Help me, please!

I want to start by saying, I have never been nor have ever tried to be a lucid dreamer. I very rarely even remember my dreams... Until recently.
For about 6 months now, I have been having lucid nightmares accompanied with multiple false awakenings. These nightmares often include some sort of demonic figure. In these dreams, I am fully aware that I'm dreaming and have even stated the fact to people around me in the dream. A few times I have woken both myself and my fiancé up yelling at the demonic figure to "get out", knowing they cannot stay if I tell them they have to leave. I have been yelling it out loud in my sleep while yelling it in the dream. Most of the time, I end up yelling at myself to wake up. This is where the false awakenings come in. When I tell myself to wake up, I will wake up in bed with my fiancé, only to discover that I have awoken into another lucid nightmare. It will often take 2-3 false awakenings before I finally actually wake up. A few times, when I've woken in reality, I have had sleep paralysis. And a few other times, I've had trouble knowing if I was really awake or not. It has taken several minutes for me to be sure I've really woken up.
These dreams are the most realistic and frightening dreams I have ever had and I want them to stop. When I wake up, I can often still taste, smell or feel things that had been a part of the dream.
These dreams always happen not long after I've first fallen asleep. When I wake up, it's usually 1 to 2 hours after the time I went to bed. It usually takes me a little while to fall back to sleep because I'm so shaken up by the dream(s), but once I do, I typically don't have another one in the same night.
Does anyone have any idea what could have caused me to start having these dreams and what I can do to put an end to them? I'm losing sleep and am beginning to reach the point that I don't like to go to bed at night. I am willing to try almost anything. If anyone can help, I would be so grateful.
Thanks for taking the time to read.

lupacexi⚘ I am linking your thread to

California Dreaming Facebook page
And
Dream Enthusiasts Facebook page

There're some members there who specialize in nightmares
I have no answers for you.
I can understand that this is urgent. So I hope some one here on DV
or Facebook can help.
I'm quoting you
and making the "wall of text" reader friendly⚘

Quote:

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Help me, please!

I want to start by saying, I have never been nor have ever tried to be a lucid dreamer. I very rarely even remember my dreams... Until recently.

For about 6 months now,
I have been having lucid nightmares
accompanied with multiple false awakenings.

These nightmares often include some sort of demonic figure. In these dreams, I am fully aware that I'm dreaming and have even stated the fact to people around me in the dream. A few times I have woken both myself and my fiancé up yelling at the demonic figure to "get out", knowing they cannot stay if I tell them they have to leave. I have been yelling it out loud in my sleep while yelling it in the dream.

Most of the time, I end up yelling at myself to wake up. This is where the false awakenings come in. When I tell myself to wake up, I will wake up in bed with my fiancé, only to discover that I have awoken into another lucid nightmare. It will often take 2-3 false awakenings before I finally actually wake up.

A few times, when I've woken in reality, I have had sleep paralysis. And a few other times, I've had trouble knowing if I was really awake or not. It has taken several minutes for me to be sure I've really woken up.*


These dreams are the most realistic and frightening dreams I have ever had and I want them to stop. When I wake up, I can often still taste, smell or feel things that had been a part of the dream.*


These dreams always happen not long after I've first fallen asleep. When I wake up, it's usually 1 to 2 hours after the time I went to bed. It usually takes me a little while to fall back to sleep because I'm so shaken up by the dream(s), but once I do, I typically don't have another one in the same night.*

Does anyone have any idea what could have caused me to start having these dreams and what I can do to put an end to them? I'm losing sleep and am beginning to reach the point that I don't like to go to bed at night. I am willing to try almost anything. If anyone can help, I would be so grateful.
Thanks for taking the time to read.

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Ebbtide
You are
The Queen of
Paragraphs

:D

Lupa

Your aim should not be to end the nightmares. It should be to learn to master them. You need to tame the demon and understand it. If you do this the nightmares go away and I will not be surprised if you gain something in the process. These nightmares are in my opinion not unlikely sent to convey a message or force some kind change in you..

