I was recently in jail for 9 days…nothing nefarious…just couldn’t pay a traffic ticket but it was a great sociological and dream experience. I managed to find another lucid dreamer…thouroughly untrained but natuarly gifted. I tried to help her as much as I could. Some other girls were listening and it’s something of a paradox. The nightmares they would have…and frequently…were not of being in jail but of gettting out! They knew they would go back to thier old bad habits and it was just a matter of time before they landed back in. Their fears came to a head in the dreams knowing it would be an unending cycle.
Time for them to change maybe? Maybe not?
Most won’t change. The old nature/nurture arguement will go on forever. SO many are borderline mentally ill and use street drugs to self medicate. If drugs were legal and the mentally ill cared for, the jails would be 80% empty! But at least these women have their dreams. It was just strange that they looked over their shoulder in thier dreams as much as in real life on the outside. I should check the waking life forums and check to see how that works…the cart or the horse!
That is something I have noticed too. Dreaming about what you want but can’t get. Countless times. It must be more common than I thought.
People always want something they cannot have
The point here isn’t that they want out, it is that they are afraid of the life that awaits them on the outside. What you worry about is likely to also affect your dreams.
It is very common for people who have just gotten rid of an old habit to dream about going back to it. For example, people who quit smoking will very often have nightmares about smoking. I have heard that some have learned to recognise those nightmares, and get lucid from them.
Sandy, I know very little about how jails and rehabilitation works in your country. I do know a trick that has helped me against worries and nightmares spawned from them: to have a concrete plan for facing those challenges. If life gets too difficult and old habits too tempting in a city, maybe moving far away could help?
Moving away would be the exact kind of change I am taking about. If fears of having freedom are troubling them, then maybe they need to change something.