Thread: First lucid dream + panic ending

Hi, I'm new

I heard about lucid dreaming and read up a bit on it about 12 months ago. At this time I also actively tried to become lucid but to no avail. I hadn't thought about it at all since then up until today after I had my first lucid dream in the early hours of this morning.

I wrote down a lot of it (but not all) soon after waking. I then tried to complete the documentation this afternoon but of course some of the more intricate details had become a bit faded. Anyway here's the main (I've left out some) bits of what happened. Note: an earlier related dream pre-ceeded this dream this morning - it is also described below. It seems to make more sense to describe the second dream first... this whole thing had a very David Lynch-ian feel to it (hence the use of TV/movie references to describe experiences - they are what came to mind)! *Disclaimer - the following account appears to possibly contain traces of unrequited sexual desire!*

TAKE 2:

I'm in a large room of a house with polished wood floors. I recognise it as the house I live in IRL even though this room is larger. I am standing at the top of a wide set of stairs which are relatively short - maybe 8 steps or so down. At the bottom of the steps I see my housemate/home owner IRL. She smiles and waves and I smile and wave back. I wonder to myself if the stairs are a new extension to the house but don't think much of it (there are no stairs IRL).

At this point it occurs to me that perhaps I might be dreaming. I try to drop myself to the floor by completely relaxing my body and I find that I just sort of end up gently leaning back on one leg (russian cossack style!) effortlessly and I become weightless - very relaxing (note: I recall seeing myself from side on, in my body doing this, but I am 'in' the body I can see). At this point I realise I am definitely dreaming.

I turn back away from the stairs into the room and see that there are a number of smiling enticing cheeky looking girls (20-somethings - same age as me) around the edges of the room. I walk along one side of the room and each girl gives me a smile and I wave to each individually as I walk toward the back wall of the room.

Along the back wall is another set of stairs leading up to a 3rd level of the house. These stairs are more regular width and longer than the other set and have a polished wooden hand rail.

Once I have reached the back wall there are 2 more smiling girls relaxing on the ground between myself and the bottom of the stairs. I move toward them smiling and step over the first girl. As I'm standing astride over her, she gently brushes her open faced palm and fingers along my upper leg. I hesitate. I consider moving on thinking she's just teasing and I don't want to give her the satisfaction of my attention. I smile at her. She then strokes my leg again more deliberately and I succumb to her advances and am happy to stand my ground a little longer instead of moving on. The second girl is smiling at my enjoyment and begins to stand up, rising toward me. She continues to smile as she is saying something to me that I cannot quite understand. As she gets closer, her face grows like a TV close-up taking up my field of vision and she also places her hands on my body. I begin to feel slightly constricted with the 2 girls closing in on me. For a second I am uncomfortable and want to awake and this quickly turns to panic which turns to a blood curdling sense of horror as I start to breathe rapidly. This, and the following bits, happened very quickly but were nonetheless vivid.

My vision rapidly becomes a violent rush of objects and scenes moving away from me as I begin to breathe heavily and deliberately but quickly - similar to as you would when trying to recover after a hard workout/run - in an attempt to help myself wake up and come back to reality. What I'm seeing looks like the life-flashing-before-your-eyes experience from a movie except it is in reverse with scenes rapidly moving away from me in a blur. I am majorly freaking and for a split second think "What if I can't wake up?". As the horror accelerates, I feel myself being thrust back into my real-life body and back to reality and then know I am now 'awake' although I cannot recall opening my eyes, and I'm still breathing very heavily and quickly and the horror fades as reality sets in.

Note: I cannot recall ever being this afraid of anything anytime recently. The last time I recall being scared of anything was maybe 18-odd years ago when I was 8 y.o. after watching The Howling. I cannot recall having any nightmares since my childhood either.

TAKE 1:

This is the dream that occurred some time previous to the dream above but during the same sleep. It was only after being awake for a little while from the dream above, that I recalled having had this dream previous.

I am in the same room in the same physical house as in the other dream except that I am a stranger in this house (I do not know it as my own). The house is host to a house party. Possibly a girls birthday party (this is gathered from other occurrences that I have left out). More people are
around the house this time - girls AND guys in conversation. I don't know any of these people but I don't feel uncomfortable (just like IRL).

I walk through the room toward the back staircase that once again leads up to the 3rd level of the house. It isn't until I begin my ascent of the stairs that a feeling of uneasiness comes over me. As I approach the top, I question whether I should be prying around the house like this. I sense that there are people also on the 3rd level and it is part of the party but I feel like more of a trespasser. I am almost expecting a rude reaction from someone up there which would be quickly followed by an apology on my part as well as a quick retreat back down stairs.

As I reach the last few stairs a guy starts coming down and then he sees me and he looks back up the stairs and back at me with a semi-nervous look and mouth ajar as he half begins to say that he doesn't know if I should go up there (he's not sure if I'm 'allowed'). He gives up and continues down as I continue up.

I reach the top and step up onto the 3rd floor. I don't want to look at anyone/anything directly at the risk of me appearing to be staring so I sort of do a quick scan around the room really only seeing with my peripheral vision. The room is similar to the one below except it is more poorly lit so it's hard to see detail and their are more shadows and half-lit goings on in the corners.

The last thing I recall is seeing on the other side of the room, out of the corner of my eye, a naked person (male/female?) standing in front of something hidden by a shadow. It's reminds me of an S&M club scene where the person is administering some kind of punishment/torture to someone/thing hidden in the shadows. But if the recipient is enjoying it at all, it is only a very small bit. The person stops what they were doing and turns to see me being berated by someone/thing (female?) abusively and forcefully yelling that I shouldn't be up here.

That's it. The things that staggered me seemed to be how text book a lot of the symbolism appeared to be. I'm not sure from which particualr sources I've picked it up but I have heard that a house can represent the mind. This makes sense with the stairs leading down to reality and my housemate IRL as well as stairs leading up to a darker scarier place that I don't feel welcome (sub-concious)! The girls being some sort of temptresses attempting to keep me from going upstairs (why?).

Also the seemingly OBE (maybe???) with feeling weightlessness and then the rush and jolt of returning to the body? Although not all of this seems consitent - don't OBE's usually involve you visiting the real world - not a dream world?

Probably my biggest question is what the hell happened with the fear/horror feeling?? Does this happen much? I've read bits around the web about lucid dreaming being safe when done correctly - and the authors always seem to allude to some 'evil' shit that may occur if not used correctly!! What did I do? Is their much documentation on people going schizo (literally) or having other mental problems from dreams? Although it seems nigh on impossible to me for this to occur, my experience felt like it could have easily physically affected me in the real world.

Reading back over what I've written, it comes across that the anxiety could appear to be related to the affection of the girls. Although I'm no Don Wuan, I've had enough sexual experience and am open minded enough to feel comfortable in most sexual situations so that wouldn't make sense.

Well if you've read this far then you are a champ. I guess I'll just put it all down to being new and hope for another dream soon. Mind-blowing experience and I'm so thankful it happened, as it has eliminated that last trace of skepticism in me in regard to the validity of lucid dreams and related phenomena.

Any comments/answers to my questions would be muchly appreciated. Cheers.