Back during Covid I was temporarily laid off for several months because I work a restaurant that was closing until the end of the pandemic. It was the first time that I truly had nothing to do for as long as I could remember, so I did what I thought I should do, and turned off my alarm clock. I’ve always been a wild dreamer, and I dream vividly every night all the way through until I wake. Sometimes they are vignettes, sometimes its a whole-ass life in my dreams, but they are always there, every night.
At first I would pop up at 9am like I did for work, but eventually I got used to it, and I stopped waking up early. Soon it was 10:30, noon, 1pm. All the while I was dreaming more and more. With no hard cut off from my alarm clock, my dreams would come to their natural conclusions, which was steadily becoming my death in my dreams. Sometimes violently, sometimes of old age, but it got to where every time I went to sleep, I knew I would die that night, somehow. This isn’t some creepy-pasta or anything, it’s a true story, and I genuinely started getting panic attacks before bed because I didn’t want to dream my own death, again.
Of course, eventually I did the smart thing and turned my alarm back on, but for a while I was locked in my version of Groundhog Day. My already natural nihilism played into all of this, and sometimes I slip into a dark thought about death, and I have a nihilistic version of my inner monologue telling me, “You’ve done it before, and when it happens, just let it happen.” It’s kinda fucked up, and it’s been years now and I still have some issues about it.
I’ve never tried lucid dreaming. I’m an insomniac so I’m just chuffed if I manage to get any sleep, let alone control my own universe.
But often when I do dream, I die in my dreams. Usually violently - gunshot or blunt instrument sort of deaths that I’m cowering from prior to. So I’m in genuine terror and horror before my death…And I swear, the millisecond before it happens (and I always wake up at the time of death) I feel the pain of it.
It’s pretty fucked, tbh. I’ve lived a peaceful life with very little violence in it, and guns certainly aren’t a thing here. So I don’t know my brain can’t just chill out.
Anyway - it’s why I’m a little frightened to try lucid dreaming. At least in spite of the fear there’s a sense of inevitability about my deaths in these dreams (i.e. my murderer has found me in my hiding place), somehow I feel like it’d be worse if I was trying and failing to fight back, or if I prolonged the inevitable death by trying to outsmart the person? Or could I just shut down that plot completely?
Thanks for the session, do I just pay the receptionist on the way out or will you just invoice me?
I’ve found that I dream about what’s on my mind or what I worry about a lot, like my bicycle getting stolen or that I missed an important deadline.
My vivid dreams end in death only occasionally (falling from heights most commonly, suffocation, gunshots and blunt weapons less commonly), but those fade to black or red like a game over condition and force me up, I take a moment to think of how I would avoid being in such a situation to begin with. Take it as your brain is going through scenario planning/drills so that you don’t end up there.
I don’t know if it counts as lucid dreaming but a number of times I “get up” from a dream but I’m still in a dream. Once I even looked up on the internet within my dream to confirm if the dream I woke up from was real. The inner dream was about Twitch streamers playing a game with graphics reminiscent of Rayman but with 6 people simultaneously. When I searched it up in the outer dream NES looking cartridges with art from that game appeared as results, which supposedly confirmed the game’s existence… it’s just weird stuff, bud.
When I dream i usually somehow always end up in my house’s stairwell, in some sort of situation that requires me to jump down instead of taking the stairs, to then realize midflight I’m not gonna survive, and then wake up while still feeling like I’m falling from a height, and after a couple seconds of being awake I can finally stop the falling sensation
Its crazy how long some dreams can be in so little real life time
I would like to try lucid dreaming.
I had one lucid dream experience. I was like “holy shit, this is a lucid dream! I can control everything happening.” And so I did. It felt so damn cool.
Then I woke up, at first impressed that I did that. Then I just couldn’t help but wonder if I was just dreaming that I lucid dreamed and that the choices I made were actually just a part of the dream. Now I feel like most lucid dreamers aren’t actually. Like this guy that can “control everything” and yet is somehow dreaming about Peter Griffin anyway due to made up limitations
Then I question free will or whatever and my brain hurts
Then I woke up, at first impressed that I did that. Then I just couldn’t help but wonder if I was just dreaming that I lucid dreamed and that the choices I made were actually just a part of the dream.
Your choices in a dream are colored by the reduced mental output you have when you’re dreaming. In a dream, you might make a lot of dumb decisions than make perfect sense in the dream, but are immediately illogical when you think about them awake.
With lucid dreaming, you have an increased self-awareness, but you’re still in a low-activity brainwave state.
We have no free will, but not enough knowledge and power to break the illusion thereof.
Lucid dreaming is fun. Until it turns into night terrors you can’t wake up from.
This is a big part of why I don’t nap anymore.
I was napping on the couch one time and I started having this lucid dream about meeting up with someone… idk it’s kinda fuzzy now, it’s been a long time. Anyway it was one of those super emotionally charged dreams, even tho I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually know the person.
So I started trying to wake myself up. What was happening is that I was waking up… only to find I was still asleep and get returned to that same scene. Dozens upon dozens of times. I could feel my actual body uncomfortably on the couch, unable to move, but my mind was stuck in this reoccurring dreamscape… I’d do things like intense exercise to check my pulse, breathe in water to see if I drowned, check clocks and text for consistency… anything to confirm I was still sleeping so I could try to wake up once more.
