A few wierd experiences while dreaming

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11-14-2005, 06:48 PM
Nocturne

A few wierd experiences while dreaming

I'm new to this forum, but not entirely new to the concept of Lucid Dreaming. I can remember one instance in my childhood where I have had a lucid dream, and I also have very vivid dreams (when i can remember them). I have looked into learning how to induce lucid dreams a couple of years ago, but dropped it as I could not really keep a regular sleep pattern. Now the reason why I'm interested in the topic again, and dreaming as a whole is due to something that happened this weekend, which reminded me of something else that happened a few years ago:

When I was 16, I was visiting relatives, and they also had extra guests, so I ended up sharing a bed with my cousin. One night, in the middle of a dream I was being attacked by a group of people, and I was fighting back in the dream. At one point in the dream, someone was sneaking up behind me and was going to attack, and my natural reaction was to elbow the guy in the dream. I woke up right after that, and heard my cousin let out a small moan, and I realized at that point that I had just elbowed him in the chest while he was sneaking back into bed after he got home from his night shift. I apologized and explained what had happened, and we had a good laugh about it the next day. I thought it was some freak thing that wouldn't happen again.

This weekend, I was sleeping over at my friend's place (and i'm not getting into details about this relationship). This time, I had a short dream, and it was really strange where it was like a redish-brown colour was applied to a camera lens to give the image a different tint (like in the movie Traffic). Anyways, in the dream, this big guy jumped me and was laying on top of me and I could barely move, so my natural instinct to defend myself was to grab him by the neck, choke him slightly, and push him away. Like the first example i described, I ended up grabbing my friend's throat, and pushed her away waking her up, and waking me up at the same time. Luckily she didn't freak out, and I explained to her what had happened (I was also lucky that I had told her before about the incident with my cousin).

The first instance I laughed it off, but considering something similar happened this weekend, it freaks me out a little. Any possible explanation as to how, or why I am "acting" out my dreams, even if it's for a split second?
11-14-2005, 07:33 PM
TygrHawk

Welcome to DreamViews! :D

Quote:

Originally posted by Nocturne
The first instance I laughed it off, but considering something similar happened this weekend, it freaks me out a little. Any possible explanation as to how, or why I am \"acting\" out my dreams, even if it's for a split second?

Sounds like, for some reason, you are not getting fully into Sleep Paralysis, which is what prevents us from acting out our dreams. Have you ever had incidences of sleepwalking? The way I understand it, that's another symptom of people who have this problem.
11-14-2005, 08:44 PM
Nocturne

Thanks for your reply TygrHawk,

and to answer your question, I haven't had any incidences of sleepwalking. Although it makes me think that I might be "acting" out more actions in my dreams than I know of since the two incidents I described affected other people.
11-14-2005, 09:33 PM
Barbizzle

I agree with TygrHawk. It seems that your body is not shutting off completely. I have no idea what you could do for this though. Just warn people so you dont scare them that much or hurt them.
11-14-2005, 10:12 PM
Nocturne

If my body isn't shutting off completely....that's not a good thing. And I think you're right that it's a good idea to warn people about that, just imagine if my friend wouldn't have known about the previous incident....
11-15-2005, 12:31 AM
StickFigure

well, its a common thing to act out your dream as your waking up from it but the violence is definetly bad. a violent dream could be the only dream you act out as you awake. everybodys different but it seems like your cousin and your special friend were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I dont know... I'd start with interpeting the dream and take care of the problem so you just dont have those kind of dreams.
I hold invisible telephones to my ear sometimes when I wake up but I just TALK to the person on the other line, not choke 'em.
11-15-2005, 12:43 AM
jaded

Hi Nocturne, have you thought about how you were feeling and what was going on in your life at the time of these incidents, mabey this could give you some clue about when its likely to happen.
11-15-2005, 01:03 AM
Nocturne

Quote:

Originally posted by StickFigure
well, its a common thing to act out your dream as your waking up from it but the violence is definetly bad. a violent dream could be the only dream you act out as you awake. everybodys different but it seems like your cousin and your special friend were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I dont know... I'd start with interpeting the dream and take care of the problem so you just dont have those kind of dreams.
I hold invisible telephones to my ear sometimes when I wake up but I just TALK to the person on the other line, not choke 'em.

I don't particularly think that in both instances I was waking up when I performed those acts, it seemed more that the reaction from the other parties caused me to wake up. But you're right that it might be best that I get those dreams interpreted. I will go post them in the dream interpretation section later tonight.
11-15-2005, 01:06 AM
Nocturne

Quote:

Originally posted by jaded
Hi Nocturne, have you thought about how you were feeling and what was going on in your life at the time of these incidents, mabey this could give you some clue about when its likely to happen.

I have thought about what was (or has been) going on in my life to see if it could give me any indication as to why this happened exactly. From my basic understanding of dreams, fighting during a dream can represent some sort of internal conflict that I'm just working out. Although I admit recently i have been quite conflicted over alot of stuff, in the first case when I was 16, I don't that was the case. I was on vacation at the time, and I've always really enjoyed visiting those relatives, and I remember having a great time that summer.
11-15-2005, 02:38 AM
Callista

Well, I dunno about fighting always representing conflict. Depends on what the fight is about, whether you're winning, what all the things in the dream mean to you... For all you know, it could just be random things you saw in the movies and ended up in your dream.

Anyway, if you're a teenager, there's conflict in your life... anyone who's ever been a teen knows that. The time when you grow up and learn to stand on your own feet, when you separate from your family, is always filled with conflict, even if you have a perfect environment.

I would agree with the people who say you've got something like sleepwalking going on; and agree that you should probably warn anyone you share a bed with. If I'm not mistaken, you didn't actually grip hard enough to actually choke, or elbow hard enough to cause a bruise? If that's so, you probably don't have much to worry about. If you did actually hurt people, I'd recommend a sleeping bag when sharing a bed with someone (your arms are inside it, so you can't whack anyone or try to choke them), or just put the bag on the floor.

I've been known to talk in my sleep--but, strangely enough, the only people who mentioned it said I had been speaking in German. I spoke German when I was a kid, but am no longer quite fluent in it... quite odd, that.

Maybe you move in your sleep routinely, and this was just noticed because you were sharing a bed at the time?
11-15-2005, 08:14 PM
Nocturne

Quote:

Anyway, if you're a teenager, there's conflict in your life... anyone who's ever been a teen knows that. The time when you grow up and learn to stand on your own feet, when you separate from your family, is always filled with conflict, even if you have a perfect environment. *
[/b]

Prehaps I should restate this. I'm pretty sure that conflict in my life at that particular point in my teen years was minimal. I was on vacation, out of town, and away from the parents.

Quote:

I would agree with the people who say you've got something like sleepwalking going on; and agree that you should probably warn anyone you share a bed with. If I'm not mistaken, you didn't actually grip hard enough to actually choke, or elbow hard enough to cause a bruise? If that's so, you probably don't have much to worry about. If you did actually hurt people, I'd recommend a sleeping bag when sharing a bed with someone (your arms are inside it, so you can't whack anyone or try to choke them), or just put the bag on the floor. *
[/b]

Actually, it was quite hard, and I believe it was full force. My friend said it scared the crap out of her. Same thing with my cousin, he told me that the elbow was quite hard (did it cause a bruise, i'm not sure and I didn't ask). Anyways, a sleeping bag does seem like a good idea.

As for moving in my sleep routinely, it is quite a possibility, but it seems like I'm moving in dreams that I seem to remember the most.