Hello - is this just me?

Hello everyone :D

I'm not new to lucid dreaming. I used to have tons of them when I was a child, although they were always in the form of nightmares. I would realize I'm asleep, and use my real hands to force my eyes open to escape the nightmare. But now, I'm thinking about using this as a way to lucid dream ( Nightmare induced lucid dreaming?). Oddly enough, I only got these nightmares when I slept on my back, ever since then I've always slept on my side. Does anyone else have this problem?

I've been keeping a journal since March of 06, but still have trouble attaining lucidity. Happy dreaming everyone :)

Can't say that I have heard of sleeping position making you have nightmares! Hopefully someone else will have a little more to say on that.

For now though, Welcome to Dreamviews! :welcome: Hopefully someone here will have the answer you're looking for!

I don't know if it affects nightmares, but I have heard that sleeping on your back is more likely to cause sleep paralysis, so I suppose it could affect nightmares too.

A lot of people first develop lucidity to deal with nightmares, I think some of my first lucid dreams were nightmares, and I've even heard stories of people who naturally lucid dream all the time after developing lucidity to defeat recurring nightmares, so you probably could use nightmares to increase your ability to lucid dream, although I wouldn't use it as a primary method of becoming lucid.

Hey there! :welcome: to the forum. Like Exo here, I haven't heard of any sleeping position that makes you have nightmares. Someone on here does, I think, so it's just a matter of searching.

So like I said, welcome to DV, and make yourself at home! :woohoo::boogie:

Hey there, welcome aboard! :)

There can be several reasons why you would have more nightmares when sleeping in a certain position. I don't think there is a direct link between sleeping position and nightmares, but we do know that bodily sensations can influence your dreams. For instance having to go to the toilet could make you dream about having to go to the toilent, being too cold could make you dream about being on the northpole, etc etc...

So with that in mind, there's several possibilities. Just three from the top of my head:

- You're not really so comfortable for one reason or another lying on your back, or perhaps your body begins to get less comfortable after a while (usually when you're already asleep). This feeling of 'uncomfortableness' can translate itself into your dreams, possibly into nightmares.

- You can't breathe so well lying on your back. There's a fairly common sleep disorder called sleep apnea, where people begin to have trouble breathing while sleeping. Not suggesting you have this, but lesser degrees of it are even more common then the disorder itself and happen with a lot of people. Erratic breathing or a slight difficulty in breathing could create a feeling of 'oppressiveness' which again translates into your dream as a nightmare.

- Associations. Our mind works very strongly on the concept of association, and this is even more so when it comes to dreams and sleep. If you believe yourself to have a nightmare when lying on your back (even subconsciously), the chances are that your believe will make it come true. Suppose that you have a string of nightmares for one reason or another, one each night for a few days in a row, and you were lying on your back for each one. The association 'sleeping on back' - 'nightmare' is very quickly made, and can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Anyways, hope that helps a bit,

-Redrivertears-

^^ These guys have it correct. :) Anyway, :welcome: to Dreamviews! :D

Hey there and :welcome: to Dream Views :)

I can't say i've heard that sleeping positions can cause nightmares, its probably more of a placebo, if you believe it will happen it will happen. You could use it to your advantage to achieve some lucid dreams.

As always please do ask if you have any questions :)

Ok, I get it, it's all in the mind. I think that's somewhat a positive thing, that I can induce lucid dreams that way. But almost every night, I have somewhat clear dreams that I have tiny control over. Sort of like when someone is watching a movie, and they hope the character doesn't or does do something, and it happens as they please. I never say "I'm dreaming" in these sorts of dreams, but I have slight control. Does this count as lucid dreaming? :)

Hi there, welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately it only counts as lucid dreaming if you're aware that you are dreaming. Dream control is something different, use their lucidity to help them control their dreams.