I’ve been an active lucid dreamer since I was a teenager. Lately, it’s difficult for me not to lucid and I’ve been having a hard time feeling rested when I wake up. I’m briefly going to share a recurring lucid dream I’ve been having, that seems to be getting more and more dark…
I’m sleeping… I’m watching myself sleeping. I can see my husband is lying next to me. The weather is constant with the current conditions outside. As I’m looking at myself asleep, there’s something dark in the corner of my eye. I am overcome with fear. I remind myself it’s a dream and go through the process to calm myself back to reality. But this does nothing. The dark “thing” that is clearly watching me is getting closer. But I can’t turn my head to look at it. I grab onto the shoulders of my sleeping self and shake her until she wakes up. Her eyes open and they’re black. She slowly closes her eyes again. I sink into the floor. I’m awake.
This is recurring and scary… my dreams, especially my lucid dreams, are generally very enjoyable. And while I’m in full control, I still find myself frightened. Any tips on how to make this end/change? I’m desperate for sleep…
I have no experience with recurring nightmares, but I would visualize a solution while awake. I would confidently tell myself that I don’t have to fear anything in that dream and I would visualize dealing with it. For example you could try hugging the sleeping dark-you or you could summon light and give it to dark-you. You could also try talking to her or asking the dream why you are seeing that dream.
I’m sorry to hear that you have these nightmares and I wish I could be more helpful
…Something I’ve noticed about my own dream life is that I tend to discount lucid dreams, especially lucid nightmares, as meaningful.
That is, I think a lot of my ordinary, non-lucid dreams have meaning, or messages for me, but when I have a lucid nightmare I don’t automatically apply my interpretative skills. Why?
One way to deal with this recurring dream is to treat it like any other dream.
In your real-life, do you feel like you’re “watching [yourself] sleeping”? Do you see darkness in yourself?
But here’s another to deal with it—a way that I think is really underrated. Try to have a sense of humor about it. Next time you find yourself in the nightmare, even though it’s scary, tell a joke. Try saying to the dark-eyed, sleeping self, “Oo, you’re really scary.”
You don’t have to run from or cover up your feelings, but humor can give you a little psychological space that helps you deal with nightmares.
A third brave way to deal with nightmares is to let the monster get you. A lot of people have had really enlightening experiences when they just let themselves be eaten or killed or whatever.
I went through something similar, and from my experience, fear is the key. My recurring lucid nightmares usually started by waking up in my room, in total darkness. I would feel my way towards the door, try to turn on the light, but it wouldn’t work. I would become lucid at the moment I opened the door, because something would try to enter the room. I tried to fight it back, but it always overpowered me and entered. I felt that there were several creatures with knife-like claws. They would cut me up every night, and I felt every single bit of it.
Then, they became predictable, and I slowly stopped fighting them. When those creatures would enter the room and attack, I would tell them to get it over with quickly, so that I can wake up. I felt that the dream creatures were confused by that, and the nightmare would really end sooner than before.
Finally, what stopped that kind of nightmares was finding something to hold on to, believing that something can stop them. For me, it was my boyfriend’s love, and his protection. The last time that I had such a nightmare, a DC of my boyfriend covered in light appeared and illuminated them, and they ran away.
This didn’t stop my nightmares entirely since it seems that I keep finding new ways to scare and hurt myself, but I think that any kind of nightmare can be defeated by believing that you have nothing to be afraid of, that you are protected.
I have to say that all this cases of nightmares and lucid nightmares are merely dreamers fault. Don’t get me wrong I’m really not trying to be an ass here. I’ve had quite enough nightmares as growing up but today this isn’t a case any more. At the end of the day what troubles you in a waking life will manifest in dreams and that’s good, you can work on the problem from both sides of the coin.
Dream problems aren’t comparable to waking life problems, or are they maybe?!
Waking problems aren’t so easy to solve as dream problems but they go hand in hand. I have older brother. He chose a different path, different way. He as a child had recurring nightmares too and with time he learned how to stop them, as usually in a dream he would notice that he is actually in a dream(became somewhat lucid) and then he would wake himself up. Never choose to do anything else then wake himself up. He would do that night after night until he completely suppressed dream recall.
He would be in a good mood, bad mood but never actually new why but it was because of the dreams and because of the nightmares. He too claims that whenever he remembers his dreams and nightmares he feels like he didn’t get enough sleep which is contradiction to logic behind sleep. Because those who are sleep deprived are those who are lacking a REM sleep but if you do remember your dreams/nightmares you definitely did have REM sleep so this exhaustion isn’t from physical side but from the psychological side.
As any waking problems or dream problems sooner or later they caught us whether we are ready or not and they remind us that there is something that it’s need to be done.
The solution to something like this where there’s something scary but you know it’s a dream is actually pretty simple and never fails: give that dark thing a big cuddle. It’s the #1 solution to dealing with nightmare monsters.
In your post you said you couldn’t turn your head to look at it, i don’t know if that’s as in you literally can’t do it or you just don’t want to, but dreams - especially lucid ones - run on your expectations. The trick is to manage them and toy with them consciously: if there’s a black, scary, menacing monster slowly advancing on you then your mind will be going “Oh no it’s going to get closer and then it’s going to kill/maim/whatever me”. However, if you give it a cuddle (which is admittedly a lot easier said than done - closing your eyes helps but is liable to wake you up if you keep them shut too long) when you’re frightened will either make it disappear or turn into something significantly less frightening and hug you back.
You’re scared and hugging something, so what’s the expectation? A comforting return hug by someone you love.
It’s annoying when you have a recurring nightmare because you know what will happen and thus expect it to happen (for example, I frequently have dreams of being trapped in a dark house with a monster of some sort that will attack me, but the monster doesn’t appear until I realise i’m in a dark house and thus the expectation of a monster makes it appear) but getting into the habit of giving them hugs will end it quickly and without pain.
Try giving her the funniest clown glasses you can think of (you then wont be able to see the eyes which scare you). Reach down to your pocket in the LD and pull them out. Think about these before your next lucid dream so you can recall them fast and clearly when needed. Make sure they are funny.
Focus on how ridiculous they look on, rather then on the fear.
