Thread: Could not get out, completely bizarre but not unexpected

Hello All, this will be my first post. I feel as if I should discuss this with people who may have experienced the same. I am slightly tired of it, and more than a little frightened.

I had many lucid dreams as a child, experiences so real and memorable that I recall them with more clarity than memories from my waking experiences at the same age. In these dreams I would notice something odd, missing, or unexplainable in situations and locations I knew well, such as at school or in the woods near my home. Right after noticing this, I would always confront two individuals who were with me, a boy and girl my age who were going about my dream with me.

It was like we were playing a game, that they were really constructing the dream around me and I just happened to catch them in the act. This occurred several times, and they would appear upset, stunned, and amused all at the same time. Sometimes I would be able to go about the dream lucidly for a bit longer, and to a certain degree I could control these two people, which they did not like. Mind you, they were the exact same age as me in all lucid dreams and to a certain degree, acted that age as if reflecting me. My lucid dreams always ended abruptly if one of these two individuals were not having fun.

It always seemed to be the male individual who wanted to end the party early. The female was always just as stunned I knew I was dreaming, but didn't seem as personally affronted as the male. As the years went by this cycle continued, these two individuals always appeared my exact age whenever I attained lucidity and recognized them. Through college, and a short while after, I did not have one lucid dream.

Last night however, I had the most lucid and problematic dream I have ever had, and it went as follows:

I was on a large ship in the middle of the sea, and if memory serves me correctly it was me and two individuals ( yep, the familiar male and female, though I was not lucid yet) having a conversation in what I believe were crew quarters, or one of our rooms. I recall complaining about something, I think possibly something I realized was "wrong", while the two of them brushed off my concerns and assured me I was being ridiculous. At this point, without confronting them further, I felt an enormous urge to wake up. I thrashed, I closed my eyes, took deep breaths, tried to open my real eyes and wake up in my bed, but could not. At this point the two individuals vanished, everything spun, and I found myself awake in a military boat at sea with no one around. Instantly realizing I was still dreaming, I repeated the process for what felt like hours inside the dream. No matter what I did, how hard I concentrated, or tried to snap myself awake, I could not. I felt something keeping me there, whether it was one of these individuals pissed off I had discovered I was dreaming or something else. Even knowing it was pointless to "escape the ship" within the dream itself, I went to look out a window and saw nothing but a raging sea, as if the boat were in a storm, and violent waters that were almost black. I have never felt so truly trapped and creeped out. I fought like a wild man to wake up, trying to imagine every feeling and sensation I knew in order to escape.

Finally I tried something different, which I will describe as "sinking" into myself (while at the same time repelling and controlling everything around me) and found myself in what I believe was the back of the same ship. I was in a walled off section of a larger "cargo area" where I heard someone on the other side of the wall say "We never expected him to try and do that" in a sad, but unapologetic voice. The person who said this was not one of the familiar male or female individuals I recall seeing over the years, but sounded authoritative. One way or the other, I knew that none of my supposed overseers realized I was still "there".

At this point I realized the storage units I was looking at contained tubes, with human bodies inside surrounded by wires and plugged into some kind of superstructure. One of these tubes contained me. I walked over, yanked out my containment unit and look at a completely emaciated, dead-looking, dark, and horrific version of myself frozen in some obscene position with wires sticking out of my head. I knew I wasn't going to wake up until I broke myself out of the tube. So, I worked the top of the tube off and started to pour out the fluid inside, all the while frantically worried that if I were to wake up as the body inside the tube, I would instantly die due to my frailty and horribly disfigured body. I doubt the body inside the tube could even draw a breath, much less walk. As the fluid poured out and my head became exposed I could feel my head vividly inside the dream, by the time the fluid was poured out to the point where my arms were exposed my entire body felt like ice.

I woke up in my bed, for real this time, and my arms still felt like ice, as if all the blood had drained out of them and was just finally rushing back in. This feeling did not go away for MINUTES. I havent been able to stop thinking of this dream since. Yet again, it seems I became lucid to confront the same two individuals (once again mirroring my age), but instead of having a friendly back and forth where I point out their mistakes in mimicking the real world, I found myself in a hell in which I could not awaken, where my two "friends" disappeared, no longer sticking around to entertain a lucid dream with me, and where I saw a grotesque and completely bizzarre version of myself in a tube that I had to pour out before I woke up.

Finally, I have never woken up actually feeling physical symptoms initiated within a dream.

Anyone want to take a crack at this one? I have no doubt it will happen again.