lucid dreaming/ sleep paralysis?

Question

Its been a very strange night. im under alot of stress right now with my psych and stats midterm in a few days, but this night has been all too strange.

It started after a long tiring day, i got to my dorm and fell asleep from 8pm to 10pm, then woke up and did homework and studied till about 1. This sleep was terrible though, and my roommate who was studying at the time told me i was moaning and twitching the whole time. Ironically, i skimmed over a chapter about lucid dreaming in my psychology notes, and about dream control. Me and my roommate jim then went to bed, and i said "tonights going to be one of those nights were im not going to get much sleep" (mainly because of the humidity, but i also just felt uncomfortable).

Heres where the wierdness starts though. I was laying in bed for about an hour on my laptop, my roommate had already fallen asleep about 40 min before. All of a sudden, he starts groaning and wakes up pretty quick, and tells me hes having scary "psychedelic" dreams (note: weve had an experience once were we actually did do LSD in much much too high of a dose together, so i know when jim says trippy, he meant really insane).

Heres my story though:
Maybe 20 min later i fall into really surreal, psychedelic sleep. maybe i had been influenced by what jim said or the strange night in general. I had alot of pre-dream thoughts that I usually have that are kinda weird so i know im falling asleep, but this time they were drawn out and surreal (one dominating idea was about some sort of talking catfish).

I soon fall into this really deep dream, but it feels like im awake, sitting in my room alone with the lights turned off. i then remember earlier reading about lucid dreaming, and i start realize im in my dream when i notice everythings pretty hazy and i dont have total control of my head (strange as it sounds). My dog shows up and jumps into bed with me. this is when I know 100% that this was a dream as my dog is 140 miles away in reality. As soon as I make this connection, I notice this "other" staring at me in my room. I slowly back away, and it turns into a laughing girl and claws its way into my chest. Just then i force myself to wake up, and i think im awake, but then i realize im in another strange dark room. I start screaming my roommates name, hoping my body would make some noise. I even face the "thing" and tell it it can do whatever it wants since its only a dream, it laughs and just digs deeper into my chest. I start pinching myself, and biting my "arms" as hard as i can, still screaming my roommates name. All of a sudden I come out of it, fall out of bed, and run/scramble blindly into a wall screaming at the top of my lungs. Needless to say my roommate was more than a little freaked out and I have a giant bump on my head.

What was this? Why did this happen, and why did it feel like we fed off each others negative thoughts or something?

Answer 1

Its not weird not unless all dreams are weird it was just a powerful dream. Yes our conscious mind feeds into our subconscious and vice versa often if there is a persistent sound in the room we bring it into the dream in another form. YOu did really well in your dream in facing down the threats and managing the lucid dreaming start looking at it from that angle - we face our fears in dreams so we can face them in real life - YOu were scared when you got out of the dream but you had told yourself fit was only a dream do your worst - sounds like you freaked out on your own images - Is there a part of you that cannot show your fear? It sounds to me like a very good experience any meeting with the subconscious is growth - I once faced down a lion in a lucid dream and it was a very good experience - apart from the bump on your head look at what else you achieved many people would give their right arm to lucid dream just by saying it.

Answer 2

To induce sleep paralysis i set my alarm for like 4-6 hours after i go to sleep. When i wake up at that time i lie on my back with my legs straight and my arms at my side with my eyes shut. Then i start counting '1... I'm dreaming... 2, I'm dreaming... 3, I'm dreaming...' and i just keep counting. This keeps my mind awake and by lying completely still on my back my body falls asleep, so i enter sleep paralysis! If you want to induce a lucid dream from there, then focus on hypnagogic imagery (google it) and then you sort of 'step into' the dream. I always find that bit hard... i usually end up having a out of body experience instead :P And i don't think i've had a sleep paralysis dream and i don't know if your dream had anything to do with sleep paralysis. Hope this helped! Google the WILD technique if you don't know much about the sleep paralysis going into lucid dreaming.

Answer 3

I think you got your own answer...You fed each others negative thoughts and

you were already sensitized by the shared experience and by the fact you really

"recorded" the LSD experience. So...while dreaming, it maybe that even facing the thread

somehow there was a trace of doubt that called your brain to awake you instead of

waiting for you to really believe it was just a simple nightmare...



Now, I would be deeply grateful if you could contact me, I'm trying to learn all about

techniques to manage recurrent nightmares. I know you're working on midterms so

you may allow me to contact you when those are over...PLEASE?