Control through horror

**Badfish22000** · 07-20-2010 05:33 PM

Since I was a child, I have had night terrors. As a child they got so bad that I wouldnt even spend the night at friends houses due to fear of having one. Over time I began to figure out that I was in a dream, stuff was not normal, and I could tell myself to wake up for fear of a night terror coming on. I would only begin this thought process if I felt threatined in any way durring the dream. I have two questions. 1. Is that a lucid dreaming? 2. Is there any way I can achieve this in a normal dream but instead run with it instead of telling myself to wake up?

Thanks,

Badfish.

**Tsirist** · 07-20-2010 05:49 PM

I'm a newbie here too, but I believe I understand the basics well enough to answer your questions.

1) Yes, you are lucid if you realize that you are in a dream.
2) Yes, you can become lucid in any dream with practice. You may also learn to lengthen lucid dreams and advance your ability to control them.

There are a variety of methods and ideas concerning lucid dreaming, and this site is a fantastic resource. The first thing you need to do, as I understand it, to become lucid more often is to keep a dream journal. The first thing you should do when waking up is think about your dreams and write them down/type them up. That will change depending on your plans (if you wake up during the night with a dream, you might write it down, but you might also use it to achieve a DEILD).

Read through the tutorial section. Read anywhere on this site. It's fantastic.

**DreamHacker** · 07-20-2010 05:53 PM

Tsirist is right this sight is full of awesome people willing to help the tutorial section is a great place to start but keeping a dream journal is a great thing to do to increase vividness and capacity of remembering I am right now trying to WILD well happy dreaming

**Tsirist** · 07-20-2010 06:12 PM

I'll be interested to see if you are able to fight off your night terrors by becoming lucid. What exactly are night terrors like? Just curious.

Then again, I had an interesting dream last night. I ended up holding a bloody baby, probably evil in nature. I'm not sure I'd want to become lucid at that moment.

**Badfish22000** · 07-20-2010 06:42 PM

Well Tsirist, it wasn't so much a certain night terror caused this, as much as it was like I was just feeling threatened. Here is an example that I experienced in the past, I'm dreaming that I am walking through my neighborhood overtaken by water. It looks like some sort of storm has destroyed the area and over time a swamp has grown in. At my feet I see a huge snake swimming between my legs. My subconscious would then become aware I was dreaming because I felt threatened. I would then tell myself to wake up for fear of a night terror resulting from the inclusion of a snake in my dream.

I'm not so much trying to fight off my night terrors because I dont really have them anymore. I can always wake myself up when I am feeling threatened. I want to be able to Lucid dream in positive citations. Another words be able to gain awareness of a dream from other things in dreams besides what I feel to be threatening.

**Tsirist** · 07-20-2010 06:58 PM

Interesting. In that case, as I understand it, you just need to become more aware. I've been told to try to be more aware of my surroundings in real life so that, in a dream, I will be more prepared to notice something out of place. Again, as I understand it, this just means paying more attention to how things smell, look, feel, and the like. And, of course, make use of strategies including a dream journal, reality checks, etc., all of which can be found around this site!