Facing Fear

When I first learned about lucid dreaming I turned the concept over in my mind many times and asked myself what I would do in a lucid dream. I'm sure that everyone has done this once or twice in their life. I had done it before playfully in my own mind, dismissing it as just a wish. I had thought of flying, space, visiting my favorite stories from books and movies; you know the basic stuff. When I found out that it was possible I was completely taken aback at my first and only thought as to what I really wanted to do in a lucid dream.

I thought of nothing but a door. Behind this door would be my fears.

So far this is nothing original. (I mean come on, every person only has one or two truly unique thoughts in their life. I'm not making my claim on this.) Then I came to a realization that I don't really know what my fears are. I should clarify here. I have my small trepidations that happen in daily life; such as almost getting in a car accident or realization of failure. Up until this point in life, I'd told people that I really didn't have any fears. I was thinking of things like: heights, phobias, irrational fears.

Everyone has fear of sudden inevitable events that broadside them like a semi-truck. What I don't know and understand are the fears that have the profound and at the same time most minute effects on our lives. I mentioned before that I've experienced a short fear when I realized failure was inevitable. I don't fear failure, granted I don't enjoy it either. That door that I think of during the week is a complete unknown to me and I don't know what to do with it.

Some more clarification. I have never dreamt fully lucidly, I've realized I was dreaming before and continued but never had control. I've only recently been starting to train myself to do this. I haven't accomplished this yet; though I do dream and recognize patterns in them.

I know my personality and I know what the first thing on my agenda is when I do attain my goal.

Now then we come to the final realization I've had through this particular train of thought AND the actual point of this entire post. (If you've been wandering.) I'm going to do this. Stopping myself and waiting until I've gotten some real experience is out of the question. This is the reason I decided to learn and I'll be damned if I'm not grasping what I've sought. But this could be a very intense, possibly damaging experience. I should probably at the very least ask if anyone has done this before so I might have some semblance of what to expect.

If anyone has done something like this could you give me a friendly heads up?

In the early tracking of my dreams I found that I had a strange trend. Whenever there was a body of water of any kind (lakes, rivers, oceans...even aquariums and sinks) there were monsters. Creepy hungry things that had unblinking eyes and sharp teeth, that could move fast and were poisonous or half rotted or cannibalistic to the few "good" things in the water, they are unfeeling and ravenous.

I am not afraid of water in waking life, in fact I absolutely adore the ocean and rivers, but without fail, water in dreams leads to bad things. I decided to face this strange dream phobia and used several lucids trying to get into the deepest darkest part of the ocean. As you can imagine I faced a lot of horrors.

It paid off eventually. Because more than just trying to find the scariest part of the ocean, I was looking for help. I finally found my whale, the DC I had been searching for. The moment I touched the nose of the giant creature all the scary things in the water left and I felt peaceful and happy. This only lasted a few moments until I woke up, but it felt like a big success.

It didn't cure me though, since then I have had another non-lucid aquarium monster but I feel like it is something I can work with.

I have to say though, it takes a LOT of guts, you have every expectation of being horrified and that's what you are going to get. More than a few times I was faced with things that were not even very intimidating but I felt cold terror turn my bones icy. You are asking your subconscious to subjugate you to the darkest things in your psyche. Simply by asking these questions, I feel that you are the kind of person who can handle it, but be ready to have your days overshadowed by some lingering bad feelings.

My advice is to have a person handy (irl not online) who you can share your experiences with. Verbalizing the dreams always seemed to help me. Also it may seem silly but have a non-caffeinated hot beverage waiting for you to make when you wake up, I prefer Jasmine tea ^ _ ^ a good brew works wonders for bad energies.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and I would be interested in hearing about your journey as it happens!

I have read theories that natural lucid dreamers became such as a defense mechanism against frequent nightmares. I think this is a great tool not only for exploring and solving your fears, but also exploring other parts of yourself as well.

My dream recall has been horrible ever since I started working, hopefully after I leave my job I can get back in to it. Speaking of which, I know what you mean by fears that make no sense. I am planning on leaving my job in a month anyways to go back to school. However, when I got called in by my manager and supervisor to talk about my poor performance and how I had 30 days to turn it around, I still got so nervous I had to stop my teeth from chattering. By rights I should have not cared at all since I plan on leaving anyways. And indeed my poor performance has been due to the fact that I find no enjoyment at all in the job. I have no explanation for this, but I guess its something with quitting vs being fired. Maybe once I get my dream recall back I can use lucidity as a tool to figure out why, and what else may be making me sad.

This is a great story though rebel, may I ask why a whale?

I use to dream about whales all the time, but they were rarely in water, they were flying or in stone carvings, or in space...but they were always a great comfort and a helping presence. I also adore whales in waking life, and have a lot of respect for them, I don't know if the feelings about whales brought on the dreams or if the dreams brought on the feeling towards whales but they are definitely important to me.

And of course Links Awakening is one of my favorite games of all time ^^ hence the Windfish in the sig.

Thank you guys very much. I really appreciate your insight and the fact that you are being open with me about a very personal part of your self-being. I didn't even consider being fearful of something in my dreams that would seem mundane in the waking world. When I sat down after writing my first post I realized one other thing I have to note that may affect my reasoning for wanting to open that door. I don't necessarily have nightmares anymore. In a sense I do but true nightmares for me are far and few between since I hit puberty. In all the other "nightmares" I am always fighting back, not giving in and confronting the obstacle in the dream. One example is where a group of people and I were running from a huge group of people and when I finally got fed up with it I stopped and turned to face the group and it had become a single person when I chose to face it. I also frequently have zombie dreams where I live in a post-invasion world. I'm hardly ever nervous and always have a gun and the ability and resolve to fight back. I don't know if this gives you any more insight but I would be open to reading your opinions on this.