Hello everyone, i guess this is not the introduction board, but i quickly want to give some framework for my request. It is a lot of text (although i am leaving out a lot), and the gist is: i am a lucid dreamer, but my dreams are unclear and unpleasant. What can i do? On a side note, most of my dreams (lucid and non-lucid) are a story of me loking for something (e.g. treasure, secret etc.) while escaping/running away from someone (aliens, gangsters, u name it).
i have to confess i didn’t read that much about lucid dreaming, so even if someone can just point me in the right direction, that’d be great. Please know that a) i have never really asked anyone for help in my life, and didn’t know how to (still don’t) b) i went to a doctor for medical treatment quite often, but he didn’t realize how severe my problems were and c) i never got into a state of mind where i properly realized what was happening to me, and so i didn’t feel a strong drive to change anything.
i am 24 years old, i have lucid dreams as long as i can remember, though they were only sporadically until my teens (there was one that i had every february (sometimes several times within days) for about 10 years since i was like 6, in which usually i became lucid though). Around the age of 14, i started with some meditation training, though nothing in the classical sense (mine was more of a wild war against myself). It was mostly focused on self control (in many aspects), complete awareness and working on my character to a specific moral. i also had a lot of issues with sleeping at that time, and am somewhat of an mostly unintentional polyphasic sleeper. As a side effect of my (very intense) meditation training, i started having more and more lucid dreams. This basically was a side effect of my awareness training.
At that time, those were usually harmless and i was able to enjoy them to a certain point. i will not sugar coat my situation though, and just tell you that i had an aversion to sleep, as i was kind of crazy and wanted to use every moment of my life to achieve my set goals. So, i usually ended up waking up myself from my LD, which at first was a real challenge (which made it all the more appealing to do), since i didn’t want to sleep anyways. i mastered this after a while (mostly by forcing my eyes open and moving my body in the beginning), though sometimes i woke up with what you seem to call sleep paralysis.
A few years later (at approx 19), circumstances forced me to give up my menthal training, which advanced quite far until then. Since i was truly in control of pretty much everything, including very basic body functions, until then everything was fine. The stop to my lifestyle, though, was mostly unwanted and unplanned. This actually led me to a horrible situation in which i hated everything in my life and about myself. With my training gone, i quickl fell away from my complete awareness, developed heavy sleeping disorders and became continuously sick (mostly infections which i partially still have). i started not remembering my dreams, and lucid dreams got less. i have been asking very much of myself, and it seemed i was gonna pay.
The next 4 years were horrible, for more than 3 years i was not able to sleep normal in any way (i usually woke up at the moment of falling asleep several dozen times a night), and i got more and more sick. The “height” of this was about 3 years ago, when i developed sleep apnea (and had it for a year). This got so bad that after waking up it’d take me up to ~10 mins before i could even understand the words someone spoke to me. i basically woke up as a brain dead vegetable. In fact, when i did not sleep at all, even for several days, i felt much better. When i slept 5+ hours, my mind would not clear up to the level of a normal person until late evening, and i am seriously considering that i suffered more than a little brain damage that time. i did not remember any dreams at that time.
i basically remember nothing from that year. i discovered that my apnea andt the resulting brain dead condition of my mind were less drastic when i slept less. i started what i later found out to be polyphasic sleeping, with no idea how to do it properly. It helped, though my lack of discipline didn’t (i switch from polyphasic to mono-/biphasic all the time). i slowly got better to where i am now. Far from normal sleep, but kind of okay. Far from healthy, but able to bear an average joe job.
As i got better, my dreams came back. Curiously, more and more of them got lucid. Now, basically all the dreams i remember are lucid. i had two last night, and expect to have some this night (hard to say why, just the way i feel). At the same time, they remained unclear. In my dreams, i feel the way i felt when i had sleep apnea, completely unaware of myself (but not unaware i am dreaming), sick, weak, brain damaged. i often times have very limited senses, sometimes being basically blind, deaf and having a weak sense of touch. My mind feels very clouded, the best way to describe this might be the way people feel when they have a hangover (though i don’t know for sure, as i never had one). When i can see a scenery, the colors are weak, it has no details, and it feels like watching a cell phone bootleg copy of a movie as compared to full hd.
As a result, i feel kind of anxious, even when the dream is not really threatening. i then go over to “proving” i am dreaming, trying to find inconsistencies. When i found a few, i wake up (On purpose, since the dreams are unpleasant. The proof is a catalyst to waking up.). Interestingly, i feel very aware and pretty good when i wake up (better than during the day). There might be some adrenaline and endorphines involved, but that is not all. It is hard to exactly determine the biochemistry. It seems i was in this state while sleeping (the only alternative is that i use some kind of rush to wake myself up. With most of my mind control gone, i can’t really recall if this is a complex mechanism i set up ~5 years ago or something natural.). That is especially courious, as it is kind of the opposite of what my dream self is experiencing. It seems as if my sleeping waketime self is “stealing oxygen” from my dream self.
i consistently have a different character in my dreams, most differences being negative, though subtle. My dream self, being aware of dreaming, seems disconnected to my waketime self, like it got mostly stuck at my sleep apnea phase (which also explains some of the character). In my dream, i am actually unaware of the differences to my waketime self. i never even get close thinking about that, i don’t really think of anything and am quite retarded in my dreams. Sometimes, other people would comment on that (Last night, i told an unknown woman i could help her to choose a good cell phone as i am a systems administrator (also irl), she answered “Really? But you are stupid!” (she got this from walking along with me for a few minutes). i then go over to boasting my iq and stuff, which my waketime self also would not do.), and sometimes no one notices, including myself. My wife also has a different character, though she actually is more friendly as long as i don’t want anything from her. She often seems suspicious to me (e.g. i was once looking for dream proof. As i tried to turn on the light several times (it wouldn’t), i asked her to do it. She was able to do it, but she lost her friendliness when i asked her to. Kind of like she is pulling the strings of my dream. (And more like her real self than i want to believe 
)).
The thing is, i really am retarded in my dreams. before i told that woman about cell phones, i slowly walked in to a rose bush, not being sure how to get out. As a result, i want to wake up, resulting in me not sleeping much (as i wake up being “high”). This is my problem, and i like to fix that. i would, of course, also love to have real lucid dreams in which i actually do cool stuff and not try to figure out why the round piece doesn’t fit in the square hole (now that i allow myself to sleep, it might be a blast).
i tried simple stuff like trying to tell myself what to do when i go to bed. Unfortunately, my dream self is too dumb to ever try to remember anything. Actually, i didn’t try much else. i guess some may suggest i take care of my waketime problems, but as lack of sleep still is a waketime problem, i’d like to work on this end as well. If anyone has ideas on how to go about, please point me the right way. i left out a lot of info, so if u feel like something is missing, just ask.
Thanks in advance.
