Thread: Can Hardly Walk in Lucid Dream

Because you say that this was the first lucid you've had in a while, I wouldn't be worried or suprised with your current level of dream control. I sometimes have trouble walking when in the story of the dream, I am tired or exhausted. Whenever I try to make my dream body walk, it won't respond. When I have trouble flying, I do several reality checks before in quick succession to reinforce the idea that I'm dreaming. I also try many differant ways of flying. I sometimes do a handstand and fall upward and once I'm far enough in the air, I'm usually fine. That or I imagine that I'm a puppet and there are strings on my back and I'm being pulled wherever I want to go.

Sometimes, for me, I have walked on my knees in my dreams. This may mean that I may need to stabilize my dream. I found that if I command my legs to walk or fly when I can not fly, it seems to work for me. You can command yourself in the dream, to walk faster and stuff like that.

Did you use any supplements? Galantamine used to wreak havoc on my ability to walk in dreams - actually I'm not sure if it was the galantamine or something else - possibly 5HTP? But it also sometimes happens when I'm not using supps - there's a weird glitch that can occur when you're bringing conscious awareness into the dream state (which is what we do in lucidity) where sometimes you become too aware of signals from your body. Keep in mind, it's laying motionless under sheets and unable to move, and so the signals you get back are of trying to move but being incapable of it.

I've had this result in all kinds of weird scenarios - sometimes I get signals telling me that my body feels cloth pressed all around it (from the sheets I guess) and I dreamed that I was wearing all kinds of layers of clothes - mittens, socks, pajamas, a robe, etc.

But more often it results in difficulties walking. A few of them include tilting strongly to one side and floundering in that direction whenever I try to walk. I call this one capsizing - feels like being very drunk actually, and you end up always bumping up against a wall on that side if you're near one. Or sometimes I feel like I'm immersed in syrup up to the waist and moving is just incredibly difficult.

And then there are the ones where I can't seem to keep my feet firmly on the ground. It's like I can't get any traction and in fact my legs want to float up into the air. In those I usually drop down to pushup position and do the wheelbarrow - you know that kid game where one person is the wheelbarrow and the other holds his legs and walks him around? Like that, but there's nobody holding my legs, they just float up in the air behind me. I end up gripping the ground somehow with my hands and pulling myself along. This actually happens fairly regularly in my dreams - and I mean normal dreams, not lucids necessarily.

Apparently from something I read recently this one can mean that you're not well grounded in life - maybe you're too detached and not taking care of some basic necessities well enough. But I believe the rest, and probably to some extent this one too - are because I'm getting a little bit of real-world sensation from my body that filters into the dream and is telling me it can't move the way I want it to. One of the unfortunate side effects of becoming consciously aware while dreaming.

And I agree with DreamVixen - stabilizing should help with this. Somewhere around here is a great thread about it, I think written by Aquanina. Try a search, or if I find it I'll post a link here.

Here it is: Dream Stabilization & Clarity

Actually there's another stabilization technique I used to use (back when I was getting lucids now and then), and I thought I had learned about it in this tutorial but apparently not. It's simple enough - just run your hands over surfaces around you feeling the textures. I used to practice for this by actually doing it in bed along with a few reality checks, so that when I notice I'm dreaming I just repeat the drill.

A couple quick RCs will help with stability too, but then I run my hands over any surfaces near me, or over my own body if there's nothing else. It can really bring the dream into focus and crank up your level of awareness. In fact it's what led to my one and only (so far) high level lucid.