Nightmare related questions

Nightmares occur in REM sleep, and after falling asleep, it usually takes more than an hour to reach REM, am I correct? If so, is it not a nightmare if it occurs just minutes after falling asleep? What I'm talking about is certainly not a night terror as said events are always related to dreams. Said dreams are always weird and negative, sometimes utterly terrifying, and the awakening always happens in a zap. These happen to someone I know, not me personally. Person in question acts perfectly normal, although sleepy, and sometimes very frightened, after waking up. Once said person was fully awake for the following half an hour or so, but appeared as if still half asleep. No problem with speaking, walking, communicating with others, but was clearly a bit confused, as if still in a dream.

Secondly, (this is probably a stupid question) is the Old Hag hallucination strictly related to sleep paralysis? Once I had a very intensive nightmare where an old hag caused a very strong feeling of panic and terror. I even recognised said hag from a picture which depicted the old hag of sleep paralysis. A mere picture of an ugly old lady - admittably looking somewhat menacing but in no way frightening - terrified the hell out of me long after I even had the dream, so I'm in the belief that it was indeed the same character.

Thirdly, my nightmares are generally normal dreams that start taking a turn for the worse at some point so that negative emotions become prominent. Usually everything turns really weird and suddenly something happens that puts me in a state of fear and panic. Now, I've learned that it's possible to counter nightmares by facing them, for example when being chased by a beast, stop running and confront him. However, in the nightmares that I have, it's impossible to remain calm as everything happens so fast. I simply lose control and fear takes over me. Any tips on how to maintain control over these dreams?

Sorry for the lenghty post, and thanks in advance for help.:)

First:



And second, part of the answer to your last question is in the SP video... there's a part of the brain called the Amygdala (say it with me... Aaaaa Mig Da Laaaaa... love saying that!) that's responsible for terror and primal aggression, which is sometimes strongly activated in REM, and especially in SP. It just simply injects a chemical into your brain that makes you scared shitless... terror on command! Once you understand this, you see fear is really nothing to be afraid of, capiche?

The second part of the answer to your last question is this....

Learn to lucid dream. After you've gotten fairly good at it, then you'll be ready to go in and face those nightmare creatures. Apparently the thing to do with them is to ask them why they're in your dream or if they have a message for you. Supposedly this will cause the nightmare creature to become less menacing and it should transform into something more human (possibly totally human) and it should become an ally.

Keep in mind, everything in a dream is some part of your psyche... a nightmare is usually just something we're afraid to face. Running from it or fighting it makes it stronger and scarier and more aggressive... just like running form a predator or a bully. Facing it and asking it questions will bring our its humanity. So I've heard anyway, from a lot of sources.

Thank you for the informative reply.

My nightmares are difficult to analyse, let alone fight, during sleep, as they are usually only slightly weird dreams that suddenly take a horrifying turn. A perfect example of my nightmares is one dream where some of my teeth suddenly fell off (this is very common for me and I'm quite sure why I have those dreams). It was only slightly upsetting until someone in the dream tried to help me with the teeth. Like dentists sometimes do, she pressed each (remaining) tooth and asked me to say when it hurts. One of the teeth apparently triggered extreme fear instead of pain, and I was aware of that, and I thought it'd be fine since I could just shout when the fear would kick in. It did, and I tried to scream but I couldn't. The fear became unbearable, and I woke up trying to scream "fear! terror, fear!". In other words, I couldn't run from it if I tried, so that's not the problem. I've learned to tell off more typical kinds of nightmares since childhood and I no longer wake up to any of them.

Anyhow, I'm trying to learn to iniate lucid dreams at will. I've mainly succeeded when going to bed completely exhausted and falling asleep almost instantly. I've never had nightmares when lucid dreaming even though I can control my dreams to a very, very limited extent (and even then the fact that I actually succeed surprises me so much that I nearly wake up).

Sounds like you're at about the same point I am. I've now induced 3 LDs since joining 2 months ago, but no control or powers yet.

From what I understand though, as you go you'll get better at all of it. Hoping anyway!!

:cheers: