My dream last night:
I was with 2 children and they were not mine but became mine. We were playing at a park. I saw zombies coming out of no where I tried to yell to the others that there was a breach. I grabbed the children’s hands and started to run. I was not getting far and zombies became enclosing. It half occurred to me that the kids will be alright if I leave them. But I still ran for my own sake. The herd was enclosing and one reached and grabbed my hair as I ran past. The enclosing herd now became less threatening and I realized I could make them disappear.
I did not think “this is a dream”. I started melting pieces of the environment away just as fast as the thought formed. Like whipping off food from a plate when you are cleaning it. The canvas was blank and I started to fill it with sky. I took off in it but did not feel extremely aware that I was in control.
I tried to forced scenery onto the canvas and for some reason it was not working. I drew a large scene with futuristic building and dome like buildings like something out of star wars. I didn’t want to play in it, the notion was “Oh come on! I have been here 1000 times!”. But after waking up and thinking about that scene, I have never seen it before. I flew away, or backed away, or I erased it, I can’t remember, but I got frustrated and went into the sky (daylight sky).
I just went higher and higher, not knowing what to do with myself. I went so high that I found large empty plastics. Large plastic bottles and containers with lids attached. They were in big batches, sticking together. These batches were just floating in the sky. I knew I went to high, or didn’t want to get to high in the sky for fear I would get stuck. I stopped ascending and started to swim down. literally, swim down. It was difficult and I started losing my sense of direction of up and down.
The dream ended, I think. I do not remember feeling the wind on my face or exhilaration from flying. But I was able to get away from and OUT of a zombie dream. I have a pattern of zombie dreams and this was the first time I did not have an entire dream of zombies.
I do not know if I was in full control of my dream because I got lost in the sky and did not recognize that these plastic bottle clouds were odd.
I was disappointed upon waking up that I either did not know how to create my own dreams, so I defaulted to letting my dream just happen, after going into the sky. Did I become semi-lucid when I stopped the zombie dream, but then lost my lucidity once in the sky?
The defining quality of lucidity is that you know you are dreaming. It sounds like you realized that you were in an environment that you could change at will, but not necessarily that you were in a dream. In that sense, I’d say you weren’t lucid, although you may have been close.
I wouldn’t get terribly caught up on that, though. The fact that you were able to get out of a frightening dream into a more pleasant one is something to celebrate, I think! Lucidity might make doing that easier in the future, but it sounds like escaping/changing nightmares is the main reason you took up LDing, so in that sense you accomplished your main goal.
When you are lucid, you don’t necessarily have to do anything to change the dream. You certainly can, but if you like how the dream is going you can just play along and let the dream develop—ihis can be a fun use of lucidity, since you can be aware of how strange and interesting your dream is as it’s happening. Of course, if you’re having an unpleasant dream you may want to change it.
Thanks for writing your dream here! I really enjoyed reading it—the rapid progression from urgent, dangerous zombie dream to a sky filled with plastic bottles was wild and very entertaining. If you have an interest in writing more of your dreams down, you might consider starting a dream journal. They can be helpful in gaining lucidity, too—you can look out for things that often happen in your dreams (like zombie attacks, in your case) and train yourself to recognize that you’re dreaming if you run into one of them. They also help a lot to improve your dream recall, if that’s something you have any trouble with.
“I’d say you weren’t lucid, although you may have been close.”
Dang. Thank you for the clarity, Zon.
" you were able to get out of a frightening dream"
Getting out of a disturbing dream was amazing! This has only happened once before. I was young and in my dream I was being chased by a tiger. I thought: This is weird, a tiger is chasing me. In that dream I stopped running and sat on the ground and just like that I was not in a scary dream. Those two dreams are similar in that I did not ‘know’ I was dreaming, but I figured out I did not need to ‘play’ into what was happening. Similar to what you said, that I just thought I could change the environment. The zombie to sky bottles dream was different in one way, I actually got frustrated I could not think of anything to dream about/change the environment to. Which really makes me laugh because I am indecisive and fussy in nature.
“When you are lucid, you don’t necessarily have to do anything to change the dream.”
I have not thought about this. When lucid dreaming, the goal is to control everything?
“and train yourself to recognize that you’re dreaming if you run into one of them.”
This is a great tip, I have been going back through my dream book and found real distinct patterns. I hope to use them to recognize when I am in a dream
Thank you so much for reading and replying with your interesting input!
I have a follow-up question for you, Zon:
Do you ever think about sleep paralysis or have to experience it?
I guess when you can do anything it can be pretty difficult to pick.
Not really—once you’ve realized you’re dreaming, the goal is up to you!
I’ve experienced it a number of times! It’s never been scary for me or anything. It’s not that hard to get out of—if I’ve really wanted to get out of it, I’ve just tried really hard to move and in a few seconds I’ve always been able to. Also, maybe more significantly, it’s really helpful if you’re trying to perform WILD. You’re so close to dreaming when you’re in SP that you can enter a dream in seconds sometimes.
Thanks! It’s a pretty common technique so definitely not my idea or anything. You might find this helpful if you haven’t read about reality checks before. You can also design MILD mantras around your dream signs to help yourself notice them (like, “If I see zombies, I’ll know I’m dreaming.”).
The fact that you were able to get out of a frightening dream into a more pleasant one is something to celebrate, I think! Lucidity might make doing that easier in the future, but it sounds like escaping/changing nightmares is the main reason you took up LDing, so in that sense you accomplished your main goal.
Thank you for the clarity, Zon.