Real Fear

[yenton]

i joined this forum because I'm somewhat desperate and i will waffle a little in this post because i'm hoping to overcome some of the issues i am having. I apologies to anyone if i'm crosssing any lines or breaking any rules. I have not slept properly for a few weeks of late because of immense, amplified nightmares. I have to explain as clearly as i can. To do this i will try to be as concise as possible but it's hard so please stay with me on this a little while if u will I'll try to explain; I was first intro'd to lucid dreaming by accident about a year ago, simply while googling about nightmares, as i was having many of them. I read about 3 different websites in 1 evening and found myself having a lucid dream without a great deal of exersise or training within 2-3 days. I was really proud and felt very fortunate to be able to experience it. This excited me and i went on to buy 2 books (both laberge's). I only read about a quarter into the first book and was happily lucid dreaming for a few weeks and no nightmares. Cured..? I thought so and didnt bother to read anymore. i didnt continue with any form of exersises or disciplines required to help invoke a lucid dream. Didnt feel the need since my nightmares had gone away. That is until the last couple of months. Anyway......i have begun to have nightmares again. A whole new bunch of them. Only this time with the awful feeling like i'm being conned. No longer allowed to be in any sort of control or recognition that it's a dream. The nightmares are not bizzare or fantasy worlds but normal surroundings with NO signs. I'm being conned by new additional entities in my dreams that i feel should not be there. Purposely making it as real as my normal surroundings rendering any signs that you would normally look for impossible to find. These entities are ruining and bruising the linings of my dreamworld with great skills themselves. Bullying me maybe. I don't know. "Something" in my dream frightens me to the extent of real paranoia. At night and in the day. About every 3 weeks. It's awful. I don't belive in devils or anything..I'm pretty much a non believer, agnostic or whatever. But i'm really starting to feel that somethings not right and for the life of me my mind is now open a little. To what? I don't know yet. But i'm desperate. Am i manifesting these entities and conning myself? I need some answers. This "something" come's in what i percieve as 2 forms. 1) The same female character in various dreams. Disguised but familiar everytime 2) A terrifying black outline, about the size of a rugby ball and shaped like a hood. Hard to make out exactly what but it's nasty OK, number 1 is in my dreams frequently but i sometimes don't realise this until i'm awake. Almost as if she's an actor playing a different part in each nightmare, however i can't distinguish it's her until i wake up or if i'm lucky SHE TELLS ME which totally terrorises me, paralysed, cant wake up, even though i have become aware it's a dream. This is really frightening as sometimes i recognise her before she informs me im in a dream, then i become aware and manage to stay in with a little more of an advantage, track her movements and even question her. The line of questioning i use is more a physical and agressive approach towards her, hard to define how i do this. When i did this she appeared frightened (they say u should confront the things that u fear so i did this and felt like i was in control). Big mistake. At the last second before i make physical contact she moves or lays the trap. I ended up behind her outside of the dream and in a blackness that was clearly a domain unfamiliar. I can't wake from it, nor can i escape or move back from it. I end up looking back into the dream through this hole with her looking in at me. She became real in my dream and in my mind, mocking me and mentioning lucid dreamers as a hinderence. Spoken clearly to me in english but in a male's voice. This particular situation happens alot. OK for number 2, much simpler but more horrifying than anything i've ever experienced. This appears to me during my early stage of waking up after the dream with either number 1 or another dream unrelated. The dark entity.... or whatever it is.. seems real enough which is normal i guess in any dream state. But it's disturbing and comes with a message. This message isnt spoken to me but seems automatically clear anyway. The figure approaches, holds me down very tightly and without speaking or anything. I Just get a sort of feeling it's saying "I can do this if u continue to play in my backyard". OK..... That's about it up until the last week. Lately while dropping off to sleep, i have the feeling of my head enlarging, and my eyes getting smaller and smaller until i get complete blackness beyond the normal blackness u get in the dark behind your eyelids. The same blackness as the domain i was in at one point in the earlier nightmares sometime back. I can immediately wake from this. However i then switch the lights on, accept i have had a nightmare and then have halucinations for anything upto 20 minutes. I can feel something watching me from the top corners of the room, moving from corner to corner. It's not a clear halucination but it's there. The number 2 thing. Never near me but in the corners moving around, corner to corner. After a while this stops. I try to convince myself of a few things like "hey pal, your half asleep, snap out of it". I then have a smoke and try to shut it out. The next things then happen. These things are confusing. After the corner dancing stuff comes the visions. I'm percieving that this entity is purposely trying to tell me "it's real, i'm here, here's a little proof". THEN...i get images projected to me in my head of places in the house with specific details, for example, the kitchen downstairs in the dark, and a guided tour of what the house looks like in the dark through the eyes of this entity...and YES....from the top corners of each room. I know this is long winded and not perhaps as concise as i thought it might be, but i'm really at a stage in my life where i feel like i'm on the brink of infringing an area of my mind that may be a danger to me mentally. I'm 35 yrs old and i'm married. I sometimes end up making my wife accompany me around the house like a scared kid as i'm so terrified by it. I'm worried about reading more about lucidity and concerned i may make matters worse. I would welcome back the original nightmares in a flash and swap for these new one's. I can't get to the bottom of it and it's terrifying me. Any suggestions or anything of help in any way would be appreciated. If anyone else has had anything even remotely like this please reply.

