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Author Topic: Blocked lucid dreaming  (Read 2538 times)

Mithril

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Blocked lucid dreaming
« on: December 26, 2011, 02:44:11 am »
This winter, I've decided to focus on lucid dreaming and dream interpretation as part as my spiritual work. It's been going well -I'm remembering my dreams and fairly satisfied with interpreting them. The only problem is, something is blocking me from moving towards lucid dreaming. What's worse is that it manifests itself as the Thing in Paranormal Activity, as silly as that sounds. Something in that movie really touched a chord deep-down and has been haunting me vaguely ever since. I'm not saying I think there's some sort of demon haunting me -I don't believe in that sort of thing. I think that something in my subconscious has latched on to the imagery in that movie, but I can't think of a non-potentially terrifying way to figure out what it is. I mean, I really don't want to be forced into a nightmare about this thing in order to understand it.

For example, I was getting ready to try to have a lucid dream. I was counting down from 100 and sinking deeper and deeper into my bed, relaxing and reaffirming to myself that I am safe and that I will have a lucid dream. But I kept being thrown from my meditation by imagining I could hear breathing next to my bed. So I'd have to stop, hold my breath to see if something was really there. Nothing, of course, so I'd continue. Then I tried visualizing where in the dream I would wake up and realize I was  dreaming -except there was a door in the setting and I suddenly became afraid that the Thing would enter.

I tried 3 times and then gave up figuring my subconscious obviously didn't want me to do this or something, or that it had something unpleasant to tell me. I can't possibly understand what that is though. I'm quite happy in my life. I'm honest and have been staying true to my moral code. I feel I'm a good person and am quite content. So what's blocking me from persuing my dreamwork?

Nachtigall

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2011, 06:31:37 am »
Quote from: Mithril;36419
I think that something in my subconscious has latched on to the imagery in that movie, but I can't think of a non-potentially terrifying way to figure out what it is. I mean, I really don't want to be forced into a nightmare about this thing in order to understand it.

 
Perhaps there is no non-terrifying way to do this - and this is how it should be.
It would be very unwise of us to expect our spiritual work to always be nice and non-threating and predictable. You are going outside of your comfort zone - things will happen to you, that may seem unsettling and even frightening at first. As I've been taught, you just have to face them; trying to avoid dealing with unpleasant things usually brings more harm than good.

dragonfaerie

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2011, 07:36:28 am »
Quote from: Mithril;36419
I tried 3 times and then gave up figuring my subconscious obviously didn't want me to do this or something, or that it had something unpleasant to tell me.

 
I've been Wiccan for 15+ years. I've tried to do dreamwork off and on many times, and have just had little success with it.

I think you just need to keep trying, but realize that the subconscious is a complicated place, and there's a lot that science doesn't know about dreaming and how dreaming affects the brain. This may never work out for you, and not because you're a bad person or because something's "blocking" you. Like any other skill, you just may not have the "talent" for it. I sure don't.

Karen

Mithril

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2011, 12:09:27 pm »
Quote from: dragonfaerie;36428
I've been Wiccan for 15+ years. I've tried to do dreamwork off and on many times, and have just had little success with it.

I think you just need to keep trying, but realize that the subconscious is a complicated place, and there's a lot that science doesn't know about dreaming and how dreaming affects the brain. This may never work out for you, and not because you're a bad person or because something's "blocking" you. Like any other skill, you just may not have the "talent" for it. I sure don't.

Karen

 
Actually, I went through my old dreamlogs last night in my insomnia and reread a day I had two lucid dreams. I only kept them for a few seconds and waking up felt like my mind was splitting in two because I was trying to wake up and stay asleep at the same time. It was painful. Could it be that I'm just afraid of feeling that again?

Etheric1

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2011, 10:50:26 pm »
Quote from: Mithril;36445
Actually, I went through my old dreamlogs last night in my insomnia and reread a day I had two lucid dreams. I only kept them for a few seconds and waking up felt like my mind was splitting in two because I was trying to wake up and stay asleep at the same time. It was painful. Could it be that I'm just afraid of feeling that again?

