A Potential Side-affect Of Lucid Dreaming..?

[Lord of the Flies]

I&#39;ve always avidly defended lucid dreaming and claimed that it cannot harm a person in any way. I though anyone who said otherwise was just freaking out for nothing, maybe ethnocentric and just close-minded. However this morning I have an odd case from my own experience with lucid dreaming. I wrote it down in my &#39;dream journal&#39; with as much detail as I thought was reasonable. Has anyone else ever had this problem? I&#39;ve been controlling my dreams since I was 3 or 4 and I have felt &#39;odd&#39; before after a lucid dream but not to this extent. I&#39;d also like to note that I do a lot of meditating and that I meditated myself to sleep as well as a second time when I woke up for a few moments in the middle of the night; it&#39;s automatic with me. The point? I&#39;m in the habit of allowing my mind to express itself and therefore hence the title&#33; In any case, there isn&#39;t anyone else I can discuss this with except you guys and I thought that I&#39;d post it to the research section so as to help understand what the problem is and whether or not this is just a unique case. Title: Could it be that the minds&#39; incapability to create nightmares is a bad thing&#33;?&#33; I never have any nightmares or bad dreams anymore -- because every time they begin, I stop them and turn them into my playground. I did that with intense excitement and fun this morning and now I feel weird. As I explained to Jeff I wasn&#39;t just fighting the Russian pirates (yeah, Cold War Russian pirates..=P) but also for the power to stay in control (for example, in the beginning when I &#39;woke up&#39; to the fact that it was all just a dream I levitated up and down the stairs with immense pleasure in striking fear in my &#39;enemy&#39; <--(perhaps a negative attitude to have towards ones&#39; own dream character as they&#39;re &#39;a part&#39; of me, of who I am). By the end however, I could only jump great bounds but not glide... =S And so I had a small headache at first (until I stretched like mad) -- but now I just feel odd as well as a strange feeling in my heart as if my blood pressure and heart rate was up just a little bit. It could also be the philosophical thoughts that were going through my head last night about love, life, hatred and death... ...although I&#39;m not in the habit of getting headaches from philosophy at all&#33;&#33;&#33; Hmm... In the end it feels like my brain&#39;s a muscle that wasn&#39;t stretched before exercise (it feels like both hemispheres of the cortex were pulling away from each other but not along the corpus callosum; just 2/3 is &#39;for&#39; the right hesmiphere and the rest is &#39;for&#39; the left hemisphere -- I don&#39;t get these &#39;brain feelings&#39; at all&#33. Too much imagination running through my head between philosophy, a would-be nightmare (or just a bad dream?) and lucid dreaming.. I feel like there&#39;s something wrong in my mind -- that old &#39;splinter in your mind&#39; feeling right in the center of it all (actual &#39;biological positioning&#39;..? Right on the left hemisphere in front of the motor strip instead of the usual center and sometimes at the top of the frontal lobe..). Maybe it was just too much anime (I got Elfen Lied from Erik and I watched all the episodes in one day; a lot for me&#33.

[Howie]

In my own personal opinion I am and an avid lucid dreamer. *Lost in there for many is that I also believe that dreams often portray a message for us. Your subconscious may in fact be trying to tell you something via a nightmare. When we become lucid our conscious mind gets in the way and fucks things up, like it does while we are awake as well. Take note of your experiences and we don't always have to manipulate the dream scene. A conscious dream left to unfold naturally gives us a great opportunity to observe the dream in a lucid and conscious manner. It is hard to just be an observer when we know what things we can do while lucid. If so inclined Dc are a very good way to also gain insight. Ask them questions. They are after all you in different form. What are you thoughts?

[the real pieman]

i believe that if you have the ability to lucid dreams then your dreams no longer mean anything.... your mind knows that you can lucid dream so why should it leave messages in 'videos' (dreams) instead of confronting you directly, because through direct confrontation the message can be passed through quickly and efficiently... and if it is bad for your brain then why does your brain allow it, doesnt it have a choice whether you lucid dream or not, afterall its through it that you can do it anyway... the incapacity to create nightmares is also a good thing because it shows that you know what your up against and that you believe in yourself to such an extent that your are able to face your fears and defeat them... i have attained lucidity through many nightmares and i have felt more revitalised than 'injured' on awakening... Anyway isnt it healthier for our conscious and subconscious minds to connect therefore creating a higher brain function and the ability to access more knowledge and comprehend more than we could do in our conscious mind.... I think that dreams are here for a reason and that reason is to become lucid to achieve a smooth equalibrium between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, leading to a more beneficial and healthier body, mind and if you believe in it ...soul...

[DreamDudeDave]

I liken dreams to a Story or an RPG game. Some RPG games you can go off an do whatever you want, hack and slash all the characters, but then the Game means nothing but what you make it. However, there is then the RPG game experience of playing the Story and learning from the Characters. The Subconcious has lessons and a Story to teach and tell.

[slimslowslider]

I agree with Howetzer. For me the fun and value of a LD is to be aware whilst allowing the dream to unfold from your subconscious. Perhaps, next time you are lucid, ask for a nightmare, go back to a nightmare you have preiously 'controlled', seek the monster, go into the basement... Then rather than zapping the monster, allow it to do its worst - the 'monster' will usually resolve into something else (e.g. turn into your father or whatever) that will usually be very helpful in understanding your fears/ regrets etc. If it doesn't automatically do this the Senoi recommend that you demand from the monster a present which can then be 'taken out of the dream' for interpretation at your leisure with your conscious waking mind. Or you can simply ask the monster why it is there or what its doing in your dream. The answer may not be immediately understandable especially if its a deep fear that you don't want to face - hence the importance of researching/ analysing it afterwards when awake. For example I was once given a stick with four runes on it - I had to google them to find their meaning and the results were astonishing - a real insight - and I never had that particular type of nightmare again. The subconscious mind supposedly has access to ALL your memories, (and possibly other archetypal/ morphic resonnant information) so although I didn't know the runes by heart I had read about them some years before. P.S.Watching anime all day is bound to give you a headache! sweet nightmares