In lucid dreams you are a God. You need to realize this. Get confident, get your fear under control and face the demon. I can't tell you wether you should fight it, mock it, make friends, rape it or just ignore it. But you have to take control away from the demon. On second thought... making friends and getting to know it is what I would reccomend as a general first strategy. But I don't know the nature of your dreams well enough to say what I would do.

I have only ever backed down once in a lucid dream. I asked the dream to present me the most powerful enemy it could muster. In reply the sky went dark, the air cold and silence filled the dreamscape... and as I was waiting for something I could sense beyond the horizon.. little by little, I felt fear come over me. The mood got more and more sinister, my heart raced in anticipation and eventually panic.

I withdrew my wish for battle before the enemy even presented itself... or so I thought. The enemy was fear itself. It got under my skin, and by the time I realized it was there, I was already prepared to give up.

Fear clouds your judgement. It is fear itself that makes the demon terrifying. The situation itself is completely harmless. You are dreaming and immortal.

You should practice meditation, and before bed you need to prepare yourself for these dreams. Plan for what you will do when you realize that you are dreaming. Run the scenario through your mind over and over. Find a few mantras that will help you. When you find you are dreaming you will repeat them to yourself and find strength.

Here is one... probably too long for a dream, and definitely overused... but it's good...

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.


What you want is to find strength, increase your awareness and find a way to turn on the rational part of your mind. Realizing that you are dreaming does not mean that you have access to all parts of your mind needed to understand the implications of the concept of being in a dream. You need to turn your brain on.

Focus, breathe, center yourself.... ask yourself questions... What did I have for breakfast yesterday? What was the name of the protagonist in the last show I saw? What have I planned to do when I find myself in this dream? Questions like these turn on your memory, a vital part for rational functioning.

This is quite important in my opinion, but I know it can be difficult to see it that way when it's been going on for months:

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Your aim should not be to end the nightmares.

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Recently a friend of mine was having the exact same kind of dream as you, lupacexi. It had been happening for months, almost every night.

She stopped having nightmares when I told her to confront the demon (some kind of vampire in her case) in the dream and she spoke to it, telling it that she had been told to try and talk to it by me. She told me that it did indeed talk to her and it became something harmless, and she hasn't really had them again since then.

All I had recommended to her was to try and have a conversation with it, to understand why it was appearing, to not react negatively towards the creature, because negative begets negative. Especially in dreams, from my experience, if you act positively toward something negative, it tends to transform to something less scary/nasty; something you can understand or relate to. That's one of the points of having a conversation with someone, understanding.

Which I think is more or less what LighrkVader is suggesting about making friends with the creature. It is easy to do, and only requires that you let go of fear for a moment. It is not difficult, just believe that you can do it. :)

Like LighrkVader says:

Quote:

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Fear clouds your judgement. It is fear itself that makes the demon terrifying. The situation itself is completely harmless.

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I would personally not overly prepare myself for the dream, because I would obsess about it, which would be less helpful. Everyone is different, but I would take the moment when it comes. Remain calm, remember it's a dream. The demon? It doesn't have to be the focus of your dream, it likely just wants some of your attention, so give it some, you're already there with it so what's the harm in trying, why follow the script when you have the ability to change it? :)

Thank you LighrkVader and DarkestDarkness

For replying to this important thread.

lupacexi

Christian Gerike
(the owner of Californian Dreaming)
made an open post.

He wrote

⚘⚘⚘

Debra, (that's me, Ebbtide000)
please ask this person (that's you lupacexi)
to join California Dreaming.
I will respond here,
and respond again if they join and post their dream.

Then 4 minutes later Christian Gerike made another reply.
He wrote:

A nightmare is often a nightmare because there is a very important message the unconscious is trying to communicate to the conscious mind.

My basic reaction is that the demonic figure is there
to pass on a message, or knowledge, or information, or wisdom.

Telling the demon to "get out"
does not allow the dream to pass on its message.

I would sugest that instead one asks the demon,

"What do you want to tell me?"

And see what the response is.

It may be necessary to do a follow up cerimony to honour the dream, to implement the dreams message.

Robert Johnson's book "Inner Work" has a great section on cerimonying a dream.

⚘⚘⚘

lupacexi

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Press this link to Christian Gerike's
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Can you see the link to your thread?
It is the top post now.