Too much grounding up, can't get out of the dream (help pls)

Three years ago I had a disturbing Lucid Dream, that left me a scar. It started as a normal dream, but it became a DILD. It was very unstable and my vision was hazy, so I decided to stabilize it as much as possible (then it was one of my experimental tasks). I was on the main pedestrian street of some Western European city, filled with people around me. There were restaurants, cafes, clothing stores and electronics. It was the first time I'd seen so many DCs in one place. There were whole families with children and even pets. I stabilized it with every technique I knew. The next moment everything was alive before my eyes, I could feel the gravity, the temperature, the breeze on my face, the sun rays. The feeling was unreal, as if this world has become real, and the real world has become a dream (if you understand what I mean). Then I started walking down the street, stared at the shop windows, drank coffee, and ate ice cream, I talked to DCs. I ran for an hour or two on the street, even bought a new highend smartphone :)

The next moment, I said, maybe it's time to end it. I closed my eyes and imagined I woke up, but when I opened them I was still there. I try another ten times, but nothing happened, at that moment I started to panic. I began to cry out loud "Stop Now", "Wake Up Now", "Destabilize" and many others, but nothing was happening. I thought I'd stay there forever, it was really scary. I closed my eyes and with the all strength I had tried to open my real eyelids, after a few minutes of pushing I opened them in the real world. Thank goodness! When I looked myself into the mirror, my eyes were bloody red. From then on, I no longer stabilize my dreams. Wondering if a person can really stay in the dream world forever, what do you think?

Hey GordanFreeman,

I promise you will never get lost in your dreams. It will always be OK.

Here's my perspective:

1. Dreams are psychological experiences (always or in general depending on your worldview). You have no dream body. When you stabilize a dream, you stabilize an illusion. You embrace the illusion and you focus on specific sensations. To better understand these things, I recommend Sivason's Dream Yoga course at DV Academy, particularly the lessons on visualization.

2. To stay in a dream forever, you would have to sleep forever. Your dream will end before or when you wake up.

3. Your mind is connected to your physical body. Whatever you believe, don't expect you will ever separate from your body until you die. Even in astral projection, everyone always returns to their body no matter how little they know about how to get back or whether they've accepted an alien people's irreversible offer to leave the physical realm behind and join them.

4. However stable the illusion is, it is not a physical realm (It's not real, though it may be meaningful). Think about this: when you are awake, all your senses are constructed by your brain interpreting stimuli. What you see is not the direct reality. It is your mind doing it. If you believe you were astral projecting into another physical realm, you might want to consider that just like in the real world, you are not actually directly experiencing that world but rather, your brain is creating it based on "astral stimuli". No matter what, your body remains in our physical world so you will always return when you wake up.

That dream you described sounded amazing. Next time, trust that you will wake up. :)
I've had a few false awakenings/sleep paralysis experiences where it takes a bit of time to wake up. It's like falling asleep, waking up can be gradual. And that's healthy. Let it happen. Just breathe. :)

I can only hope that you are right about this, but about AP or OBE, I think you are wrong. It seems you are mixing LD with them, you think they all are happening in your head. There are also one more side to the coin, if you(your mind) didn't wake up in time or it can't awaken for some reason, your body can go into coma state.

I hope my comment was not too confusing; I was trying to cater to both the psychological and mystical worldview of dreaming. I didn't know how you interpreted your experience: LD or AP/OBE so I addressed both, hoping the distinction was clear. About AP and OBE, I still stand by the point that even if they are formed using astral or physical stimuli "inaccessible" to our physical body, your mind is always connected to your body: it is your body. If you study magic, you will know the importance of things earthly and physical. The mind needs these things; it is these things. So both LDs and OBEs/APs need the body. That is where they are interpreted and experienced (if in located in space at all). The stimuli may come from elsewhere if you believe that. But you might not. Then, it can't.

And no, you will not enter a coma due to LD (psychological: body-mind experience), OBE or AP (mystical experience). Your mind is part of your body. Your body will wake up, ending the psychological or mystical experience. You don't have another body that needs to wake up or that needs to return to the physical body.

Trust me, you are safe.

I do not want to start a new thread, so I'm going to ask here.
Did any of you receive a Lucidity as a award from a DC for special merits to him in normal dream?