I'm scared...

Hi, I just want to ask a few questions.
I have insomnia and a friend recommended lucid dreaming to me and told me it can help me. After I did a bit of digging in to lucid dreaming i thought it was amazing and nth could go wrong, but I was wrong. I started to see stuff about sleep paralysis and nightmares.
From the sites I've read it has been described terrifying. Things coming after you and is gonna hurt you and u feel the pain. It's truly scary. I just wanna know how do I escape sleep paralysis and nightmares. I've never lucid dreamt and I would love too but I'm scared that I'll get a nightmare. Is there something I need to know or smth that is bad. Please help me.

:welcome: FoolGamer!

I don't see how being lucid during dreams would directly help to cure insomnia. Insomnia is the inability to sleep and a lucid dream is a dream. Sleep causes dreams, but dreams do not really cause sleep. That said, it is possible that lucid dreaming could indirectly cure insomnia by boosting the motivation to experience dreams, would help boost the motivation to sleep or learn more about sleep, which in turn may help cure the insomnia.

While having a nightmare or having sleep paralysis are risks correlated with lucid dreaming, they are not directly caused by lucid dreaming. The risk of experiencing a nightmare or sleep paralysis is just as correlated with non-lucid dreaming. Sure, trying to lucid dream indirectly increases the chances of experiencing these things, but only by motivating the experience of more dreams. Besides, having a greater conscious knowledge of what is happening during a nightmare or sleep paralysis can actually help make these experiences less unpleasant than they would be if they were experienced without this knowledge.

To stop a nightmare from happening, try to find what the root of the nightmare is. Dreams are pretty much completely based on what is on going on in the mind. Therefore, if something unpleasant is going on in the mind, (anger, fear, disgust, ect.) it can be the root of an unpleasant dream (nightmare). If the root of the nightmare goes away and is not replaced with another root, the nightmare itself will go away as well.

To stop sleep paralysis from happening (if it happens) just relax and wait for it to go away. It often goes away at the ends of the body first at the toes and fingers. Sometimes, moving your fingers and toes can help make it go away faster.

Sleep paralysis should not be confused with REM atonia. REM atonia (immobilization of the waking body during dreams) is normal and could mean a dream is about to start if it happens to be experienced upon falling asleep. The experience is like a wave of numbness and tingliness that overcomes the body. Sleep paralysis, on the other hand, is a similar experience, but is actually a disorder that occurs when REM atonia occurs out of conjunction with the dream state. Also, sleep paralysis does not always come with scary hallucinations.

Hey! Welcome to DV! :D

Dolphin has covered most of the main points.

But I just want to emphasize something. Fear itself is the thing which causes these bad experiences in sleep paralysis.
It's the same with nightmares upon becoming lucid. Sometimes fear kicks in and it causes all sorts of fearful shit to happen.

The trick is to let go of fear.

If you end up in sleep paralysis, just let go of your fear and the experience will be just fine.
Same if you get lucid and it turns into a nightmare. Just let go of fear, and focus on something more positive.

All this stuff, you're exploring your own mind. If a monster appears, it's only your own mind reacting with fear to something it doesn't understand. With lucidity comes the opportunity to control things. So take control. Use your own power to make the experience as pleasant as possible.

I hate to see all these people scared shitless of SP. Countless people come here saying that they've just read about SP and they're freaking out.

It's a vicious circle, one person is afraid so they get a scary experience. So they tell everyone about it, and the people who hear about it then get scared about SP, so they end up having a similar experience, and so they tell everyone. And it grows and grows.

Meanwhile, we're here having awesome experiences with LDing and SP, because we understand it and we don't fear it.

See what fear does to people? Just take a moment to think about how effin' stupid fear is.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

I don't see how being lucid during dreams would directly help to cure insomnia. Insomnia is the inability to sleep and a lucid dream is a dream. Sleep causes dreams, but dreams do not really cause sleep. That said, it is possible that lucid dreaming could indirectly cure insomnia by boosting the motivation to experience dreams, would help boost the motivation to sleep or learn more about sleep, which in turn may help cure the insomnia.

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First of all, this! It's harder to have proper sleep, dreams, and lucid dreams with Insomnia. I practically have to force myself to sleep with meds. Only way I get so many dreams is because of REM rebound. I would never recommend lucid dreaming to anyone suffering from insomnia. Sure it can boost motivation, but if your insomnia is a result of biological factors then no amount of motivation will help. I would rather educate them towards benefits of sleep, diet that can help sleep, etc.

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Originally Posted by FoolGamer

I started to see stuff about sleep paralysis and nightmares. From the sites I've read it has been described terrifying. Things coming after you and is gonna hurt you and u feel the pain. It's truly scary. I just wanna know how do I escape sleep paralysis and nightmares. I've never lucid dreamt and I would love too but I'm scared that I'll get a nightmare. Is there something I need to know or smth that is bad. Please help me.

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Sleep paralysis hallucinations are influenced by fear and expectation. If you expect bad things to happen and let fear fuel the expectation by reading horror stories, it's more likely that it will manifest in a bad way, but if only you let it. I have watched lots of horror movies with my significant other, read accounts of sleep paralysis nightmares etc. I can assure you even if just one person's assurance doesn't matter... I have never ever had scary hallucinations in my life. I back that up 100%. I never had scary stuff happen even after I started sleeping alone so it's not because someone is sleeping alone. I just don't expect scary things to happen at all because I have had several sleep paralysis experiences from childhood all the way to adulthood before I even read sleep paralysis horror stories. So hang in there. ^^

Hi!

I don't know if this will help, but maybe I can share my experience to try to calm your fears.

I haven't had any scary dreams/nightmares since I was a small child. When I started trying out lucid dreaming about 6 years ago, I found myself remembering a lot more dreams and having a lot of fun in my dreams. I have experimented a lot with WILD (wake induced lucid dreaming), where often sleep paralysis can occur while you are still conscious and awake, but I never experienced weird hallucinations and scary things that others report. I know there are others like me too, as lucidbunnie just reported.

I think the mere knowledge of the experience will make it less scary. The first time I experienced sleep paralysis was long before I learned about lucid dreaming. I woke up one morning and couldn't move, and it was indeed a bit startling at first, but immediately afterwards I just thought "that was weird", not "that was scary". After I learned that sleep paralysis was a thing I became even less scared of it, even though I read about the scary stuff too.

Sleep paralysis is a long known phenomenon across many world cultures. Usually the beliefs around it are not religious but rather superstitious. So I think for the most part people know it's a thing but are not scared of it. :)

I sometimes feel fear during sleep paralysis. I appreciate Dolphin who I think it was distincting REM Atonia from Sp. I didn't know that.

But even during fearful SP I just relaxed and it turned out to be true, what others had said. nothing bad happened. Chapter 10 of Exploring the world of Lucid Dreaming talks about this.

In fact the first time I "survived" SP without reacting in fear. I heard one of the "ghosties" say (in tutters voice from bear in the blue blue house) "A real dream state superhero!" (which I took as a congratulations from the spirits that I passed their test)

I am not possessed. In fact I feel a lot healthier and more integrated of my total self now. Sometimes people mistake emergent personality traits as possession.

I don't really read too much of the anti-LD or anti-SP stuff. Its kind of toxic to me. So when I see something like, "LD is bad" or "LD is devil" I just don't click. Those are like spiritual poison to me.

Based on my up bringing I would buy everything they say. Its a demonic thing I will be possessed etc. But experiences gradually showed me otherwise.

However I definitely still feel slighter amounts of the terror sometimes. But not as much and I handle it better.