[BillyBob]

this "entity" is created by your mind, although i would recommend getting profesional help considering the hallucinations and all (thats just me though) its pretty common for your mind to decieve you and use your knowledge of the dream world to its advantage trying to scare you... i understand how hard it can be to deal with paranoia (i used to hallucinate, pretty much what your describing about something in the corners) but it'l go away, just let it.... and if that doesnt work see a psychiatrist Another thing, if you let yourself get scared in a dream even lucid, you'll most likely lose your lucidity or power over the dream... EDIT: yet another thing i forgot to add that helps me, when you begin to feel the fear taking over you do a reality check, pinch your nose and try and breathe through it, if you can breathe then your in a dream and you can take control, if not then you have nothing to worry about, just remmeber not to look at this dream character as a real threat

[goku4ever]

To me it seems like you have two options: 1. really think about what is happening in real life and critize everything in your mind and do reality checks to determine if it is a dream or not so in dreams you can go lucid easier 2. face her, in a dream showdown to get rid of her once and for all, being Lucid will help, but if not remember you cant be harmed.

[lamentabledays]

Something similar has recently happened to me. In my sleep a tiger used to follow me around. I knew it was there even though I couldn't see it most of the time. I have a great respect for tigers and I guess thats why one is hauting my dreams, maybe? There is a very simple way to get rid of it. mentally block it out. Tell your self, it's all in my head and I'm making too much of a big deal out of this. This may seem childish or too simple but it helps. Another thing earlier mentioned is a dream showdown. If you are going to fight it PM me and ill give you tips about what I used. I guess you could say im good at fighting in my dreams because I do that and flying every time I'm lucid...which is almost all the time. Stay Lucid LamentableDays

[PhowaBoy]

I used to have dreams of a black reaper when my grandmother died. I thought I was OK with her dieing, but there was a part of my mind that wasn't. When I addressed my fears of mortality and uncertainty, I was able to accept them and the nightmares went away. Perhaps you should get some professional help, as they may be able to dig out what is causing these nightmares and help you deal with them. The only other tip I can think of offering that might help is that every situation has an opponent. It seems like a part of your mind is playing 'Devils Advocate' and is trying to convince you that you don't have control of the dream world, or perhaps even the waking world. The opponent to lack of control and uncertainty is concentration and clarity. Concentration is achieved through practice of focusing the mind on its object (like on the breath during meditation). Clarity is achieved through knowing the object thoroughly (like the dream character is a component of my mind and by definition, does not really exist and must obey my concentration). Belief is the power that will give strength to these opponents. Belief is constructed from a foundation of reason and experience. I hope this helps in some way, and that your terrible nightmares vanish into thin air where they belong.

[PhowaBoy]

oops... pressed submit too many times

[misha]

Originally posted by goku4ever 2. face her, in a dream showdown to get rid of her once and for all, being Lucid will help, but if not remember you cant be harmed. That seems like an odd piece of advice. If he's not lucid, he can't know that he can't be harmed. If he does know that, then he's lucid. So he's in a bit of a pickle.

