Should I be scared of SP, or more specifically, alarming 'presences' and hallucinations?

Scroll down the page to find something weird that happened to me about ten minutes ago.

I've been thinking of attempting to LD for years now, but had never seen this site, and never really attempted it. The reason is, I'm a bit of a pansy when it comes to nightmares. I've seen one too many documentaries on people who have found themselves paralysed at night feeling a presence in the room with them. Basically, I've never experienced an LD or one of the aforementioned hallucinations, and my mind has built up this image of them being incredibly scary and long-lasting.

I know that there are no detrimental effects to LDing, but I'm still scared that I'll begin experiencing the paralysed nightmare things...

I suppose all that I'm asking is some sort of confirmation that is isn't that bad, and it's uncommon. I'm sure I'll get a lot of replies saying it varies, but still... Sorry to be so vague. I'd love to experience an LD that I can enjoy. Anyone know of a specific technique which is less likely to cause scary dreams?

First off, welcome to DV! :)

Don't worry, you don't have to go through SP to have lucid dreams. You are probably thinking of WILDs, but you don't even need SP to do those.

Take a look through the tutorial section, and you will see that the methods are harmless when it comes to nightmares and such.

Feel free to ask any more questions you might have!

Thanks for the warm welcome Luminous! I was under the impression that WILDs were simply purposefully induced LDs. Doesn't that mean that all of the tutorials are for WILDs?

Welcome to Deamviews!

First there is nothing at all to worry about when trying to lucid. Sleep paralysis occurs naturally when we enter REM but if your body is tricked into thinking it has gone in to,when it hasnt,REM u will stay conscious but be papalysed which can bring on a sense of danger. Ive never had it but a lot of people have, it does seem scary but you will just come out of it after a bit of time. Thats as much as i know though so u might want to ask someone with more experience. Happy Dreams.

Thanks for the welcome zekobu, and your words are reassuring. Right now I'm living somewhere which is not my home, so I'm going to hold off on my first LD attempt until I move back. That'll be in a couple of weeks. I'll keep reading information on this site, and taking in any help I can get!

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Originally Posted by Ryan Macaroni

Thanks for the warm welcome Luminous! I was under the impression that WILDs were simply purposefully induced LDs. Doesn't that mean that all of the tutorials are for WILDs?

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WILD is a technique where you go from being awake and straight into a dream. It's just one of many techniques, most people that have lucid dreams will realise that they are dreaming once they are in the dream already. So it's fully possible to just go to sleep, then have a dream, and then realise that you are dreaming.

WILD stands for Waking Induced Lucid Dream, just FYI. And I read somewhere that a great way to avoid SP (for instance if you wake up suddenly or something) is not sleeping on your back. I had the same fears you did when I first started, but I pretty much realized that none of it is real - and I'm not going to be afraid of fake stuff. It's like being afraid that a character from a scary movie is going to hurt you. Old Hags and Nightmares etc. can be scary while their happening, but afterwards, you just think, "Oh, it's over. 'Kay." and move on with your day.

But yeah, don't sleep on your back that apparently helps SP wear off faster or something idk.

Welcome to the site, Ryan.

Sleep paralysis can be scary. Learning to lucid dream should not cause unwanted sporadic sleep paralysis. Some people get this naturally, and those people seem to have more lucid dreams naturally. That does not mean that lucid dreaming causes sleep paralysis, it means the opposite. Sleep paralysis causes lucid dreaming.

Certain techniques and meditations will put you into sleep paralysis. The trick is, you do it on purpose, and you expect it to come. Plus, you learn how you induced it, you learn how to snap out of it if its too scary, and you learn how to use it as a tool to start getting lucid. Just being familiar with sleep paralysis takes a lot of the fear out of it. There is nothing dangerous about it. Your body does it every night naturally.

I've always had sleep paralysis for as long as I can remember. It gets real scary when it happens unintentionally. Lucid dreaming has helped me overcome that fear. Now, when I get SP, either on purpose or randomly, I know how to use it as an opportunity to enter a lucid. I look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by Ryan Macaroni

I know that there are no detrimental effects to LDing, but I'm still scared that I'll begin experiencing the paralysed nightmare things...

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I was in your position when i first joined. However i think about it differently.

I get these paralysed nightmare things from time to time. They used to scare the crap outa me. Now however, i love getting them, cause i know they are the pathway to lucidity.

If i was you, i would absolutly HAVE to research and practice lucid dreaming, otherwise there would be this nigh-ttime fear forever upon my head..."what if i get one of these nightmares...then what will i do?"

And again, i can confirm that nothing in a dream/lucid dream/ nightmare can hurt you....unless you sleepwalk, in which case i'd be careful =p

Thanks everyone so much for your advice. It's weird, I honestly can't remember having any dreams for the last four or five years. As a kid, every dream I had was a nightmare, and an incredibly horrifying one. I'd have them nearly every night. I think somehow my brain taught itself to block the nightmares after a while, or at least forget them. But yeah, that all stopped a few years back, and I've never dreamed since. Maybe some of the techniques on this site will allow me to dream again, maybe even good dreams! ;)

Welcome!!!
let me tell you about my first wild
I got to sp and then heard a sound that wasnt scary at all (kinda like air coming out of a tank)
But anyway so when i first heard it i thought holy crap someones here i have to go help my sister. I seriously almost shit my self. i then realized "Wait, these sounds arent real" the scaryness was gone imeaditly.
So my advice is if you get scared tell your self its not real and you will be fine.

@Spenser, thanks for the welcome. It's really cool that you instantly thought to help your sister. I tell you, I would try to think of a way to direct the intruder to my brother's room, then I'd run away! Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind.

Yeah the key is that none of it is real.

On a different note, I have read stories of people meeting the Old Hag in whatever form and trying to make friends with her. Invariably they said it left/died/exploded/whatever. The point being that it didn't trouble them anymore.

Also, I've heard you dream every single night you go into REM. Most likely you just forget your dreams or have really bad recall like I do. Try keeping a notepad and pen by your bed so if you wake up in the night (which is when you remember your dreams the best) you can write them down quickly. And if you get lucky, you might be able to DEILD while you're at it. I can't tell you how many times I've written down my dreams right when I woke up, and then the next morning I read a bunch of stuff I didn't even remember writing in my DJ - it's really helped my dream recall.

UPDATE: Okay, I just had some very unusual thing happen in my mind. I remember last night not sleeping very well, but when I did go to sleep, I don't remember dreaming at all. This is very common for me, as previously explained, I don't remember one dream from the past 5 years. Just then, however, a memory flashed into my head from last night, of getting shot in the head in a dream, and not feeling it. I remember seeing the gun pointed toward my head and then hearing a muffled bang. It's really weird. This is the first, if incredibly slight, dream memory I've had in years. Maybe this is the first step towards LDing...

Well that's good. Write it down. I'm serious even if you feel like it won't help you, it will.