Introduction with some questions

[**?Sephiroth?**]

Hi, I was introduced to this site last night by a friend and found it very interesting to read, very informative. I already had a little knowledge on what Lucid Dreaming was from reading topics on it in the past, seeing and reading this site is the first time however I've read so much on it. I'm 27 years old now and I haven't recalled a dream in what I estimate to be around 16 years, because I stopped them myself. When I tell people I know I did this they never usually beleive me, but upon reading the information on this site it made me smile to read that a way of inducing dream recall is to verbally assert your intentions before you go to bed. I smiled because this is what I did, around 16 years ago I stopped my dreams by doing the opposite, verbally asserting my intentions to stop them. I havent had a dream since (or rather, I haven't recalled one) I can't remember if someone told me to do this or I just thought to do it myself, as I don't remember much of my childhood apart from some of the dreams I used to have. I used to dream very often, some dreams were recurring dreams and some dreams were single one offs. None of them were nice (or at least not the ones I remember) From what I understand so far about the subject, the dreams I used to have were lucid. For fear of making this post too long, Ill try to just summarise the kind of dreams I had. I was nearly always being chased by something and experienced lots of the common things (unable to run etc) however I was always aware that I was dreaming (from what I remember) I knew it was a dream and fake but I STILL didn't want to be caught and torn up into little bits, so my desire in my dreams was always to wake up. I deffinately gave myself the ability to fly when I needed too and it got me out of a lot of trouble. Though to be honest I never actually thought of wishing the monster away, or creating a gun to shoot it with. To wake up I needed to find a place within my dream, close my eyes and count to 10. Worked everytime and I knew if I got to 10 before I was discovered I would wake up. So for example if I was being chased I would fly (sometimes took me a couple of jumps) to a high safe location I knew I would be safe and got out of my dream. So it seems I have previous experience of sorts of Lucid Dreaming that I wasn't aware of at the time. My questions as such are these: I stopped these once for a reason. Im worried if I open the gates to dreams again that ill have some awful experiences again and then what If I can't shut the gates again? Is it possible I have some sort of natural tendency to lucid dream? Is it worth exploring my dreams again, would if benefit me? or is it jsut unecessary risk for nothing? Thanks for reading and any help you might be able to give, sorry it turned into such a long post.

[Burns]

Welcome to the forum, Sephiroth! Love the username, by the way. Good to hear you want to get back into dreaming and all the fun stuff that comes with it, like being lucid. Can I ask why you willed yourself to stop recalling dreams? Was it because you were always being chased and the dreams scared you? I've never heard of anyone actually trying NOT to recall their dreams, but I don't think it will be difficult for you to start remembering them again. Firstly, starting a dream journal is important. I know you're going to say that you don't have anything to write in it since you aren't remembering your dreams, but I'd start it out by writing down the types of dreams you used to have, and why you actively stopped yourself from remembering them. A dream journal is not only to record actual dreams, but to record anything dream-related, like your feelings about certain techniques and how well they work for you. You could start to recall them again by doing what you did before, only in reverse. Tell yourself you want to start remembering your dreams again, and reaffirm this thought before bed every night. Then in the morning (or if you wake up during the night), write down anything you can remember, or any feelings you get. You may even start having LDs again right away, since you have a history of becoming lucid quite easily. If you have any of the chasing dreams again, you can use the chase as a dreamsign to tell yourself you are dreaming. Then you can try to control the dreams in other ways that you talked about (killing the monster, or conjuring a gun to shoot it). Yes, it is possible to have a natural tendency to lucid dream. There are a lot of members her who are "naturals", and don't really need to do any techniques except keeping a dream journal to become lucid. To answer your last question, I definitely think it's worth it to start exploring the realm of dreaming again. It's been awhile since you actually remembered dreams or was lucid, so it may be a completely different experience for you this time. LDing can be extremely fun, yet challenging at the same time. You can learn so much from this forum. Ask questions and share your experiences. This is a great community for supporting you and helping you on your journey. Good luck, and most importantly, HAVE FUN!!

[dudesuperior]

Welcome "**?Sephiroth?**"! It must take ages for you to login with a name like that! Originally posted by **?Sephiroth?**+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(**?Sephiroth?**)</div> I stopped these once for a reason. Im worried if I open the gates to dreams again that ill have some awful experiences again and then what If I can't shut the gates again?[/b] There's always a chance of that happening, but the rewards of recalling your dreams could be far greater that not recalling them. Also, there are many experienced people on this forum who have probably had experiences similar to yours, and will be able to help you through any dream troubles you do have. Originally posted by **?Sephiroth?**@ Is it possible I have some sort of natural tendency to lucid dream? Yup. Some people go through life thinking that everyone has awareness in their dreams, until someone else tells them other wise. Not many people have lucid dreams all the time, but many people do it naturally. <!--QuoteBegin-**?Sephiroth?** Is it worth exploring my dreams again, would if benefit me? or is it jsut unecessary risk for nothing? You can learn a lot from your dreams, and if you learn to refine your former lucidity it could help you conquer real life problems that you may have.

[**?Sephiroth?**]

Thanks very much for the reply Burns. In answer to your question I wanted to stop my dream recall because they were very scary and were interrupting my sleep. I'd have to keep waking myself up all the time because I could have a few dreams a night where I'd be being chased by something. Even flying or bringing myself out of the dream in a nice way was bad enough, but if something went wrong such as I ended up in small room with a low roof (flying seemed to be my only idea at the time) and I got caught, the results would be rather disastrous. Waking up because your arms and legs got pulled off was much more distressing than managing to come out of the dream myself. They caused me so many problems at the time I just really needed them to stop. I'm fairly certain I could begin recalling dreams again using the method you suggested. It's just working up the courage to do so after so long. Do your dreams not interrupt your sleep and effect your daily life? Do you not still have bad experiences? Im enjoying reading the forums though, so many experiences and thoughts. I will be sticking around no doubt, maybe sometime I'll have a new experience to add. **EDIT** Thanks to dudesuperior as well for the info and welcome to the board. Trying things out in your dreams to get a clue as to how things would turn out in real life deffinately sounds interesting (if thats what you meant by coming up with solutions to real life problems) If its a dream though surely the outcome of your actions does not indicate the same outcome will occur in real life?

[dudesuperior]

Originally posted by **?Sephiroth?** Trying things out in your dreams to get a clue as to how things would turn out in real life deffinately sounds interesting (if thats what you meant by coming up with solutions to real life problems) If its a dream though surely the outcome of your actions does not indicate the same outcome will occur in real life? Yeah, running secarios through your dreams could give you a clue how to approch it in real life. If you play it over multiple times, you could get a fairly accurate idea of how things would/could unfold, or what you should do in certain situations. You would need a fair bit of dream control for this though. You could even use lucidity to overcome something like a phobia, or some other thing that is troubling you, safe in the knowledge that nothing is real in the dream.

[**?Sephiroth?**]

I still haven't opened my mind to dreaming again yet as im off sick from work at the moment (hence the midday posts) and I don't think waking up through dreaming would help my condition but I've spent a lot of time reading the forums since I made my first post. The main thing that worries me is still nightmares. Some people have made some posts with scary descriptions of bad experiences indeed. I just finished reading a tutorial on defeating your nightmares and my new question is do those of you with decent dream control have nightmares often or at all? If you do have a nightmare are you able to control it enough to prevent it from happening again or change it on the spot?