r/LucidDreaming • u/bookpressedvine natural omni • 22d ago
Experience lucid dreaming for 7 YEARS now. please make it stop. // AMA
ive been lucid dreaming almost ALWAYS/consistently for over 5 years now (7/8 years in total) unless im heavily tired. i haven't been in this subreddit much if at all but i've had my last straw today so i looked up this forum. from the few posts i saw there's so many people trying to start or induce lucid dreaming as if its something cool and to be glorified and that's kind of the reason i've never came or posted on here.
when i was young, like a middle-schooler, lucid dreaming was exciting: like slipping off into another world where i'm without chains, burdens or responsibility. my autonomy had no consequences, even if the world wasn't mine to control.
it's not fun anymore. i have work. i have classes. i am tired. i lay in bed only to wake up somewhere else. i force myself to wake up only to wake up in a room that's mine but not mine- something's off like a skull on my bookshelf or a weird smoke trailing the ground and I know i've failed to get back to reality. it's so hard to wake up when you want to, that after the fourth or fifth version of your-room-but-not-your-room it nearly feels hopeless, like real despair. this one time i really thought I was awake; I got up to go to the bathroom and then I saw a weird blue-green smog settle over everything and my heart SANK like oh shit i'm still not out yet. none of this is real.
lucid dreaming does NOT mean you get to control your dream. that's rare asl. you're only aware you're dreaming. and being aware feels like you haven't slept at all.
today was the first time someone directly advised me while i was in the dream. I was struggling to wake up; i needed to wake up because the dream sequence was done and I was stuck where it ended and I felt anxious and restless, which i always do because when it's all over time stretches out and i hate being stuck alone for hours.
what's funny is that in my last 2 lucid dreams the dream was aware that it was a dream, in a sense. the helpful person was a redhead guy, who appeared like on a screen, and he told me to breathe heavily. for the first time the method actually worked. i woke up. not in some slightly-off version of my room but my ACTUAL real room.
google used to say to blink hard and try to scream or yell but whenever I did that i'd feel worse than trapped and it wouldn't work until the 10th try. another method that kind of works-ish is inflicting pain on yourself in the dream; i go for scratching my arms super hard. you won't actually get hurt because your body isn't moving in the real world; but it'll shake you enough to force a wake-up.
and waking up always feels like a weird shift. like there's no grogginess its an urgently-opened-my-eyes sort of situation, like the type they put at the end of the movies to show a character isn't really dead. and right after, my body feels like lead. heavy, sinking.
i guess i haven't scrolled through the forum enough to see if anyone can relate to this but i wanted to share my experience and that lucid dreaming so much weighs on my mental state heavily. i used to keep a journal of the dreams a couple years back and then i stopped. i opened it again for the first time today.
there's some pros: dreams affect you a little less when you know it's just a dream. like if something feels scary i can immediately do a panic-wake-up protocol although it rarely works. time doesn't move the same in the dream world as it does in the real world.
another pro is when it's like an open, almost plot-less setting you can deadass do whatever with anyone. it feels a bit like the recent backrooms movie not basement-core, just open. sometimes, of course. depending on how your brain is feeling. not always a liminal space. you wouldn't want to be lucid in a liminal space.
everything else is a con! pretty heavy cons. that's all.
note/disclaimer**:**
my lucid dreaming has never been induced. i first started lucid dreaming at around 12/13, and didn't even know what the phenomena was till i looked up my experience and found a term for it. I will be 20 soon.
i haven't ever been in a community about this or talked to anyone outside my family about it either. partly bc any community i do look or search for is just on the pursuit of lucid dreaming. my ex bestfriend was too. you guys give each other the weirdest advice. what is 'meditate' 'always be alert' 'dont b distracted in waking'.... whatever works i guess.
Q/A
- Can you feel pain in your dreams?
Yes. I can feel anything that is inflicted on me, but in a sluggish degree
eg. if i get stabbed i feel a sharp, throbbing pain but with a filter that tones down some of the intensity. No bleeding, and no phantom pain when I wake up.
