Newbie with a worry or two....

Hi All,

This is my first time on this site and I got immediately hooked.

In the past, I have attained a low level of lucidity within dreams that really only amounted to recognizing that I was within a dream.

My worry consists of what I believe I have manged to train myself to do. I think I may have 'supressed' my dreams, or at least pushed them so far into the background I no longer even recall that I had a dream upon waking.

As a child, I would have recurring nightmares ( IIRC: about 3 different ones over and over ). It got to a point where I could easily recognize the *ahem* 'opening scenes' to the dreams and immediately force myself awake before any unpleasantries began. Over time, I learned that I could prevent dreams from occurring (see previous paragraph) in the first place by imagining (once again with the movie references) each frame of an 8mm filmstrip being sequentially blacked out as it was being fed in front of me. Methaphorically, erasing the dreams.

Since then, only once every few months do I even recall that I had a dream that night, wake up after one, etc.

My second worry is this: Once again as a child, I had a sleepwalking thing going on. Since then, I've outgrown it, but there's something else going on that happens from time to time (maybe once or twice a year). I'll fall asleep, and my dream overlays with reality. Let me put it a different way. Reality, literal reality, 2:30AM on Nov xx 2005, my eyes open (but I'm asleep) and true honest-to-God present time reality is being piped into my brain via my eyes and ears, but my brain (as you would with an overhead transparency) will superimpose a dream on top of it. This has had no ill effects on my life (yet), but it still weirds me out when, in the morning, I wake to find my alarm clock being moved from my nightstand to right next to me on the bed. I fully recall the act of moving the alarm clock but the reasons completely escape me.

This worries me because by introducing another wildcard into my already (apparently) damaged sleep states, I wonder if there could be any harm that could come. I'd like to comment that I have no mental illnesses.

Anyways, now that everyone is sufficiently freaked out and you've all shook your heads to rid yourselves of Too-Much-Information™. Any suggestions on UN-supressing the dreams?

Many thanks and cheers to all!

R

hi :) I think Lucid Dreaming is safe unless you have debilitating mental illness where you already have a hard time distinguishing reality from fantasy. As for un-suppressing your dreams.. Just sit down with your self and truly believe that you want dreams, and are excited to have them! The when you wake up in the morning, write down what ever parts or feelings you had from your dream. Eventually you will notice that you will be recalling more of your dreams. Pm me if you need any further help :)