Last night I was in the middle of a pretty funny LD. I decided to try living in a video-game-esque world, kinda medieval, and I was busy deciding what I wanted to look like when suddenly things went out of control… sort of, but not entirely thank goodness.
While I was busy trying to choose my wardrobe, this insect-like creature–giant in size, like any “big” monster should be–came out of the ground and started charging at me. At first I was extremely confused at how this could’ve come up when I didn’t even intend for it to appear YET. I didn’t have a weapon yet!
So I quickly chose just some regular day clothes so I could focus on making this thing vanish or something. I didn’t want to get eaten right now!!
So I thought of it vanishing “Get out of here!” and it went.
But I made a very bad mistake. When in Lucid Dreams, things I think of while feeling even slightly panicked or nervous tend to appear without any control over it, I guess it’s because my mind becomes a lot less focused.
So after I banished THAT monster, I was thinking and worrying of whatelse could come up and chase after me… and that’s when a lot of scary stuff started popping out and, well, started chasing after me. I woke myself up as soon as I could stop thinking of running and running. Had to first phase to a cavern that I had no clue where it was, I just saw the image of a cavern in my head and I thought “Get me there”. I’m sure those monsters would’ve found me later if more didn’t just pop out of the ground around me lol
It was Lucid, but it sure wasn’t a Nice LD…
And where was Bubbles all this time!? (my SG)
In an absolutely unrelated note, that sounds like a good way to teleport.
In all my LDs, I’ve only needed to teleport AND succeed in trying six times lol. Not that I’ve tried many times, just that I’m not particularly good with it. In terms of transportation, flying’s the way to go 
or at least for me it is.
I was afraid that with obviously not enough practice in teleporting that it might fail (which it has before in other nightmares or trying to escape while in a panicked state lol)
But I made it out in one piece no more monsters for the day… hopefully tonight it won’t happen again LOL eeek!
running gets you no where but running!
acting out of being dominated by fear sustains fear and keeps fear alive.
only acceptance of fear as it manifests, that is to say, completely embracing your fear no matter how deep or shallow, will eradicate the fear.
nightmares happen because we need to have them, we need to be scared by them, to get the fear out of us through catharsis because it is otherwise repressed by the conscious mind.
to therefore be lucid and run from fear is to keep it going.
I’ve had some issues with Freddy Krueger, and even after squaring off and asking him to be my friend he showed up just a few days ago, a nuisance but a real definite distraction and hinderance to the experience of peace and clarity.
Consider reacting to fear by issuing it its polar opposite, love.
Now in actuality there are no giant insect creatures. Think about real insects though, how insignificant and completely scary their lives are… isn’t it sad to be an insect? Generate compassion toward them in this way…
so for instance why is this monster trying to scare you? You do not try to scare someone unless you are suffering, because if you are in complete bliss and joy and living in the eternal holy moment that is called NOW then what need is there to go and attack someone and scare them?
No the people who attack are also very afraid, so your insect needed a hug… but alas that’s the scary thing, it’s an insect after you not a human being, so you could be dealing with fear in a very raw and very “ugly” form that is harder to accept than if it was just a person attacking you, because you can hug a person, but not necessarily a monster.
So in this case you may shrink the insect monster down to a normal size, stare at it and fully embrace your fear, which is now not so big, and etc.
sometimes though maybe all you can do is have a terrifying nightmare but at least you know it’s just a dream and are lucid… so you can experience the fear knowing it will end soon.
in actuality nightmare characters are just raw energy condensed into a temporary form, this is why you cannot escape them by running from them, because they are simply fear. “The only thing to fear is fear itself”. So you know, if you run away, fear is your shadow and fear is right by your side.
I think you have a good understanding of this.
So really the only thing to do is accept and transmute the energy, realize it isn’t real, realize it is YOU that is the monster in the dream [you are experiencing your own terror, and the personification of your terror is the monster. in essence you are the one who is scaring yourself] and then take adequate measure to deal with whatever happens.
If you can, it is good to square off with the thing, stare it down, and watch it, and it may fade away and dissappear or it may culminate in intense fear that wakes you up or it may transform into something less scary which can then be talked to, embraced, hugged, etc.
imagine that the thing terrifying you, is you yourself who is terrified… that the monster is actually a terrified baby who is all alone and needs attention.
this applies to everyone especailly me 
I guess it was kind of refreshing and a reminder of some sorts. I haven’t had a nightmare for months until just yesterday 
so it was kind of a BIG shock too. I guess it’ll help my awareness against nightmares for future LDs.
I managed to make the bug disappear but my fears made A LOT of giant monsters appear soon after (And they weren’t all bugs either! All kinds of weird stuff!), that’s what I was REALLY trying to run from lol I’ve been eaten waaay too many times before I learned how to initiate an LD, and that was also a reason why I ran. I was scared, but also just really tired of being devoured all the time in the past. At the moment that I started to run, I wasn’t thinking about it until now, but in such a frightened state, I probably wouldn’t have been able to banish ALL of those monsters that appeared. They were like they all came out of my childhood nightmares too O.O’ which was creepy.
I’ve never thought of trying to hug a giant insect before… lol I might give that a try, if it won’t bite off my head first!
I’ve always solved my LDs-gone-bad by trying to DESTROY the nightmare, attempting to restore my LD back to its normal good state… I’ll give your strategy a try the next time it happens
destroying may be an option… i am not really sure. destroying caters to the world of conflicts.
violence and love are both ways to solve problems, however love keeps problems from happening again.
remember that its your own mind you’re in so however you see it appropriate to respond to conlficts, its really no different than the real world.
one thing that I heard Ann Shulgin recommend is to go into your shadow monster, step inside it, and look out of its eyes, so that you can understand and resolve why it exists in the first place.
I agree with holy reality there, if your dreams have a meaning (hidden fears etc.), facing your monsters and killing them is an improvement to running away, but accepting them would be even better.
For me, nightmares have little to do with the actual content of the dream. I’ve had dreams of nuclear war that were no nightmares, because I was not really afraid. Well, I was afraid in the dream, but only dream-afraid, not nightmare-afraid if you know what I mean. On the other hand, I’ve had a nightmare where somebody said “the lights just became 10% brighter” (it didn’t make any sense in the dream either), which gave me a really panicky nightmareish feeling, for no reason at all. How am I supposed to “solve” a dream like this? Turn the light 10% down?
Home come you run away from things during a lucid dream? technically if you slapped that thing it would be either gone or instantly wake you up so why bother running -.-’? remember this for your next LD
I find conjuring up someone to help you very useful. Therefore you can rely yourself on them, and not on your own mind. I’ve had similar issues with tornados before.