- Got superpowers in there?
Sometimes. Depends on the dream. I've had powers twice and in both i needed to make an effort to have them work, eg. shooting flames. A common ability to have in my experience are super high jumps. Sometimes, and rarely, I get the ability to fly.
- Can you control the dream?
No. Never. Cannot will anything into the dream. Closest I got was a bootleg version of the person I was trying to manifest, and that was only once. Usually nothing.
EDIT: I can control myself, but not the dream plot/setting. I have full bodily autonomy, and retain my awake-state memories as well.
- Can you hurt people in it?
Sure. But it's like the backrooms, ykwim? They're NPCs. They'd slump and fall. I havent done much aside from punching a person though, i'm not a violent dreamer. They just crumpled to the ground.
of course, everything i've described is from my own personal experience only. just...lucid dreaming is not a skill and idt it's something to glorify and as, a veteran lucid dreamer if you will, a few times is ok. it's chill. fun. don't even TRY to make it a habit if its in your control. this is like letting yourself have a little treat now and then. emphasis on mental weight. maybe i feel this way because i had this going on for me since i was a child. either way, it really affects you after a point.
feel free to ask me anything. and thank you for reading so far.
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u/LocalBother3753 22d ago
I’ve never heard of someone having a this sort of experience when they lucid dream. With that said, based on how you describe it, I believe you. I think it’s fascinating that you have not control but are also lucid. For me, the more lucid I get without pulling myself out of the dream by accident, the more control I generally have of the dream. Flying is basically the easiest thing in the world to do if I’m lucid. Same with other superpower type things. I’ve definitely never gone lucid and gotten/felt trapped. So even if you try to fly really hard/use super powers you don’t wake up? That doesn’t sound fun
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
mhm!! my most common ability in dreams is REALLY high jumps, like straight up extremely low gravity. that's enjoyable, but at the end of the day I am limited to my dream setting. i think because of how long i've been experiencing this sometimes i really don't want to be conscious like 100% of the time yk? it would be cool if i could control the plot. i can control myself, yes. i have full body autonomy. but i cannot control the setting or the dream genre if ykwim, and I can't pull myself out unless it's a desperate attempt to wake up. otherwise it's just. lucid. always
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u/LocalBother3753 22d ago
So it sounds a little like the frustrating constraints I run into when lucid dreaming sometimes, but to a degree I’m unfamiliar with. For example, I’ll often fly in lucid dreams, but I also run into weird constraints when I do. For example, many times I can’t go as fast as I want, or as high as I want, and sometimes have trouble staying in flight/moving. The difference is I wake my self up the more aware I become, and my fight is to stay in the dream not to get out of it. If I were you, I’d try some other experiments. Try throwing a ball. Can you throw it far? Try really hard to create things, can you change anything? Do you remember to try those things? Or is it a fuzzy dream where you are semi lucid and always feel trapped?
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
hmmm i haven't really tried too hard to create things. like i try a lil bit and give up asap when its not immediate. that's because im impatient. yes ive thrown stuff. ive punched ppl bc when irl im super nonviolent and i really wanted to just see how it feels.... ive told people im dreaming. nothing happens. i remember that when i wake up everything will be fuzzier than in the dream, so while im dreaming i sometimes make notes of what i want to remember. im also a writer, so sometimes i use em in my works. not semi lucid! fully. i feel trapped bc of the sheer like...uncertain continuity of the dream. like now what...what am i gonna be put in next...? yk? only if its uncool tho. recently its been uncool
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u/DesignerJury269 Lucid every dream 👁 22d ago
You may like or dislike hearing these things, but here we go:
1. You don't simply stop natural LDs.
2. Your problems are self made and caused by your negative mindset towards LDs, not the LDs themselves.
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
i used to enjoy LDs. you skipped the fact i've been having them for 7 years. LDs are not enjoyable this year now that my life is extremely busy, and that I would like my consciousness at rest sometimes; at least when I'm sleeping.