 
Lucid dreams are very hard to manifest on their own.  I've found it's better to NOT try to force them.
No matter how dark the fur, the bunny is still fluffy. - Mel\'s Law of Dark Fluffs.
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. – Albert Camus
You can easily judge the character of a person by how they treat those who can do nothing for them. - unknown
“We cannot change our memories, but we can change their meaning and the power they have over us” - David Seamands

Mithril

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2011, 01:45:57 am »
Quote from: Etheric1;36512
Lucid dreams are very hard to manifest on their own.  I've found it's better to NOT try to force them.

 
Yeah, maybe I'm trying too hard. I should probably just continue reading about it online and doing reality checks during the day but not do the meditations into it. My body really fights trance and feeling itself lose control (which is ironic, as I'm trying to gain control of my dream). Maybe that's what's causing the stupid Paranormal Activity demon thing from hovering. I mean, I haven't been scared of vague demon things since I was like, seven, and convinced the basilisk in Harry Potter 2 was going to come out of my closet... XD

Etheric1

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2011, 04:02:07 am »
Quote from: Mithril;36545
Yeah, maybe I'm trying too hard. I should probably just continue reading about it online and doing reality checks during the day but not do the meditations into it. My body really fights trance and feeling itself lose control (which is ironic, as I'm trying to gain control of my dream). Maybe that's what's causing the stupid Paranormal Activity demon thing from hovering. I mean, I haven't been scared of vague demon things since I was like, seven, and convinced the basilisk in Harry Potter 2 was going to come out of my closet... XD

 

Dreams are very heavily a right-brained activity - you're accessing creativity in a very raw form.  The tricky part is our logic and trying to understand and reason things out is a left-brain side activity.  The reason it's hard is because the two sides tended to cancel each other out, so if you're trying really hard to force it, yet having a lot of fear of letting go, you're kind of working against yourself from BOTH sides of your brain.  So yeah, I'd say first you need to relax, second you need to be okay with NOT controlling what happens.

As far as evil spooky stuff goes - that can more often than not be something your creative mind is making due to a deep seated fear.  While I am pretty convinced such entities exist, I think you have to do a lot to actually encounter them.  Dreaming alone is not going to do that.  Nightmares of course can and do happen, but that doesn't mean something bigger is automatically at work.  

What I have found that does help is setting an intention to do what you're hoping to accomplish right before you fall asleep - this can be very tricky and can take practice.   There have been some psychological studies done that suggest writing in a journal can be helpful but ONLY if you keep it positive - people that write about their anxieties, depressions, or other unpleasant stuff right before bed tend to have those emotions amplified during REM sleep.  Basically our subconscious mind goes to play with those emotions felt most recently before we fall asleep.
No matter how dark the fur, the bunny is still fluffy. - Mel\'s Law of Dark Fluffs.
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. – Albert Camus
You can easily judge the character of a person by how they treat those who can do nothing for them. - unknown
“We cannot change our memories, but we can change their meaning and the power they have over us” - David Seamands

Mithril

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #7 on: December 27, 2011, 01:36:54 pm »
Quote from: Etheric1;36553

As far as evil spooky stuff goes - that can more often than not be something your creative mind is making due to a deep seated fear.  While I am pretty convinced such entities exist, I think you have to do a lot to actually encounter them.  Dreaming alone is not going to do that.  Nightmares of course can and do happen, but that doesn't mean something bigger is automatically at work.  

What I have found that does help is setting an intention to do what you're hoping to accomplish right before you fall asleep - this can be very tricky and can take practice.   There have been some psychological studies done that suggest writing in a journal can be helpful but ONLY if you keep it positive - people that write about their anxieties, depressions, or other unpleasant stuff right before bed tend to have those emotions amplified during REM sleep.  Basically our subconscious mind goes to play with those emotions felt most recently before we fall asleep.

 
So those things, if they do exist, don't randomly adopt people like in the movie? And even in the movie, they did a lot to antagonize it, I suppose. When you say setting an intention, do you mean something like "I'm going to have a good dream. Then I will wake up inside it and have a lucid dream."?

Etheric1

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #8 on: December 27, 2011, 09:29:29 pm »
Quote from: Mithril;36594
When you say setting an intention, do you mean something like "I'm going to have a good dream. Then I will wake up inside it and have a lucid dream."?


