A couple nights ago I had my first Major experience with Lucid Dreaming. I had been trying to get it right for months, but I typically remained lucid only for a short period of time before falling back into a normal dream sequence. Two nights ago I finally got it right. I was lucid for what felt like a couple hours of dream time.
Long story short, I don’t think I was ready. I scared myself in my dream and woke up with sleep paralysis for the first time ever. I fought off Old Hag for the most part. I definitely thought I felt a presence, but it was not overwhelmingly scary at the time. I just wanted to get up more than anything. After a while I was able to move my finger then I quickly broke the trance and sat up.
It was a pretty generic experience I guess, but it still was creepy at the time. I didn’t go back to sleep. I sat in my bed and watched Clerks on DVD. It’s a good movie to keep your mind off of stuff you don’t want to think about. (37! HAHAHA!)
At the time I didn’t think much of it, but as nightfall came last night, I became very jittery. For the first time in months I didn’t keep out my journal and didn’t want to dream. Hell, I didn’t want to sleep. I lay in my bed and watched more comedies on my TV, pushing back the sleep timer in half hour increments over and over again.
Then I woke up.
My being freaked out at sleep paralysis hasn’t receded yet, if anything it only gets worse. I scare easily. Too easily. I scare at stupid shit. Like Doom 2. No one should be scared of that.
Anyhoo, I’ve had some time to look at my situation objectively, and I decided I am in no mental condition to lucid dream. I can’t block out something I don’t want to see in my mind. I can’t tell myself “it’s all just a dream.” And I’ve read many things here to the effect of “if you’re scared of something while you dream, you’ll dream about it.” I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Yet.
I decided that I am going to try and deal with my immature fears. I figure if I can face the fears I know I am scared of, it will be easier for me to deal with my unknown fears, which seems to be the source of Old Hag. Not to blow it out of proportion like people are prone to do, but I want to KNOW I can face it before I try again.
I posted this topic to get people’s thoughts on this specific approach. Does anyone have any recommendation for getting over your fears? I can only watch Clerks so much, and I need to sleep. Thanks for the help.
Waw! That’s incredibly good. My best LD (real time) duration was about 30 minutes.
That’s the problem. I’ve read a DJ in which the dreamer was always afraid (he was a believer in astral and such stuff, so he believed he was attacked by entities for real). As he was very scared, he always tried to wake up quickly too much and it always turned into sleep paralysies. What didn’t relieved him a lot!
When he was first told about LD’ing, he realized that his fears were illusory, then he was no more afraid and he had no more SP. Thus trying to wake up quickly is not a very good solution…
That’s not always true. For instance, it happens to me sometimes when I dream I’m in my bedroom. But it is not the case when I dream I’m outdoor. I don’t know why. And sometimes, I’ve thought in a LD :“Argh! Something awful will happen!” and nothing happened at all!
I believe them to be rather fear of the unknown, because LD beginners sometimes have this problem and it disappears quickly with a few experience.
If you feel you’re not in the mood for LD’ing, don’t force yourself. But IMO it’s easier to deal with one’s fears in a LD, because the danger you have to face is illusory. Once you know that, you have to change your emotions, and in order to change them the trick is to change your reactions. For instance, if you meet a monster and run away, you’ll still be afraid and the monster will chase you. But if you know you can’t be harmed in a LD, and if you attack him, the monster is likely to flee. Just an example: after they have seen Stars War III, some friends decided to meet Darth Vader and fight with a laser saber. But Darth Vader always flees, they can’t have a fight against him!
Another possibility is to make a friend with the monster, asking him who he is and why he wants to scare you. Generally he becomes very kind, says he’s sorry and didn’t want to make you afraid and gives you good tips!
Thanks for the reply.
Also, sorry to post about a topic which has been beaten to death a thousand times over. In my defense, this was more of a question of method than one of general dreaming and forum confusion. I’ve read a lot of posts on this topic, but none were ever about the exact problem I wanted to ask about.
And this is it: my major issue (currently) is letting what I’m scared of take over. When it comes to dreams, it’s me vs. my mind. I have yet to win, and every time I try to fight, it gets more and more difficult. It’s gradually getting more feasible to just let it go.
My thought was that if I were to try and get over my more tangible fears, I could be able to have other people there to help me. Maybe then it would be easier to confront my problem, knowing I have people there not letting me run away.
What happens is I cannot really get to the point to confront my fears. My only way to get by now is to avoid them or ignore them if they ever come up. It’s a very unhealthy approach, i know, but it has become routine. And it has to stop somehow.
I guess there are pros and cons for both methods, but eventually I will have to get past it on my own. I can’t depend on other people to cure a fear for something when I don’t know what that something is. I just have to stop being a wimp and deal with it on my own.
It’s just hard to work up the motivation to do it.
Thanks again.
(edit: It seems like it would be a good idea to wear a sleep mask for people who don’t want to open their eyes in SP and freak. I might try that.)
WEEEEAK! I just wrote a topic with very similar ideas behind it. I didn’t even check to see if there were any others like it, because I never saw any before. 0.o
Dude, you sound almost exactly like me. CRAZY. I feel stupid now. heh.
I guess all I can suggest is to truly recognize that like, 98% of the time you are afraid of anything, nothing happens. Y’know?
I’ve read that the easiest way to escape SP is to relax and let it dissapear.
SP occurs to you every time you go to sleep. You don’t need to be afraid. Just try and relax and try and enjoy the experinece.
I’ve been LD’ing for over a year now. I have never actually expereinced SP.
SP isn’t an important part to LD’ing, and as it usually doesn’t happen all that opften if you don’t want it too…
As for fear in LD’s - a number of times I have expected something scary to happen in my LD’s (‘oh no - something evil is going to be behind my blind…’ opens blind ‘… okay, maybe not then…’).
I have never seen anything scary in my LD’s. But if you do, I’ve try and resist the fear, or else wake yourself up (I wouldn’t advise this though, as there is a possibility that you’ll enter SP).
Remind yourself that your in no danger at all. Then just turn away from whatevers scaring you and walk off.
Or turn around, pick up a bazooka and fight back .