Comments on: Lucid Nightmares – Fear, Initiation, and Beyond

By: Nancy Evans Bush

Nancy Evans Bush — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:03:45 +0000

Ryan, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions offline. You have my email address; will you give me a contact for you?
Nancy

By: mondo

mondo — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:04:14 +0000

i have dreams that seem to have traped me from age 7 to 19
im walking up this one and only one hill then i come up to a
house slowly walking closer and closer all of a sudden the door creaps open when i am close to grabing the door handle stun,chill’s ran down my back thru my body, slowly entering the room i take off my shoes by the door to keep it from closing, waking into darkness with little lighting from the open windows of the full moon light out, as i get the to stairs in front of me i look to the side as if a shadow walked by just see couchs cups out on the coffie table into the darkness behind it leading the dinning room to my left an empty room and no windows then a sound i heard before intering the house i turn around to the front door closing flinching to keep it open it shuts close chilling feeling once again with more frighting into my body standing in the dark inside the house scared, waving my arms around til i find something to lead me around the house yet stuck i cant move freaking out, shouting,i cant move!!! over and over….silence no more wind no more creeking…a sound of someone taking a breath in the distance dark room..so my breathing slows down trying to listen to wheres its coming from?????…..closer and closer the breathing gets the more i get scared as it get highyer i know this thing behind me is tall it cant be a human sounds like an animal,i cant move trying to run yet slow inch by inch i move closer to the front door then my arms get pulled back as if im a puppet im still moving forward to the door i know because its what i have been facing ever sence it closed on me..finaly get the stranght to walk to the door…but the breathing is right behind me, so i stop………breathing becomes right beside my right ear and louder and faster its gets my fear is coming back…so i use that fear to run out that door and as i ran out i my shoes are back on but so happy to be out of there as i came closer to running down the hill i came up from…it became a cliff i stop,stun as i hear the breathing get closer….i hear the shouting of a animal i never heard before as i turn i see what it is,so i turn to my left i see another trail as i began to run it push’s me off chill’s of no explanation comes over me….so i wake up to the same feeling and my hearts pounding, trying to calm myself down.

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:20:42 +0000

dear Aram, thank you for sharing these powerful experiences. You are providing a service to everyone by your honest descriptions!

first off, if you do feel like you are suffering from some kind of psychopathology, I recommend finding a therapist in your town. Many are sliding-scale and some are even free. do a search on google and use your yellow pages, or try a hotline number to talk to someone anonymously. there is no shame in this, as many of us suffer from psychological illness at one point in our lives.

as for your lucid nightmares, these are classic examples that show that being lucid doesn’t mean you’re in control of the dream. when we’re dreaming, we are accessing the parts of the brain that stimulates strong emotion, and lucidity alone cannot balance this flood of emotion such as fear and terror. in dreams, our sense of self is mixed up with “other”, so if we are terrorized, our dream characters will be terrible. it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. next time, rather than fighting your enemy, try making peace with him. ask what he wants, or how you can help him.

the second dream sounds like it has elements of sleep paralysis – in which you may have been feeling the REM paralysis of your body during the dream. in these situations, it’s best to remain calm and remember that fear brings more fear, just as gratitude or trust can bring new possibilities. (also true when looking in a mirror during a LD) to wake yourself up, try wriggling your toe. also, staring at one point in the dream with intense focus can cause a dream to disperse.

rest assured, these lucid nightmares are normal and you’re on the path! lucid dreaming gets better with practice.

By: Aram

Aram — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:04:37 +0000

Ryan, I didn’t have a lot of lucid dreams yet in most of them i wake up because of excitement almost immediately, I’m working on this through techinques descrbide on the net. however the last two times I was lucid it was a nightmare, in seconds after becoming lucid the dream turned into a nightmare when a clone of me (though i couldn’t see his face i knew it was a clone or some sort of spawn of me) suddenly out of nowhere started to fight with me, i tried to punch him but as usual in dreams this was nearly impossible, after my attempts to assault him he fled and i started to chase him, after he got trapped he was forced to turn around and face me, now i could see his faced, he/I , i don’t know how to address it, had a menacing demons face. i awoke because of the shock after seeing his face.

my next lucid nightmare started like the first, i became lucid after i looked into the mirror and realizing something wasn’t right, seconds after becoming lucid i saw my reflection in the mirror changed into the demon and at the sight of this my body was shot through the air like a cannonball, i landed on the floor where i remained unable to move for some time, i remmeber thinking ”wait I’m dreaming and I’m lucid, so i can just do whatever i want, why can’t i just get up?” while thinking this i noticed the door and heard somebody was coming through door very slowly, I said to myself ”if the person walking through the door can be manipulated by me I am indeed dreaming, if not, this is all real and I’m in hell or something”. Slowly a body without arms legs and head glided through the room, after multiple attempts to make it go away i (falsely offcourse) realized i was either in hell or some other supernatural stuff was going on and this was all real, this thought scared me so bad i awoke again.

lately I am having some trouble with myself and after doing some research on the net I found out I’m very likely suffering from psychopathy. though this discovery was after the two lucid nightmares i feel there’s a connection.

i was wondering one thing, why is it that i didn’t have my normal lucid powers? somehow even though i know i’m dreaming but I’m bound to the scenario without any influence?

