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[freakyDreamer]

Hey everybody. I just registered on dv today...I am really glad I found your site, because I have been interested in dreams and how they work, etc. Well just a few days ago I found a page on lucid dreaming. I had always thought about how awesome it would be to be able to control your dreams, so when I learned about LD's, I was pretty excided. I have experience lucid dreams before, but didn't know what they were..and I didn't take advantage of them, because I only remeber getting them a couple times before in nightmares..so I tried to wake myself up. Since they were in nightmares, I was really freaked out and all I wanted was for the dream to end. I realized I was dreaming so I tried to wake myself up by pinching myself, jumping of building, tried to kill myself a few times, etc. I didn't realize there was no danger. So yesterday I asked myself throughout the day if I was dreaming or if I was in reality, then at night I tried the MILD technique...told myself I was going to remeber my dreams, thought about what I wanted to dream about, and told myself I was going to become lucid during my dream. I visualized myself flying. But I thought about something else, and couldn't get it out of my head. I thought.."What should I do if something freaky happens..like my closet doors open and someone comes out". Well..I dreamed just that..4-5 times actually that I remeber. I dreamed that I woke up in bed, and my closet doors started opening, and an alarm was going off in my head. I was paralysed with fear and couldn't move...and I was shaking with fear. Then I remebered that I was dreaming, and told myself that over and over and I woke up. That happend at least 4 times that night, but I also had 1 good dream but, I didn't become lucid So not a great dream for my first intended lucid dream. It stinks that I only become lucid in my nightmares, because I am too terrified to realize that I can't actually get hurt..all I try and do is wake myself up. So I am going to work on remembering that I can't get hurt, and that I should face up the scary part if I am not parylised. I am kinda mixed about having dreams...I would love to have good lucid dreams, but the majority of my dreams are bad...like I will get stuck in a train track and I will hear the train coming...or I am in the woods with bears and lions, and my cell phone is dead, etc....so after I have 1 or more bad dreams in a night..I'm afraid if I try to have a lucid dream the next night it will be bad. If I can remeber that I can't get hurt, it wouldn't be so bad..So that's what I am going to work on. My dream recall is pretty good...usually I remeber at least 1 dream a night. Sometimes I remeber as many as 4. Thanks for reading... And if you have anything that you think I could do to have good lucid dreams please let me know. Has anyone here experience OBEs? What are they like, like is it something you don't want to happen?

[Conzo]

First off, to Dream Views! What you need to do is exactly what you said. Work on telling yourself in the dream "This is only a dream! You cant hurt me!" Then work on defeating whatever is chasing you, or change the dream scene to something better. Don't think about ending your dream, think about combating the bad dream and changing it into something good. Hope this helps!

[Serith]

It's great that you've already been able to lucid dream, and you already have something really practical to use it for. I also used to occasionally have paralyzingly terrifying nightmares, but I managed to conquer them with lucid dreaming. You should really make that your first goal, before you try things like flying. I've managed some success with various dream control things, but I think of getting rid of nightmares as the only real accomplishment I've had due to lucid dreaming. Plus, not only does it cut a lot of fear out of your dreams, it does the same for your waking life, and I find it's helped other aspects of dream control as well. First of all, read this. That's the chapter from Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming on overcoming nightmares, and it's tremendously helpful. When you have nightmares like that, fighting them (as in, using violence) is the last thing you want to do, it just makes things much worse. Not knowing that must have set me back a year or more, but when I finally started paying attention to that, it did not take me long at all.