Damn scary first lucid dream

I remember my first lucid dream and it scared the hell out of me for weeks, i even had a slight fear of sleeping for a while.
I was in my kitchen but everything was a sickly green colour, and i was underwater, but thought nothing of it.
i then walked into the living room, and tripped up.
all of a sudden i was almost paralyzed, my arms felt really really heavy and i couldnt breath, i felt suffocated, it was then i realized i needed to wake up so i tried failing my arms around till i hit things beside my bed. eventually it worked and i was pretty relived to be awake.

Ive also had a similar dream, where ive been fast asleep, but my eyes were open and i could see the room around me, it was definatley real and i decided to wake up, again, my body weighed a tonne and i could barely move my arms and felt suffocated, has anyone ever had that before?

Firstly, welcome to the forum! :D

To answer your question, yes - I've woke myself up from nightmares before, and I believe that's the way a lot of the members here remember having their first LD - by waking themselves out of a nightmare (usually during childhood).

Anyway, next time you realize you're dreaming in the midst of a scary dream, why not try to change it rather than wake yourself out of it. Once you become lucid, try to take deep breaths and calm yourself down. Tell yourself "this is just a dream, this is just a dream." Maybe you can conquer whatever fear you have in that dream, or try spinning around and coming out in a whole new dreamscape. Check out the nightmare tutorial - there's some info there about conquering a lucid nightmare.

Just remember that it's YOUR dream and you have the power to change it if you want. BELIEVE you can.

Yes, these were my first lucid experiences too. I dreamt someone was in my bedroom attacking me. His weight on top of me made me feel as if I could ot move or breath - It took place in my bedroom and everything looked normal which is what made it seem so real. When I yelled for my family to help my voice sounded far away (kind of like sound effects in a scary movie) he leaned over me with an evil kinda smile and told me "they can't hear you here" that's when I realized we were in a dream plane. For some reason I knew that if I looked at my clock i would snap out of it. I don't know how I knew - i had not seen "waking life" yet or even heard of lucid dreaming. I guess I just snapped out of it because i BELEIVED this would take me out of the dream.

Try this is combination w/what burns said. Try to look for something concrete in reality and then belive and trust in it - or say this is my dream! turn yourself into a ball of light and just float out of your dream body. like she said, it's your dream and the posibilities are endless

PS: since I started researching into lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis i have never had a dream like this again

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Originally posted by ruairi

Ive also had a similar dream, where ive been fast asleep, but my eyes were open and i could see the room around me, it was definatley real and i decided to wake up, again, my body weighed a tonne and i could barely move my arms and felt suffocated, has anyone ever had that before?

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Sleep paralysis. ;)

When you sleep your body becomes paralyzed so that you don't start moving around in your sleep. Normally you don't notice because you are asleep, but if you don't fall asleep just right it can happen while you are awake. This occurs a lot when lucid dreaming is attempted, because the states of mind are similar.

-sloth

Burns is right. I often dream of water...either being submerged in it say in a lake or having it all over the floors in my home. The presence of water has become so common that I often use it to recognize that I am dreaming, if I don't simply remember falling asleep just before I found myself at the bottom of a lake as a reality check. Also, I will often key into the physical sensation of my breathing in the real world as I lay in bed dreaming about drowning and realize that I'm fine. Those realizations bring about lucidity, and if you can stay calm in the dream, you will realize that you are fine too. Then the fun can begin. But you just can't let yourself get too caught up in fearful emotions. After years of LDing, I have found that the fastest way to lose lucidity is to get overly emotional, especially in cases of extreme fear. To fear something in a dream lends power to it. Your fearful because you don't realize that you have absolute power over that entity/state in the dream. Hence, you don't realize its a dream. If you knew it was a dream, then you wouldn't fear the entity/state because you could squash it like a bug if you chose to. But most often, that fear, if left unchecked, will cause your subconscious to take the ball and run with it. Then you WILL lose lucidity. Just stay calm and realize that, if you are focused, you can do anything you want to in the dream. There truly are no limits...Believe me. Good luck in the future and sweet dreams!

haha, ive have some scary dreams once in a while. I forgot most of it though. I wake myself up also, but im not in a hurry i just say " this dream suks" andi wake up. whats wierd s that i relize i am dreaming at the end, before i wake up. I usually have at least 1 lucid dream per night. Its usually not that long or vivid but its a start. My body wakes itlself up after the first dream so i never have to have an alarm clock and i can always practise my dream techniques every night. :-P

You usually have at least one lucid dream a night but your title is "Lucid Begginer"?

My first lucid dream experiences were in my childhood (around 7) where I would know I was dreaming and I would wake myself up because I was scared (sometimes it didn't work and that is why I tried the following). That then developed (when I was 9) into killing myself to get out of scary situations (If I was having a nightmare where snakes were attacking me I would let them to wake up). When I was around 11 I then started to have nightmares where I would realise I was dreaming and have an adventure. I would literally laugh in the face of danger and enjoy the dream, usually being woken by my parents instead of the dream itself. When I was 13 I started to have dreams where I would try to wake myself up but I couldn't (just like previously but I had less 'death' dreams, these dreams were just boring). I would then try really hard to wake up, concentrating on it with all my will. In my dream I would close my eyes and then open them and usually I would be awake but I started to stay in the dream. Anyway I eventually got out of dreams by trying to hit something next to my bed as I knew my body would wake up with the noise. This worked most of the time (these dreams didn't happen often) but sometimes I would wake up but only mentally. I would sometimes be awake but not being able to open my eyes or even being able to open my eyes but not any other part of my body. Anyway the old hitting something beside my bed helped me here to. After this stage (when I was 14) I started to have mini-dreams. I would look at the clock before I went to sleep and then I would drift off to sleep.I would have a sudden dream where I would fall from a great height, or just get killed somehow, and then I would wake up with a big jump. I would look at the clock and only a matter of minutes (once it was less than a minute) would have passed.
Now I am able to (at 16) choose when to wake up (fully) and when to stay in my dream and I can sometimes direct myself within the dream so I have had adventures that have spanned days in the dream world but when I wake up only ten minutes has passed.

Anyway the point of this long post is that the experience of Lucid Dreaming comes in steps, I started as a young child quite on accident but the older you are the faster it will be for you and you should miss whole steps.