Hi, new to the Forum here..

[DreamALifetime]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum but not really new to the world of lucid dreaming. I had been a lucid dreamer since I was 14. Back then, I was very concious in my dreamland. Often during nightmare, even before the nightmare got worse, I would force myself awake. And when the dream was rather sweet and all, I would sarcastically tell myself that, hey, this is too good to be true. And at times, I can will myself to do impossible things in dreamland. But recently, I felt like I'm beginning to lose that ability, somehow. I had troubles forcing myself awake during nightmares, even though I know it's a nightmare, I would struggle to force myself awake, at times even felt that my physical self is forcing my sub concious mind to wake up.I am also quite indulged in sweet dreams that I can't seem to realise it is, after all a dream. I don't really mind the indulgence part of sweet dreams but I wish I can still retain the ability of force awake during nightmares. Any advice guys?

[OpheliaBlue]

Hey DreamALifetime, welcome to DV What did you do in the past to force yourself awake from a nightmare?

[Robot_Butler]

DreamALifetime What if, instead of forcing yourself to wake from a nightmare into reality, you forced yourself to wake into a more pleasant dream? I've heard that its pretty common for people to first learn lucid dreaming through combating nightmares. What kind of special tricks have you come up with? Have you read Kaniaz's write up on nightmares? http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ead.php?t=5309

[DreamALifetime]

Forcing myself awake.. hmm.. normally I will myself awake. It's something like forcing yourself to open your eyes. It takes considerable will, sometimes I can feel my physical self clenching fist. I don't know whether I tried that before - turning nigthmare into a more pleasant dream but I know sometimes my pleasant dreams turn into nightmares =) I don't know how it all first started. I just remember I able to wake up or realise that it was just a dream in dreamland. I read Kaniaz's write up. Quite an interesting article.

[ninja9578]

Closing your eyes in dreams tends to wake you up or at least cause a false awakening in which the nightmare is gone. Remember, once you realize that you are dreaming though, you can control your dream through practice and remove things that are scary.