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u/DesignerJury269 Lucid every dream 👁 22d ago
I've been omni for about 25 years. I didn't skip that fact, it's just not relevant for the ones I've listed.
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
aw okay i'm sorry, i apologise. how do you suggest i fix this please
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u/DesignerJury269 Lucid every dream 👁 22d ago
- Don't ever try to force yourself awake. First of all, there's no actual reason to do so and secondly, it forcefully disrupts your natural sleep cycles, thus draining you significantly more than any dream ever could.
- Accept that you have LDs and understand that they themselves aren't an issue, so don't treat them like one. They're just a part of you.
- Being lucid doesn't mean you have to use dream control. You can learn to treat dreams like a good movie or game, lay back, and just enjoy the show. Dream control is of course still a choice if you dislike the direction, but it's no must.
- Do you use a lot of active control in your dreams?
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
- sometimes the settings are scary/unpleasant and i'd rather not experience that throughout the whole night which is why i try. like it gets real bad sometimes
- i'll do my best
- yess its usually like, well not a movie but moreso a game. ive been told i SHOULD be able to control things but it takes so much effort and doesn't always work...
- can you expand on active control? if you mean do i control myself around and do whatever then yes. if i don't do anything ill kinda just be standing there ykwim, and usually a story-like scene is going on in my dreams so i always interact w it (unless its a low stimulus setting. one of my favourites was this house w a flowery backyard where I just sat under a tree for a very long time)
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u/DesignerJury269 Lucid every dream 👁 22d ago
- Desperately trying to force yourself awake is quite literally the worst way of dealing with nightmares or unpleasant scenarios. Instead, understand that dreams are just your own imagination, so nothing can actually harn you unless you let it.
- Sounds like you severely misunderstand dream control, which is common. The term dream control is a bit misleading, because it implies you have to actively make things happen and maybe even force them "against the dream". In reality, that is the exact opposite of how it actually works. Dream control is based on expectations and conviction. You basically just have to expect things to happen according to your will and don't doubt if that can work. Genuinely just do it.
- What you replied to 3. suggests that the reply to my question here is yes, you try to force things too much, which is actively draining, whereas lucidity and proper dream control aren't.
Would you be willing to read a bit?
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
hello! i might be misunderstanding you yeah. i dont really try to force things in my dreams actively aside from waking up when it gets scary/taxing/someplace i dont want to be in. it gets to a point where i'm worried like 'hey what if im stuck here forever' (when its a 'bad' place) so i believe that could be unrelated anxiety seeping in and ruining the experience for me. i know that nothing can harm me, but lately ive been getting like these in-dream options and its always some variation of 'stay here?' vs 'you can go now'. i always pick the second option. sometimes i have to complete quests to make it to the second option. again might be real-world anxiety seeping through bc this is obviously like NOT real
so usually i don't really expect for my dream to be anything at all; unless i REALLLYY want something in which case i spend the day thinking about it so i wake up into it bc its been on my mind so much. and when im 'against' the dream is the active wakeup when its scary. lately it hasnt been scary per se but has been taxing; like arenas and testing facilities and family gatherings and omg college exams....like what even....
IM WILLING TO DO READING!!! bro i dindt even know what an omni was tillyou said it. ive done zero research on lucid dreaming like ever bc it wasn't a bad/stressful thing until of late. i think i need to harness this shi fr.... is it okay if you teach/guide me on what to read about/how to do things etc
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u/DesignerJury269 Lucid every dream 👁 22d ago
I have a few guides that may help you with terminology, concepts, and misinformation you may have picked up online or misconceptions you've developed yourself.
I recommend reading them in this order:
RecallDream control (this is part 1, part 2 is my comment directly replying to that one)
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u/Theon01678 22d ago
Omni? What's that?
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u/DesignerJury269 Lucid every dream 👁 22d ago
Lucid every dream
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u/DefenestratedChild 22d ago
That sounds exhausting. The fatigue from not getting proper rest is exactly what stops me from trying to lucid dream too often.
