Judging from the title, it may not seem like much of a dreaming thread, let me get to it.
IWL I have a bit of a phobia of spiders (or anything that has long thin legs for that matter) and if one is in my room when i’m trying to get to sleep, I have to get rid of it. However…
In dreams, lucid or otherwise, I do not have this fear. Infact, I love spiders when dreaming. I sometimes even actively seek them out.
I find this incredibly odd, does anyone have some sort of explanation for this?
This one should be very interesting: approach a spider IWL, keep at a safe distance if you like, then remember how you felt in those dreams. Try to see the reasons of each of your states, and find out the right one, or a middle ground.
I bet it will be very useful for you
I have had similar experiences of, shall we call it, “not caring as much as I think I would in waking life”. You can chalk it up to being in a different state of consciousness. Actually, dream researchers have found that dreams are by no means exclusive to REM sleep, and that there are differences between dreams in the different sleep stages. Dreams occurring in REM sleep tend to deal with fears more than non-REM dreams because the Amygdala is more active. So, perhaps the explanation is that you are remembering non-REM dreams and you are not afraid of spiders in these dreams because your Amygdala was less active when you were having them.
All things work like that in dreams.
You, as most other people would probably be afraid of getting shot or falling off a cliff if the situation might lead to it.
In lucid dreams, you would be completely OK with it, as there is no reason to be afraid. It’s the same with spiders.
You have a phobia, but you are glad to know that nothing bad can happen, since you are dreaming.
This can actually cure phobias, or reduce them, as Ghostie mentioned.
‘‘Hang out’’ some more with spiders, keep them close.
It might be very useful in real life…LDs are awesome like that