Pounding in head while coming out of LD?

A week or so ago when I was taking a nap and really struggling to stay in and control a LD, I was having frequent, but short LD's where I would drift in and then slowly, and with much difficulty struggle to awake. I would be paralyzed for lengths of time, in what seemed to be a half dream state and half awake state. At times my vision would be both in dreams and in reality. To explain: I have a fan attached to my bed and at one point while partially in dream I could see the fan but behind the fan was a red brick wall, which isn't there in reality.

So, with that background of common paralyzation and difficulty coming out of LD's, one time while struggling to come out of a dream there was a VERY forceful pound on the side of my head, which literally felt like someone had punched me hard with their fist. It jolted me awake and the pain soon subsided. Anyone have any idea what this was? My only guess is that my body was trying to hard to come out of the dream world, and thus reality and dream collided in a way, causing a sharp break from dream to reality. In a way this frightens me because it feels like it could be possible to be permantly locked in that parlyzing dream state. Any thoughts or comments are welcome. Thanks.

OMG you sound just like I was in the beginning. You should read my first several posts...I often talked about a throbbing or pounding in my head that was frightful (reminded me of what happened to the guy in butterfly effect after he's change the past) and I also know exactly what you mean about the "being half awake, half not" state where you can actually open your eyes a little and see things going on and then close them and go lucid. The pounding goes away. Do NOT be afraid of the paralysis, it feels a bit strange at times, but you'll learn to love it b/c it will signal the coming of an LD. You are really lucky that you can get into that "state" that you were talking about b/c you will find it much easier to have control over how and when and how much you LD. How long have you been having LDs, and do you have an ideas on how they came about?

Oh, BTW mine first came about from napping during the day...you mentioned you were napping, maybe you're experiences are similar to mine.

Lucidina: I have only recently started actually having intense, lengthy and controlled LD's, which is strange because I wasn't trying to. I learned of LDing through Castaneda and to an extent, "Waking Life," as well as through my general love of Freud and Jung. I tried for months and months to have them, to no success. But now that I take naps occasionaly in the daytime, I almost always automatically have them without effort.

It's really nice to hear that the pounding will go away because it was a bit frightening. It's really odd, though that _I_ automatically started having LD's and these very intense paralyzing symptoms, but I never heard about other people with the same experience UNLESS they are familiar with LD or have extensivly read about it. So, it seems as it it's almost like a controled release mechanism, that you have to LEARN about LDing first before you can have them. Either that or people just don't talk about the symptoms and effects of LDing because they don't know the terms and phrases for it. My short rant for the night. Thanks for the response.

Well for me it was a bit different...I've never seen "Waking Life" nor had I ever heard about lucid dreaming...I just started taking naps...would experience this intense throbbing/pounding sensation and would enter a lucid, and would also experience those same sensations upon leaving a lucid. I had no idea what was going on...I tried to explain to my boyfriend at the time that I was able to "control my dream" and he had no clue what I was talking about, so I sort of figured I wouldn't talk about it with anyone since they would think I was crazy. Then they touched on it lightly in Vanilla Sky, and I watched that movie about 6 months ago and looked up lucid dreaming on the internet and thats when I found this site...I had no idea there were so many other people who could do it...or that there were even ways of inducing it...like WILDS (wake-induced lucid dreaming)...which work very well. This community here has been extremely helpful, but I don't do everything they say to do, maybe b/c I'm more of a natural? For instance, I don't keep a dream journal, nor do I do the wake back to bed thing (WBTB)...I just let them happen. Anyway...if you have any questions feel free to PM me anytime :wink:

What! Youve never seen "Waking life"! That i almost have to say is a shame! :wink: That movie never hit the thatres here in norway, i acctually stumbled across it, and its the best LD movie ive ever seen! Vanilla sky is also a great movie actually. But the "waking life" movie should be a testament in the Lucid Dream Bible! Actually we should get a agree with the creator of the movie to lay it out on a server here on DV so that everyone that havnet seen it yet could!

OK, im convinced...I'm going to go and rent it as soon as I get some freetime (haha, snarl) and watch it and see how it stacks up to my own experiences.

Prepare to get your mind blown away cause that movie is a treasure in film history.... in Lucid Dreams Film history that is. Cause its sooooooooo *removing the ocean water and point a finger towards the deepest depths of the ocean abyss* deep!

I wouldn't worry about being trapped ½ awake, ½ asleep. After a few hours, either someone would come along, and wake you up or else you'd get too tired and fall asleep and wake up 12 hours later feeling really refreshed.