It gave me weird feelings for a while after, not just about sleep, but it made me feel weirdly about being awake. Being stuck like that, knowing I was asleep and not able to do anything about it… I still lucid dream sometimes, but I haven’t practiced in a while, and never naps.
Me and sleep paralysis are old frenemies. I’m willing to risk it.
My most lucid ever dream turned into a terrifying figure of a witch/crone slamming me in the chest while screaming “you’re not supposed to be here!” And waking me up. Scared the shit out of me. Didn’t try again for a few years. Everything was fine, but as soon as the woman in the field saw that I was lucid she changed. On several occasions dream characters had become irritated with me when they realized I was lucid, but that one… She made me afraid to sleep again. I know that’s not rational, and I know there’s nothing actually supernatural going on… But damn did it freak me out
It’s happened to me randomly a few times but I’ve never been able to trigger it on purpose. It’s also not as magical as people describe (at least my experience). It’s sort of weird. It’s like you’re slightly awake, and if you really will something to happen it does, but there’s also a feeling that if you think too much you’ll wake up and it will be over.
As a kid, I kept peeing the bed with the same recurring dream: I would dream that I was getting up to go pee, but then wet myself. Then one day I decided that anytime I’d go to the bathroom in the morning, I’d try to open my eyes twice, and that’s what finally stopped me from wetting the bed.
So I guess the point here is that if you have recurring dreams, see if you can imagine yourself doing something different in the dream and thus become semi-aware while in the dream state. It worked for me wetting the bed, maybe it’ll work for you.
That’s called a reality check, and it’s a pretty common for lucid dreaming. The one I went with was placing my fingertips over my nostrils and breathing in through my nose. If you can breathe, you’re dreaming. Picked that one because it’s inconspicuous, just looks like you’re scratching your nose. But the idea is to get into a habit of it so frequently that it’s unconscious, and something your dream self will do. If you do it in a dream, you become aware because you’re so conditioned to it, and you’re able to start lucid dreaming. Works pretty well.
Also, good on you for being so aware of what you needed to do! I don’t know if most kids would have come up with that, and that’s super clever and mature.
Thanks. Unfortunately, I was embarrassingly old by the time I figured it out (at least 8 yo, I forget the exact age). But the thought process was pretty simple, I remembered my dreams afterward, so deciding to try waking up twice seemed natural.
Good idea with the nose thing, maybe I’ll give it a shot. :)
Nah, plenty of kids bedwet at that age. I had a few incidents around that time. I’ve also, as an adult, twice had a dream where I thought I was peeing and it seemed too real. Once I barely made it to the bathroom, once… Well, pee happens, I guess. Lol. D:
Yup, I’ve had the same as an adult, and my SO teased me about it. I had another close call once, but I was able to recognize that it was a dream and wake up.
But yeah, pee happens, and I’m guessing as I get older, it’ll happen more.
Pee dreams can feel crazy real unfortunately lol
Just be prepared for the darkness. It will come.
By the purest definition (being aware that you are dreaming), I lucid dream nearly every night. I never did anything special to achieve this.
But, it’s not as fun as they make it sound. At some point, my mind started resisting me. Sure, I can do anything I want… sometimes. However, most of the time, anything I change goes back to the way is was immediately.
I also used to be able to wake myself up while lucid dreaming. For instance, maybe I would be aware that I am napping, and I need to wake up. So, I would. But, my mind now resists that as well. When I try to wake myself up, sometimes I just wake up into another dream. And, for whatever reason, I am not aware that I am dreaming in the new dream.
None of this upsets me too much, but it is annoying. I think it may be related to some sort of mild, generalized sleeping disorder I have. I experience sleep paralysis and insomnia episodes, but they’ve never been frequent or upsetting enough for me to seek treatment.
One of my worst nightmares was a dream that i wanted to wake up from but i just woke up into another dream that i thought was just my real actual bedroom but wasnt and after I realized that the cycle would just continue until i became meta-aware enough to realize and the cycle then escalated to an almost indescribable feeling i can only describe like constantly seeing things like your are every second waking up from another dream into your own bedroom yet you still feel your body in one of the spaces(still a dream)
Sorry if this is impolite but I believe this looks like death
Whenver I lucid dream my mind resists immediately and with great force, false awakenings, distractions, liminal spaces, just not fucking letting me fly ever no matter what, every single sapient character in the dream apparently being aware of what I’m doing.
Haha, yes, everyone else is trying to ruin my fun. I can fly sometimes, but not for long, and it’s a real struggle to stay airborne.
Yeah I agree I lucid dream every other night really it’s more like just gaining awareness I don’t really have that much control like being stuck on a roller coaster what happens happens I’m just aware of it I can try and fight it but my mind fights back 10 times as hard. Feels like trying to ride a bucking bull and getting it to do what I want it just doesn’t happen.
I’m glad I’m not alone. My husband barely dreams at all.
“What happened to Ted? He used to love reminiscing but all of a sudden, he bolts before I can even start my thought. I say “remember that time” and he runs off.”
This is just like that time I tried lucid dreaming
Worst Nightmare on Elm Street reboot ever.
It’s not lucid dreaming, but try taking a calcium, magnesium, zinc pill (or magnesium zinc) before bed. Wow I dream hard.
"hey Louis, I’m in a guy’s dream!
Heeeeheheheheheheheh
Don’t forget random 5 minute cuts to Conway Twitty 🫠
