Accidental lucid dream during recurrent nightmare? Also, Hello! :)

Hi there everyone,

New member here. I googled best lucid dream forum and dreamviews came up the most so here I am. Anyways, I signed up to ask if what I experienced last night was a true lucid dream or at least the start of one?

Over the past month I have had a recurrent nightmare where I enter a set of stairs and instantly become trapped in what appears to be an infinite staircase. The first time I dreamt it my son had run up into them and I couldn't find him. The staircase went every which way in many different directions and dimensions, kind of like the staircase in some of M.C. Eschers art work.

The second time I had this type of nightmare again, the staircase was super trippy and geometrical and infinite and I was petrified I would never see my loved ones again. This dream actually gave me a day or two of lingering anxiety it was that emotional.

The third time was last night and this time as I entered and became trapped in the trippy infinite staircase, I became conscious of having been here before and that it scared me in the past so I was able to push myself through the membrane of the stairs/dreamscape (for lack of a better description) and escape them. I soon woke up after I escaped the staircase.

When I woke up I instantly thought that that nightmare may have become lucid, does it sound like it to you guys, have I accidentally stumbled into a lucid dreamscape?

Funnily enough, a few nights ago before bed I thought about the recurrent nightmare and thought to myself that next time if I have it I should try and become lucid and escape out of it! It was more of a random thought more than anything and I didn't think more of it but maybe that was all the intent I needed so that next time the nightmare happened, I was prepared?

I've never had anything distinctly lucid in the past besides one time where I was having a regular dream and next minute I was hurtling through a black void at incredible speeds and became aware and conscious of the fact that I was, and I also felt G-forces comparable to a rollercoaster or something similar. I thought of that more as an out of body experience more than anything but I guess it could kind of fall into a lucid dream category too.

I've always been intrigued by my dreams and have had some amazing ones in my time but they were always what you would call a usual dream where I wasn't aware I was dreaming. Always wanted to be able to lucid dream but never gave it much effort.

Anyways, would love to hear some opinions on this. Thanks for reading everyone!

Hi and Welcome! A while back ( now getting back to LD's) when I was having many LD's, nightmares where one of my favourite cause of the strong emotions. I really liked one where I was "supposed" to be running away from something scary on the lawn, but instead I went back and stood where the "scary zone" was, it was quite thrilling and gave me quite the buzz. hope this was of some help.

I think that the only qualification for a dream to be a lucid dream is that you know that you're dreaming. Did you know that you were dreaming?

Congratulations on escaping the staircase! That sounds like it would be an interesting read, if you keep a dream journal (I'm becoming a dream journal nerd). Of course, some people would probably argue that a recurring nightmare like that has a cause that should be addressed and not simply escaped. I don't know myself, I'm no expert.

That is a good question. I'm not 100% sure if I became conscious of dreaming or not. It was definitely a conscious decision within the dream when I recalled being in this same situation two times before and made a conscious decision to escape the infinite staircase. There definitely wasn't that recall in the previous staircase dreams.

Also an interesting observation about the recurrent nature of the dream and the meaning behind it and I have given it some thought. The past year has been somewhat tumultuous due to a health scare with my mum and also all the covid stuff and some job insecurity that's happened so maybe there was a level of loss of control influencing and creating the feeling of no escape within the nightmare. And the last dream I had where I had some level of recall and a conscious decision to escape and succeeding in that. It will be interesting to see if I have anymore of the same nightmare and if I was able to resolve it through conscious recall and action within the dream.

Thanks for throwing up some ideas guys!

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Originally Posted by dreamfeeder

The third time was last night and this time as I entered and became trapped in the trippy infinite staircase, I became conscious of having been here before and that it scared me in the past so I was able to push myself through the membrane of the stairs/dreamscape (for lack of a better description) and escape them. I soon woke up after I escaped the staircase.

(...)

I've never had anything distinctly lucid in the past besides one time where I was having a regular dream and next minute I was hurtling through a black void at incredible speeds and became aware and conscious of the fact that I was, and I also felt G-forces comparable to a rollercoaster or something similar. I thought of that more as an out of body experience more than anything but I guess it could kind of fall into a lucid dream category too.

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It's difficult for anyone to be able to say really. For obvious reasons I don't think we can exactly confirm it for you, but to me it sounds as though this particular case may have been a lucid dream for you - what you describe in the second part of me quoting you here would also be a lucid dream and not an OBE in my opinion, but at the end of the day all of these things are just words that don't necessarily mean the same things exactly to all of us. All in all, "lucidity" is best regarded simply as "being aware" (of what's actually happening), since that's all it's supposed to mean.

If you have had previous experiences that you think were lucid ones, then it's probably fairly safe for you to use them as reference points as to what "lucidity" feels like for you. On my personal experience, despite their rarity for me, it's always very clear if a dream was one in which I was lucid or not, they just feel a certain way and my recall of them tends to be much clearer and I definitely feel physically present in those dreams. Even so, like others I also find that my lucid dreams have different "levels" of awareness, clarity and vividness to them, in some of them I have still thought more dream-like things or gone along with dream logic a bit too much for my liking. So at least for me, it just varies, just like with any of my regular dreams anyway.

Thanks DarkestDarkness for the detailed reply.

I'd say that if I had to give a scale of 1-10 for lucidity, the recurrent nightmare staircase dream would be a 5 and the one where I was hurtling through a black void would be a 10. I was totally clear minded and lucid for that whereas the escaping of the staircase was a bit foggier but definitely more aware and lucid than a regular dream.

Colour me interested in the lucid dream state. The fact that previous to the somewhat lucid staircase dream, that I had thought about escaping the stairs if it happened again, seems like I accidentally willed myself into some lucidity when it happened is interesting. I've always wanted to be able to do it and have always been fascinated by my dreams and have had some pretty profound dream experiences that have sometimes rivalled previous psychedelic experiences from my youth.

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Originally Posted by dreamfeeder

That is a good question. I'm not 100% sure if I became conscious of dreaming or not.

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OK I am going to play devil's advocate here a little bit.

The fact that you are not sure if it was lucid says to me that it may not have been fully lucid. There are dreams that we can have where we dream about being lucid, without being lucid. We can even be aware that it's a dream, and even do things like rewind the scene (because it's a dream) or other strange actions. I generally consider these dreams to be "semi-lucid". However, I am not saying your dream was one of these - it could have been a true, fully lucid dream - only you really know.

The key feature that (to me) distinguishes a lucid dream from a semi-lucid dream is the "aha moment" or "Eureka moment". It's a sudden realization, like an epiphany, or when you solve a puzzle feeling. Then, you should have very conscious thinking compared to before that moment.

There are also levels of lucidity, even with aha moments. There are low level fully lucid dreams, that are barely above a non-lucid dream, and where lucidity may come and go with the scenes. There are higher level lucid dreams, some so lucid that the scenery is surreal - even more real than waking life, even more vivid and colorful, and in these dreams, you may have a fairly good command of your logical brain (something usually lost in non-lucid dreams).

So it's also possible you could have a lower-level lucid dream, which may be causing you to question.

Ultimately, experience is going to let you know what kind of dream you had. When you have more lucids under your belt, and also more semi-lucids, more low level lucids, and high level lucids, you will learn to discriminate between the states.

Thank you for sharing, and I hope this was helpful.

Accidentally deleted my post! Oops.

I think that you escaping the staircase was almost certainly because you set your intentions that one time. It's crazy how far even a small bit of intention setting can get you. Now imagine falling asleep setting your intentions
you should give MILD a try.

I agree with DarkestDarkness that lucid dreams can have a certain feel. It gets more obvious as you journal more dreams. If you get good enough at feeling the differences in gravity you can even use it for the gravity rc which is a very powerful technique.

I find the idea of an infinite staircase fascinating even if it is scary. I find scary dreams exhilarating sort of like yuriythebest.

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Originally Posted by dreamfeeder

The third time was last night and this time as I entered and became trapped in the trippy infinite staircase, I became conscious of having been here before and that it scared me in the past so I was able to push myself through the membrane of the stairs/dreamscape (for lack of a better description) and escape them. I soon woke up after I escaped the staircase.
When I woke up I instantly thought that that nightmare may have become lucid, does it sound like it to you guys, have I accidentally stumbled into a lucid dreamscape?

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Based on what you’ve described I would call it “semi-lucid” as well. There was a part of you that acknowledged what you were experiencing wasn’t real and you knew you could escape it, but you didn’t quite conclude it was a dream. It was lacking what Hilary described as the “aha!” moment. Sounds like you were close and It’s quite common for people to have lucid experiences from recurring nightmares, probably because the experiences recur making them more recognisable as dreams.

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Originally Posted by dreamfeeder

I've never had anything distinctly lucid in the past besides one time where I was having a regular dream and next minute I was hurtling through a black void at incredible speeds and became aware and conscious of the fact that I was, and I also felt G-forces comparable to a rollercoaster or something similar. I thought of that more as an out of body experience more than anything but I guess it could kind of fall into a lucid dream category too.

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This sounds like the sensations you get when transitioning into a dream from waking. I regularly experience what your describing when attempting a wake initiated lucid dream (WILD). Perhaps you had just entered the dream with awareness which would explain why you felt lucid during it.

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Originally Posted by dreamfeeder

The past year has been somewhat tumultuous due to a health scare with my mum and also all the covid stuff and some job insecurity that's happened so maybe there was a level of loss of control influencing and creating the feeling of no escape within the nightmare.

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Ive found Stress and anxiety can greatly effect my dreams and trigger nightmares. I think it could be because we’re feeling that anxiety as we fall asleep and it lingers whilst we dream and creates a scenario to match how we’re feeling. So even though you may be worried about work in waking life the dreaming mind comes up with its own narrative based on anxiety such as been trapped and unable to escape. Anxiety is then associated with the nightmare so it continues to recur until we can over come it in waking life. Just a theory.

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Originally Posted by dreamfeeder

Funnily enough, a few nights ago before bed I thought about the recurrent nightmare and thought to myself that next time if I have it I should try and become lucid and escape out of it! It was more of a random thought more than anything and I didn't think more of it but maybe that was all the intent I needed so that next time the nightmare happened, I was prepared?

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Yeah, setting simple intents like this can be quite effective for lucid dreaming. Before bed try setting an intent again to notice when you next have this dream and visualise what that would be like. You may find if it recurs again you’ll become lucid. You may not be able to fix whatever problems you’re having in waking life from within the dream but at least you can face the scary situation with a clear head and make it less terrifying.