Apologies for the long post, please bear with me. Feel free to skim read
I only just heard of lucid dreaming today and take this kind of stuff with a pinch of salt, thought it wouldn’t hurt trying though.
I’ve never attempted lucid dreaming intentionally until tonight. Kept repeating to myself I will have a lucid dream tonight and I will remember my dreams. Then I heard a faint whirring noise, was unsure whether it was coming from outside my window or was just my imagination.
As soon as I focused on the noise I felt warm spasms, shooting feelings across my body and my heart began beating faster and faster. I was excited that this was possibly the beginning of a lucid dream but terrified at the same time as my heart was beating faster and faster, it felt like I was falling asleep but was consciously aware of it . . .
At first I was reluctant to snap out of it in case this was a necessary step to lucid dreaming but eventually I had to as I felt my heart was going to burst out of my chest. I then got up out of bed (I had only been in bed half an hour at this point) and then it struck me - what if I was in a lucid dream?
I tried some reality checks, turned out I wasn’t. A little disappointing but I felt relieved at the same time.
So to cut a long story short, is this normal? I felt like I was going to have a heart attack and I didn’t expect to feel anything actually drifting off to sleep. I was adamant any concious effects would happen whilst I was waking up.
Please could someone shed some light on my experience whether it’s normal or how to overcome it. Is this bad for my health? I’ve never had an experience like it and didn’t think I was susceptible to such things.
I don’t think this experience is uncommon for LD beginners. Not sure what causes it but I felt that it happens when I focus too much on my body. You can feel all the energy flowing through your body, the buzzing feeling, may come in waves. The heart pounding, like it’s going to burst out. I don’t think your heartbeat is really anything different than usual when that happens. Sometimes you might even experience your breaths going deeper and more intens and it might give you the thought that you’re not getting enough air.
I don’t think it’s nessecary to focus on your body that much because the pounding and buzzing never made me fall asleep. Instead, keep your mind off of your body and let it relax and use a mantra to fall asleep with.
This isn’t uncommon, especially if you attempt to lucid dream at night. Normally this is a symptom of attempting to induce a WILD or sleep paralysis. Basically these are hallucinations that come as you begin to fall asleep but your mind is still aware of what is going on. Normally it is more of an issue with breathing as your mind takes that over, but feelings of your heart rushing are also common. Try to stick through it next time, you won’t be in any danger (unless you start to feel SERIOUS pain, of course ).
My best advice is to try your attempts 4-6 hours after you first go to bed. You tend to fall asleep much faster which will alleviate most of the noises/feelings. You also go into REM sleep much quicker, making it faster and easier to get into a dream in the first place. Earlier in the night, it can take up to 90 minutes or longer to actually induce a dream.
I think the main reason I got so agitated is it’s never happened before, I was really focusing on lucid dreaming as I was trying to nod off not thinking that much of it, but when it actually started having an effect on me it freaked me out.
It does sound like it was a bout of sleep paralysis but mixed with panic it made it more unpleasant than it should have been.
Am going to face going back to bed now - wish me luck
).