Pretty much, I would start with just trying to relax, hold the idea in your head, remind yourself of thinks you've found that are positive, that kind of thing.  No need to make it more complex than that starting out.  What our minds focus on tend to get bigger.  If you want to do an in-depth meditation, that's fine too.  Try not to over think this.  Trying to anchor those ideas in your head before you fall asleep is the hard part for me.
No matter how dark the fur, the bunny is still fluffy. - Mel\'s Law of Dark Fluffs.
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. – Albert Camus
You can easily judge the character of a person by how they treat those who can do nothing for them. - unknown
“We cannot change our memories, but we can change their meaning and the power they have over us” - David Seamands

R03e

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2011, 11:04:25 pm »
Quote from: Mithril;36545
Yeah, maybe I'm trying too hard. I should probably just continue reading about it online and doing reality checks during the day but not do the meditations into it. My body really fights trance and feeling itself lose control (which is ironic, as I'm trying to gain control of my dream). Maybe that's what's causing the stupid Paranormal Activity demon thing from hovering. I mean, I haven't been scared of vague demon things since I was like, seven, and convinced the basilisk in Harry Potter 2 was going to come out of my closet... XD

 
I agreed with everything above. If you are trying a new thing and completely inexperience it could be hard to adjust. Maybe it not related to the movie or maybe it is but not necessarily a block. Unless you count the power of suggestion. Maybe the breathing you heard was your own. Maybe the rest is just the fear of the pain. In that case i don't blame you. Now, I'm not an expert on dreams, but maybe if it is the fear of the pain you had before then maybe you should work on getting rid of that fear before trying another lucid dream. Better yet learned from what might have caused it. You say it was probably due to trying to wake up but still asleep. Maybe you are ending the dreams prematurely. As for the fear based off of the movies, I think you definitely need to get over that one too. Paranoia can really deter someones goal. Although it is creepy to hear breathing but like I said that could be  your own or your imagination.   The one good part about your fear is that it means you are cautious which is a good thing. especially with the supernatural or something like that. there are many people out there that treat stuff like this as a game. Just make sure not to let your fear get in the way of your goal though because creating lucid dreams I don't think is related to the supernatural but more towards science.
R03e

dragonfaerie

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2011, 12:37:43 am »
Quote from: Mithril;36445
Could it be that I'm just afraid of feeling that again?


Perhaps.

I also understand, from friends who've had lucid dreams, that it can be hard to stay in a dream state once you're aware you're dreaming. There's a lot we don't know about how the brain functions during sleep, after all. Maybe that awareness shifts brain waves just a bit and throws off the dream state.

I know for me, the few times I've become aware within a dream that I was actually dreaming, I didn't seem to stay in the dream state for much longer. Then again, to me, I feel like I wake up right out of dreams a lot... I don't know if that's normal, or even if that's what's really happening. I may finish dreaming and sleep for 20 more minutes before waking, but my perception is that I'm waking right out of the dream. If I do that naturally, I'm fine. If I do that because of some sort of alarm noise, I often have a hard time waking fully up.

Karen

Mithril

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Re: Blocked lucid dreaming
« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2011, 12:57:22 am »
Quote from: dragonfaerie;36788
Perhaps.

I also understand, from friends who've had lucid dreams, that it can be hard to stay in a dream state once you're aware you're dreaming. There's a lot we don't know about how the brain functions during sleep, after all. Maybe that awareness shifts brain waves just a bit and throws off the dream state.

I know for me, the few times I've become aware within a dream that I was actually dreaming, I didn't seem to stay in the dream state for much longer. Then again, to me, I feel like I wake up right out of dreams a lot... I don't know if that's normal, or even if that's what's really happening. I may finish dreaming and sleep for 20 more minutes before waking, but my perception is that I'm waking right out of the dream. If I do that naturally, I'm fine. If I do that because of some sort of alarm noise, I often have a hard time waking fully up.


Apparently, once you realize you're dreaming, you're supposed to engage some other part of your brain like rubbing your hands or doing simple addition to stay grounded. But of course, I've never gotten that far yet. I feel like I've made progress over the past few days, though. I have really good dream recall and have been *semi* lucid twice. Maybe in another week or so.

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