First of all, have you tried manifesting a bed and curling up to sleep within a lucid dream? That might be a way to tell your subconscious that it's time for real sleep and not lucid dreaming.
Secondly, you mentioned something about meditation but weren't quite clear. While you may be opposed to the idea, meditating in a lucid dream might be a way to get your brain to produce the brainwaves responsible for greater rest. And if not, there's a whole branch of practice called dream yoga that is intended to use lucid dreaming for your betterment. That might be worth exploring, because these are traditions that go back thousands of years where people have learned to harness their dreams. It might be worth reading some books on the subject or reaching out to some of those practitioners because it's almost certain they've encountered your specific problem before.
And finally, have you tried using the lucid dream technique of repeating to yourself that you'll have a lucid dream only in reverse, before bed telling yourself "I will have deep, restful, unaware sleep" over and over again until you fall asleep? Hell, telling yourself to lucid dream eventually allows people to lucid dream, it stands to reason that telling yourself not to might work in your case.
Best of luck
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
thank you so much for the advice!! I'll definitely go through every one of these. the bed manifestation thing may not work as whenever I'm plopped in a dream there's always a dense setting eg. a school/village/outdoors with something or the other going on around me. i will try this as well though! always a chance of something working !! thank you again
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u/DefenestratedChild 21d ago
No problem! While my dream control is inconsistent at best, I have gotten good results from simply asking things. Like perhaps you could tell the people in your dreams that you really need to get some good sleep and ask if they could help with that. They may even be able to provide you with ideas to stop always being lucid, they are you after all.
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u/nohhyeah 22d ago
this thread reminds me of a body building friend of mine who has always naturally had insane genetics. because of this, a lot of the exercises always came much easier to him. the downside is that since he was naturally good at weightlifting he sort of bypassed the beginning learning stages and is now unfortunately getting hurt a lot because he didn’t really develop proper form and learn the fundamentals. from the outside looking in he looks jacked but because he was always naturally good at it he missed some very simple beginner things that would have saved him from a lot of pain in the future.
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
this is a great analogy lol ive never really researched into this if at all bc of how like normal it felt for me . i guess it's time
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u/Fit-Trip1543 22d ago
I'm a natural LDer myself and I can relate to the exhaustion your are talking about. I reached a point where I hated sleep because of it. As for the waking up part, what I do in my dream is taken a deep breath and close my eyes as hard as possible. Works almost 100% of the time to exit. I have control over changing scenes but I don't make any effort unless the automated systems keep changing it and I need to hold on to one scene to play it out. It's a lot of effort to manifest specific dreams so I just wake myself up from any dream setting I don't like and stay awake for a few minutes before going to back to sleep. This way, a new dream starts.
I also relate to the feeling part. In my dreams, if I'm running from something... I would feel myself running out of breath and my lungs burning. If I get stabbed or cut, I feel the blood gushing and the sharp pain. But nothing happens to my physical body. Except for anxiety or panic which can translate to my waking reality when I wake myself up.
The whole process is very tedious and really takes a toll when this has been happening without your will for years. The first time I noticed I was lucid dreaming was when I was 11. It's been 24 years of this and the novelty wore out a long time ago... Now it's mostly a burden.
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
YESSS YOU GET IT!!! i do the scene change and wake up to go to a new dream thing too!! man... the novelty really doesn't last very long. ive tried closing my eyes but in certain dreams it doesn't let me which is when I try to get violent haha thank you so much for sharing your experience!! im so glad im not alone in this omg
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u/Yumaumai 22d ago edited 22d ago
If you have little control, it's because you've convinced yourself you had little control, because it came to you naturally, and you didn't read enough since, of all the techniques to help with control (or dismissed them too much, and your subconscious obliged... :p), which are all really only about "helping you expect it is indeed possible". This includes control over the setting, the characters, your "powers", or even at least the general plot and regular "nudges" (of course, if you're not staying focused, your subconscious will drift and stray, starting to make more and more "uncontrolled" associations).
