I’ve never had a lucid dream, but i was wondering…
does it ever get kind of scary, like you will never stop dreaming? it would seem like having control means that the transition from dreaming to waking up would be a difficult one… anyone had an experience like that?
first of all i’ve never been lucid, so this is an ignorant opinion.
if that was possible to get stuck in a dream, that would be pretty sweet! you’d be able to do your own thing all the time. but that wouldn’t happen, because everyone wakes up. your brain isn’t programed to just sleep and sleep and sleep. once the nature of sleep is over you will wake up and return to reality
“I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human.”
Just saying that I think being stuck in a dream would be the absolute nightmare.
True, you wake up when your REM cycle is over. It is possible to prolong the LD for a bit with several techniques, but not to the extent that you never wake up.
waking up from a LD, especially a good one, always sucks, especially when it is through the phone or an alarm clock. (therefore, all phones and alarm clocks should be banned )
As for waking up, it is the same as from a normal dream, exept that you were lucid. Maybe it’s a bit like when you play a computer game, and are totally engrossed in it, and suddenly someone turns off the computer.
From my experience, I don’t even think that anyone has ever had any problems with waking up from a lucid dream. Sometimes I find that I often wake up far too easily, but most of the time those just turn out to be false awakenings.
Just look at what your concerned about; for the most part, it is really the exact opposite.
It’s exactly the same as waking up from a dream. It just ends and you’re back in the real world. You are concious inside your dream, not out of it, therefore you are not really in charge of your REM cycles, your breathing or anything that goes on while you’re sleeping. You will always wake up.
I’ve never had that sort of experience since most of my LDs have been really short but I’ve heard of people becoming lucid in nightmares and not being able to wake up, which sounds a bit like what you describe. I don’t think becoming lucid affects when you wake up, although I think getting too excited can wake you up (not really an option if you’re scared)
I haven’t noticed anything strange about the transition from dreaming to waking up. The dream just sort of fades and I suddenly become aware of the real world. But I have had false awakenings a few times, where I dream that I’ve woken up and start writing in my dream journal - very annoying! I guess that could be scary, but you just need to relax and remember you’re gonna have to wake up sooner or later (you can’t sleep forever!) and just make the most of the dream! If you don’t like whats happening, you can always change things (or at least try)
When I first started having LD’s years ago (before I even know what an LD was), it was because it was a bad dream, and I’d just say “Oh, it’s a dream, I’ll wake up now.”
And there you are, in bed, awake. Easiest thing you can do.
I’ve never been scared that an LD will never end, more like scared that it will end. I think I could only get scared if I lost some lucidity and so believed it to be ‘real’, in a scary situation. The transition from dreaming to waking up is annoyingly easy for me.
I’ve had dreams where I want to wake up, I half realise that if I want to wake up it must mean I’m dreaming, but I didn’t fully understand this so I’d get scared. Nothing traumatising mind you!