By: Caitriona

Caitriona — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:22:49 +0000

Ryan thank you for your reply. I will try to follow through on your suggestion. It is time I took control of the dream- thanks again. Happy Christmas.

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:58:19 +0000

Caitriona, thanks for joining the discussion. I have had similar dreams so let me venture a guess, but keep in mind that this is merely a “projection” of my lifeworld onto yours, so it may or not be accurate. When I dream of houses with old rooms and have fear about them, these rooms contain old emotional material that wants to be addressed. Houses are also a common “metaphor” for our body, so it could be that the message also involves health. what happens in these rooms (for me) is never as scary as my fear is strong…. usually it is meeting a dream character who needs attention, acceptance, or understanding. So my advice, next time this comes around, is to gather your courage and your knowledge that you are in no danger, and enter the room with an attitude to help. This attitude (compassion) is really the antidote to fear. Feel free to contact me (via my about page) if you want to continue this exploration in private message.

By: Caitriona

Caitriona — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:40:06 +0000

Hi Ryan, reading this has been a revelation. I’ve always had vivid dreams and nightmares, where I know I am dreaming and some dreams that repeat or continue on like a chapter in a book with years between the dreams. It can be interesting (especially ones where I visit new cities) but my recent nightmares are full of potent fear maybe you could give your opinion. The fear is in relation to two rooms, they are old rooms of a house that doesn’t really exist, I dream I live in a different newer part of the house and try not think about these rooms. I feel real fear at the thought of being in them. It seems so real that after the last dream it took me days to realise they were not part of the last house I lived in that I had added them on in a dream.

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:01:09 +0000

Travis, thanks for sending this powerful dream – I too would call it an “encounter dream.” Dreams may happen while we are sleeping, but they are psychologically real and can affect our lives as much as what happens to us in the waking world. Your action in the dream to call on your faith was a good choice, and I hope other readers read about what happened next. In lucid nightmares, it is important to harness the power of our beliefs to break through the traps of fear. This is an effective strategy if you are religious or a secularist. I think this dream exhibits great courage! Thanks for sharing.

By: Travis Zolnikov

Travis Zolnikov — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:14:33 +0000

I noticed a comment that stated that you were collection lucid nightmares. I had my first and only lucid dream / nightmare on Monday night.

Bascially I became aware and realized that I was reading a text (specifically 3 pages of faded yellow paper or scrolls) which had much evil writing on it. I remember thinking to myself how can I know this information or recall this writing from my dream. I had never scene it before the writing and words were as plain as day.

At this point I was very aware as if I was awake and in partial control of the dream. I can not recall what was written but it was purely evil as almost as if it was a spell. I was being forced to read it and I realized that Satan was there and forcing me to read it. At that point I became very scared (for as a child demonic possessions and things like that had always absolutely terrified me), but then realized that fear was what he wanted. I managed to break his grasp and then call upon Jesus and God to please help me. I remember two beings (no shape or form but there were two of them) come rushing in, like an incoming wind, help me or run the devil off and at that point everything just fades to black. The next thing I know I was awake in AM. I never actually woke up from this dream.

The feeling I get from it was that this not a dream per se, but an actual happening. This event that unfolded as far as I am concerned truly happened, mayhaps on a different plane or level, but regardless, was not fiction of my imagination.

My friend sent me this link after i described to her what had happened. I was pretty upset when I woke up in the morning.

Best Regards,
Travis

By: Ryan Hurd

Ryan Hurd — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:30:21 +0000

Liam, sleep paralysis doesn’t have to be scary. as maybe you’ve discovered, it can launch directly into more lucid dreaming or an OBE. fear is optional. My wife has also learned to recognize when I’m in SP or a lucid dream because my breathing often changes dramatically. However, I’ve asked her not to wake me up because I want to be there. If you want, email me and we can continue this dialogue in private (cogo to my about page): I’ll be happy to help you figure out what your SP triggers are so you can at least have more control when the experiences happen.