Frightening. Intense. Most of all exhausting.

[AnUnremarkableFire]

I've been having very vivid, very frequent lucid dreams without using any lucid dreaming techniques, since I was about 17 (so a few years now), and while I feel they're a very cool experience, they're also becoming more and more terrifying. Sure, I still have the occasional roller-coaster drop LDs, or the ever-wonderful intense sex LDs, but lately they've been taking a turn. Often times, my LDs keep me caught in a dark place with few or no images, but very sharp, intense sounds that are clear, and often directly next to my ear (ie. a man breathing/growling heavily, a few of my friends and their distinct laughter). On several other occasions, I've had LDs cause me to feel heavy and severely disoriented... I can best compare it to taking high doses of Vicodin, or being really drunk (with a little more numbness). I desperately wish I knew how to pull myself out of these LDs, or just out of the bad ones... I didn't even attempt to become a lucid dreamer, and have heard more than once that frequent "natural" lucid dreamers are fairly rare. Has anyone else experienced these type of LDs?

[spiritofthewolf]

ive experience frightening intense vivid LD's before.. you have to remember though, no matter how vivid and scary, or intense they get... you are still in control

[spockman]

Spirit brings up a great point. It's still your dream. Also, don't dispell the notion that these dreams may mean something. Further, the more fear and emphasis you put on theses dreams the more you will have them, probably. A' la' autosuggestion. Here is what I posted on another thread about frightening images... Okay, I think it went like this. Your dreams are simply your thoughts, right? It is a realm of your thoughts. So, when you saw a shadow in the corner of your eye- you didn't know what it was. (It wasn't anything at this point. Had you thought that it was the shadow of a unicorn, it would have been the shadow of a unicorn.) Obviously, you spent some time dwelling on the shadow. So, naturally, it showed up again. Somewhere along the line you thought of this shadow as being a person. That frightened you, so the shadow figure reacted appropriately with hostility. After your false awakening you were still considering the shadow figure- still thinking about him- so he showed up again. It's that simple, I think. And it's nothing to make you apprehensive about LDing, (even though your fear is understandable.) Maybe it applies to your situation as well?

[D-Shizzle]

Spirit brings up a great point. It's still your dream. Also, don't dispell the notion that these dreams may mean something. Further, the more fear and emphasis you put on theses dreams the more you will have them, probably. A' la' autosuggestion. Here is what I posted on another thread about frightening images... Maybe it applies to your situation as well? shits crazy

[David7]

As a little kid I often had nightmares, many lucid, and if I realized it was a dream I'd close my eyes and try to wake myself up. One time I was having a trick-or-treating dream and when I became lucid I was too scared to keep dreaming so I turned some nearby people into monsters who attacked/mauled me. No pain, I just ducked and closed my eyes and woke up. I think dying can help me wake up, ironic. In general trying to wake yourself up can often cause false awakenings by the way. My dad had nightmares as a kid too, but in a meditation class as an adult he turned a childhood clown dream monster into a friend. So you can turn scary dream characters into friends.

[AnUnremarkableFire]

It's not so much the images and noises that scare me the most (though they have admittedly become more and more intense)... but the very real feeling of being heavily sedated and drugged... that's something that for a long time, I had NEVER felt with lucid dreaming (save from a small pressure in my head that would occur when I was being sucked through a mass of images and sounds, just before settling on one and letting a scene dissolve.)

[adamdreamslots]

[QUOTE=AnUnremarkableFire;1127001]It's not so much the images and noises that scare me the most...but the very real feeling of being heavily sedated and drugged... QUOTE] The same exact situation happens to me when I have LDs. I always have 5 or 6 false awakenings where I wake up where ever I'm actually sleeping (bed, couch, whatever) but a new LD continues from that place. When I do finally wake up FOR REAL, I feel like I am HEAVILY sedated. It last a while but ends up wearing off...I'd also like to have an explanation for this, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[jbaylies]

This sounds like sleep paralysis to me. . .

[lucidreamsavy]

I get scared sometimes too, but I MAKE myself get scared. Good news though, it's been a couple of months since I've been scared in a lucid! And I've never become lucid before during an actual nightmare, I always wake up before it gets too bad. In one of my dreams, I was in my kitchen, and I looked at the clock, and knew I was dreaming. Incredibly vivid. It looked practically exactly like it! It was as clear as being there! My sister, from her room, started calling for me, and, as odd as it sounds, it creeped me out. So, I woke up (when I was relatively new to LD). Sometimes, you can get scared at the most unscary things in LDs!

[Jabrol2001]

oh wow never heard of this in particular. Ive had similer things happen to me, but it usually intereupts the dream and its still sleepy time, not time to wake up! hmm i dont think thats sleep paralisis i think what i experience is more along the lines of it. But hey im no doctor!

[Mancon]

sounds scary