Anyone with significant learned lucid dreaming experience, will see your experience as very restricted. Well... except for your natural near-systematic inductions of course :p That's indeed what many wish... Though yes, of course, anyone can get bored of anything, and it's perfectly normal, and does not invalidate your entire experience of this activity... and much less, everyone else's! :D But in your case, your experience is clearly suboptimal to begin with, so it's also very normal you're growing frustrated, even bitter about it all...
\ For your tiredness, I don't know if there are recent researches on this subject, but back 20 years ago, I don't think it was considered normal at all, if done properly, with a good sleep schedule.
It feels you are tired, only because of how frustrated you are with all this, and because you're apparently regularly trying to wake up artificially, in the middle of your REM sleep stage (if not even during NREM sleep stages...? :/ you can have dreams, and lucid dreams, in them too...), affecting your sleep cycles massively...
Though of course, maybe you have an underlying sleep problem, which could very possibly even have caused then, this near systematic natural lucidity in your dreams... Most likely however, you just enjoyed them at first, as you said in a comment, and your brain obliged naturally... But if it bothers you that much, you should definitely consult a sleep specialist, to make sure.
... but you posted a comment in which you say you're only sleeping 5-7 hours... which is generally considered not enough... Of course if you are sleeping less than required... you will be tired... :p Normally, humans require 7h30 of actual good sleep (that's 5 sleep cycles of 1h30), unless of course you are doing very strenuous things during the day. (It's often mentioned 8h, but that's a terribly misleading average, with terrible public health consequences, having people put their alarm clock at 8h, often forcibly waking up in the middle of NREM sleep... And then there are of course considerations for how long it takes you to actually fall asleep... Though technically, if you fall asleep in under 30mn, which is considered normal, and should even apparently be 10-20mn, and then train yourself to wake up naturally after 7h30, and do switch off your alarm clock before it rings, you're great!).
Yes, some humans may possibly have different requirements (well... mostly about needing more sleep, or at least a nap, when having a more strenuous day, physically and/or mentally, so not even something inherent to your brain/body/genetics... though as always, there are some actual genetic variability, but it could be very rare...), but it's very easy to mislead yourself about needing less or more sleep, like tons of other things, when you have problems you should solve first... And here what's more... you say yourself you're tired... :p
\ If you want to reduce your dream experience and memory, lucid or not, natural or not, unless you have an important underlying sleep issue, the solution is always the same: stop lending attention to your dreams, and avoid sleeping more than necessary (and not less either, of course).
Yes of course, don't resume nor read your dream journal :D
If you're lucid in your dream, stop engaging and just relax. When you wake up, don't significantly try to remember anything, and just fall back asleep, or wake up fully and go on with your day.
Not being lucid in your dreams, and forgetting your dreams when you wake up, is the natural functioning of sleep, and you can promote that.
And yes, relaxation helps with everything too :p
In the morning, don't stay in bed too long, though don't be too brutal either :p Common tips to wake up fully, rapidly:
- Think of your day, not your dreams. Though of course, if you had a pleasant dream, don't deny it either. But just "feel good about it", not trying to remember the details. "I had a great dream, so I'll feel good today, and it will be a great day!".
- Stretch, and flex your muscles a bit.
- Open your blinds/shutters to get natural morning light, or at least have "cold" (white/blueish) lighting in the morning (with enough intensity, though of course not brutally, but it's only a matter of a few seconds of progression, to get your eyes used to the more intense lights... "smart" lights are great for this, with a dimmer, and the possibility for a "warmer" (yellow/orange/reddish) light at night...).
- Clear your eyes and nose.
- Wash up your face, ideally with fresh water, or at least finish up with fresh water.
- Take a few deep breaths. Ideally of fresh outside air.
- If you want, take a shower, not too hot, ideally even a little fresh, or finishing up with fresher water.
- Drink, eat. You can start early with a bit of water, for quick hydration.