[AlternateReality]

The best thing i can say to is get angry and beat the crap out of whatever it is. It hasn't done any physical damage to you, so it should be pretty easy to beat. You just have to beleive you can kill it. What I would do is think of it as a video game.

[Serinanth]

The dark thing alot of us have experienced, along with the being held down part. It sucks its horrible you feel so totaly vulnerable at that point and this is why you end up getting stuck your mind loops in that you feel there is nothing to do you fall into despair and the thing totaly takes controll of you. I fought it and finaly won, I am not one to pray or any thing like that but I asked for help. And indeed it did help, I felt I had the strength to continue, I did not give up and I ended up countering the darkness with Light. How I came to do this will not work for you as your experience in life is different from mine. So you must find your own way, but consider asking for help it dosent matter what you beleive in just so long as when you ask for help that you keep in mind that you want help from something benevolent. Using icons already known in society will help more as you wil have a clearer idea of what will help you. My help came from the Light itself. The hallucinations... well Ive had experiences here that pretty much made the scientist in me go .. fuck that Im out... I cannot explain them, not even gona try, but Ive encountered things that existed in both the dream world and here and I was not the only one to experience it. Several other people also had the same expereince and no we werent drunk, fucked up or whatever. I used some old magic, dont laugh, it worked. If you like PM me and I can give you details on cleaning house so to speak. Whether its all just tricks of our mind whatever... Think about it, you are experinceing something that you cannot explain in the real world, you call it a hallucination so you can better deal with it and make yourself feel more sane. But why not try countering it with something on the same order.. fire with fire right? Now the other one... That woman. Thats interesting, I fully beleive that some of the constructs within our dreams can become separate consiousnesses from our own and that they are quite sentient so your subconsious has created this woman and given her a life of her own. Why she would oppose you who knows, perhaps it was a roll of the dice as to how she came to behave. What you must KNOW.. and I mean that, its very important. You cannot think or beleive you must KNOW that when you are dreaming you can do anything. Impossible is only that which has yet to be imagined. . You say you have been able to study her at times, this is a step in the right direction. Instead of confronting her, try doing the opposite, get away, run, be defensive focus on staying lucid. The others have said to fight her but from what it sounds like you are being extremely over powered, she has the ability to control the reality that is your dream. You must learn to do the same. You will have to confront her at times but learn from each encounter, do not give up! There is no shame in running.. I had to run from the things in my dreams for a long time untill I was finaly able to conquer them. It will take time though, the instant results everyone speaks of do not exist, not in situations like this, you must build up your confidence of what youcan do in the dream world, start off small and in time you will be able to deal with any situation thrown at you. Take each dream as a lesson, learn from your mistakes, you are a lucid dreamer that is why this affects you more than the average person. But you can take this experience and learn about who you are what your strengths and weakneses are and in time you will be able to stop the nightmares and you will become a stronger person both here and in the dreaming. Fear will distract you as will paranoia, you must remain calm. I would suggest looking into meditation what you learn here you will be able to apply to the dream world and your control over it will increase. Im not a doctor or anything, this is just how I came to deal with the dark things that tormented me in the dream world, I view the dream world as being just as real as this place, so yeah Im a bit crazy but hey it worked for me. I hope at least some part of this helps you in some way.

[TheKnife]

Originally posted by yenton+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(yenton)</div> mentioning lucid dreamers as a hinderence.[/b] The only explanation to that is the explanation to false awakenings and forgetting you're lucid; Your subconcious hates lucid dreaming, and does everything to make you stop it. Your subconcious might just have taken it a little to the extremes. <!--QuoteBegin-yenton I can feel something watching me from the top corners of the room, moving from corner to corner. It's not a clear halucination but it's there. The number 2 thing. Never near me but in the corners moving around, corner to corner. After a while this stops. Now that I think of it, I was in that stage by the age of...five. I had this wierdo dream monster thing, which appeared in almost every dream. I also had the hallucinations you mentioned, in the corners, jumping around, watching me.I managed to stop everything by becoming lucid (That's the point where I developed lucid dreaming all by myself.) So I believe that reading more about lucid dreaming could make this better. Or worse. Like I like to say... It's all freaking mental.