Nightmares Can Be Your Friend

I've been lucid dreaming ever since I was... really young. It's just something I always did. But lately, I've been thinking about what triggered that in the first place... aside from being naturally pretty "aware" and addicted to a lot of videogames....

I, as a child, had a lot of nightmares.

Not a WHOLE lot of nightmares. But enough of them. And I would remember, sometime during almost every nightmare, coming to the realization that, "Arghhh, this better be a dream.... Wait. It is a dream. Aha, I'm dreaming!"

I know it is this way for quite a few people. Nightmares trigger lucidity. Almost every time I have nightmares, I become lucid. Now, upon becoming lucid, I used to still run away from the nightmare, so it wasn't exactly enjoyable, but lately I've started facing my nightmares instead, and it's not scary at all. It's kind of exciting. And mostly empowering. Calming, in a way.

I used to be so scared of my shadow figures... the people who kept chasing me and trying to kill me and shoot me and whatever... but now I just let them shoot me. Because when I have a nightmare, I have a lucid dream. And now I understand that these "enemies" are all inside my head. They are ME. They are the parts of me that the other parts of me have been rejecting. They are the problems I still need to solve. They are... my brain just feeling weird. Whatever they are, instead of trying to run away from them, I approach them now and I love them.

I know it sounds kind of crazy but... really... All you need is love! And as soon as I let them realize this, we're all happy in my head and the nightmare is now a pleasant lucid dream.

(So thank you, all my attackers, assassinators, conspirators... it's thanks to you guys that I've become lucid.)

Next time YOU go to bed... don't fear nightmares! It sounds really hard to do at first, especially if you've been a victim of them for so long. But try. Try to deal with them. They become less and less scary... until it becomes something you look forward to.

I heard Stilton blue cheese gives you weird dreams and nightmares sometime. Now I gotta try that. ; D

Anyway have any suggestions or personal anecdotes about how you can make a nightmare helpful instead of harmful? Do share!

I've never had much nightmares as a kid for some reason. I've only had a few. Hmm, I should buy that blue cheese though...

Nice way to put it. Years ago I was becoming lucid in dreams because I was upset that I was sleeping; I was collecting video-games then and sometimes would find a lot of them for very cheap prices in dreams, then I'd get all excited and hope to bring them home then realize I was dreaming and not bring the games with me from the dreams outside of memory.

But wait a second, I can bring them... At least through modification of video game consoles I can make them happen. Not that I should but I can make it happen such as the white Sega Genesis I once saw in a dream. Come to think of it, I saw a Sega Genesis (Model II) that was spray-painted blue - Which I had done - fairly recently but in a dream. I asked the owner "Is the LED Blue?" because I had changed that too.

Well I used to get lucid off of nightmares as well, but I never had a particularly good time with them since the fear factor was escalating so much that I wouldn't be able to think about not running or hiding.

I have tried the advice of giving the monster love before by just hugging it but that didn't work out well since it started banging on my chest and woke me up.

Good post!

Not enough people see the value in a good nightmare. :)

The thing about nightmares is they are just like any other negative emotion. They are signals that cannote a particular meaning. This does not mean they are good or bad, they just mean something.

In my view there are two driving emotional forces. There is fear and love. Love brings together and connects while fear separates and destroys.

Death separates and destroys, so most people are afraid of death. On the other hand, death is essential to life and so from a certain perspective, one can love death. That does not take away from the pain or suffering one might experience due to death and change.

Nightmares show us our fear. That is a great advantage because when you know your fears, you can become more aware. When you become more aware, that just makes everything better.

So use your nightmares. Become acquainted with your fears. In this way, you can improve your self.

This is something I am working on because I am still scared of my attackers in dreams. Or at least want to work on. I am usually non-lucid so I am frightened off and either keep running away or waking myself out of the dream. I think DreamForecast put it well about facing our nightmares though. I need to be brave and just face them the next time they happen lol.

When i was a child, i usually tried to escape my nightmares. Did it so much, i learned how to will myself awake, this also made me discover "False Awakenings"...that wasn't fun. But thanks to my nightmares, i learned how to DILD, also dream control. But i still don't know how to WILD, but that just means, i still have more to learn.