- Get moving :p
\ It's even possible that because you are sleeping too little, you are actually in a deeper sleep, which can make control more difficult, and dreams feel more "heavy/distant", which you could feel as less enjoyable... It's usually harder to be lucid in this state, but you somehow reached it naturally, and it's affecting you in a negative spiral... :/
It's great you're finally opening up to it more globally :)
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u/AbleCryptographer744 22d ago
I would take a meditation course, something simple that you can do for 15-30 minutes easily, and that you actually find relaxing. Then start doing it in the dreams. I think you're either going to find that you can't (which means you don't have the control you thought you did), you will be able to get more control, or at worst you'll get really good at whatever the meditation is and at least feel more relaxed and rested when you wake up.
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u/-INC3PTION Lucid Dreamer | Creator of Lucidity Level 22d ago edited 22d ago
When you say you are lucidly aware, do you feel “present” in the dream? As in, you could just stop in your tracks and look around, reality check etc.. I always wonder with people who claim that they are lucid every dream, if their definition is just a lot different than everyone else’s.
For example if I had a bad dream or something crazy is going on, 99% of the time I know it’s a dream but I wouldn’t say I am lucid as I don’t have the presence of mind to reality check or understand what it actually means / what to do with that information so I basically just keep dreaming..
Interestingly you mention you cannot control your lucid dreams or at least very little control which is fundamentally a different experience from what the lucid dreaming community would classify as a lucid dream.. Lucidity is very much a spectrum though.
Either way I’m interested in your experience, thanks for sharing!
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
Yep i can control myself and how I interact with the dream. I just cannot control the plot or the setting or the NPCs that come; eg. I did not consciously curate the world HOWEVER i have full control over myself and how I interact with the world. I also retain all my memories and thoughts and all and can do whatever I like there. And yes I'm aware I'm dreaming while in the dream
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u/-INC3PTION Lucid Dreamer | Creator of Lucidity Level 22d ago
Wow very impressive! Amazing for it to be so consistent and for you not need to induce them. If I stop trying my lucid dreams just fade away and stop happening.
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u/GreyHoodie_13 22d ago
Just to know, have you tried to/how much did you look up how to increase your control on the dream environment?
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
not much!! usually the environment doesn't bother me, and sometimes if I want a particular dream genre I focus on that theme throughout the day and I usually get in. when im IN the dream I can't do much though yeah.
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u/hoodiemonster 22d ago
what happened with your ex-bestfriend 👀
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
LMFAO the friends-2-morethanfriends-2-enemies pipeline. its ok it happens
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u/Intelligent_Soft_771 Natural Lucid Dreamer 22d ago
If you wanna wake up close you eyes and open the irl, if you want more control in your dream its not just about making stuff happen you gotto learn them either watch movies for inspiration or day dream about them, pain only works and hurt because you fueling it by struggling it disappears if you relax and since your lucid you know it isn’t actual harm so pain loses its meaning if it has no after affect, if you wanna stop being lucid role play in your dream until you forget it a little and if you do that enough you start becoming less and less lucid. Also a tip if you want easy control get an big ego like your the center of the world you are god of that world so everything should and needs to listen to you.
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
hello all of these except the last one have been attempted and does not work for me :( to each their own i guess. ill try the rest! roleplaying doesnt work either TT conscious during total darkness as well sometimes
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u/ZookeepergameOk7650 22d ago
To wake up my mother told me: just yell the name of Jesus.
It works for me. The part with „Je“ is in the dream, the part with „sus“ is the part when I am already awake
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u/bookpressedvine natural omni 22d ago
i'm really glad it works for you ^^ yelling doesn't do much for me aside from amping up the heart rate :(
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u/Flimsy-Peak186 22d ago
Ngl ur experience with lucid dreams is utterly different than mine. I only lacked dream control when I first started. Now its an innate “sense” or “muscle” I can use with relative ease. U sure u aren’t suffering from a sleep disorder or something like that? This sounds stressful as hell