered on my own. There are many good threads here with eye-opening and thought-provoking perspectives I never considered. Probably the most profound thing I learned is that many techniques, tutorials, and ideas that have been shared are more than just tools for a LDing hobby; they seem to be having a major, positive impact on my waking life as a whole as well.

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Originally Posted by sylviadenis

It's totally possible. Lucid dream is just controlling a dream. You can also control a nightmare. :)

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Well...lucid dreaming is just being aware that you're in a dream, so control is not always possible.

There are certainly lucid nightmares!
One of my experiences scared the crap out of me! I was looking into the bathroom mirror and an evil , almost devil - like being was staring back at me! I could not scream , speak , or communicate in any way! I could , however , look over to my bed and clearly see that I was laying there...fast asleep! It was the first terrifying experience that I have had ( and I certainly hope the last! ).