Why Am I Failing at Lucid Dreaming?

I wonder what I was doing wrong when I tried to become lucid in my dreams. This was some years ago, but still lingers in my mind. I couldn’t find anything mentioned about or similar to what I faced. I was trying to speak in my dream and come to the realization I was dreaming. Got that. Got one of the first steps to making a dream lucid. I got the the point I knew it was a dream and I was in dream land. Then I tried to change the setting or whatever was happening. Or at least know that wherever I was wasn’t the waking world.

The problem occurred: The dream took its own life form and took control away from me by repeating itself. The scene kept repeating each time as if it was saying “This is real, and this is how the actions will go. You’re not in any more control of this dream than you are of reality”. It kept happening for several dreams, different events.

There was only one dream I can clearly remember doing something to change the sequence of events. Even then I had quite a struggle and fought a mental and verbal argument throughout that dream sequence. The force was arguing that it was in control and that I couldn’t change it. I won in that dream, though I didn’t get my full way. I wanted to end a storm completely, but had to settle with being able to get rid of the severe weather and put up with a cloudy sky and drizzly rain. Not the perfect blue sky and sun I wanted.

There was another dream I was trying to change, sort of an unpleasant one, but no matter what I did I just kept turning around and returning to the same sequence again, each time with my mind thinking “This isn’t a dream, no, *this* time it is real.” As soon as I got myself to realize it was a dream, it stopped then repeated the scene yet again. I had to give up trying to be lucid. Once I gave up, the dream let me onto the next scene and finished up without me remembering the rest. I haven’t been able to be lucid and in control of my dreams since. I can remember dreams in great accuracy. They stay in my head the same way I remember real events. Only somehow I know when a memory came from a dream and not reality. But as far as being able to stop and talk with dream characters, ask them the questions I’d like to ask them, etc, that it seems my dreams don’t let me do. If I try I fear I’ll end up with the same problem.

Asked by JI

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How to Experience Lucid Dreams

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24 Comments
  1. To lucid dream you must overcome your subconscience which is not easy. You shouldn’t have given up you should have pushed harder. plus it takes a while to have complete control.

    • Lucid dreaming is not necessarily control. To be lucid within a dream simply means that you are aware that you are dreaming while you are in the dream. Sure, some amount of control is possible when you are lucid but having control does not define the lucid state.

  2. One thing I’ve found that helps is to wake up a few hours after having gone to sleep. Maybe get a glass of water and then lay back down. That small window of being awake is oftentimes enough to drift back to sleep with a bit more intention, which usually transfers into dreams. I don’t know if it will work for you, but it DOES work for me so its worth a shot.

    Let me know how it goes :)

    • Diana,
      Great advice! I have a similar one I call the “breaking cycle method”. I know there are better, more “scientific” terms for the parent method, but breaking cycle seems appropriate, because it augments the original method by purposefully breaking at least one 90-minute cycle. For me, it works something like this (sorry, it’s a bit involved…but when I have to “work” at lucidity…this does help):

      1)Meditate, bring myself to a very relaxed open state.
      2) sleep for 90 minutes, then alarm wakes me.
      3) wake up and write down absolute gibberish in as conscious of a way as possible: (The meat turkey invested in livestock, but the warden turned into a laser beam before the coffee set in and diluted the toy car manufacturer)–I know it sounds silly, but it fakes the conscious mind into thinking that right-brain is in more control than analytical cognitive faculties from left-brain).
      4) sleep for 3 hours, wake up and walk around…do jumping jacks…truly wake yourself up, then lay back down and fall asleep (this takes a while sometimes….but if you stay relaxed and concentrate on breathing, you will be back asleep in no time)
      5) This time, alarm goes off half-way through a 90 minute cycle (sleep only 20-30 minutes)….try to hold a conceptual thought that is completely contrived. “I’m on a boat, the water is clear”….kind of like image streaming, except you need to “believe” that if you opened your eyes, you would be there….but by opening your eyes you would also “leave”…so keep ‘em closed. The more dream like the thought/image, the better, but don’t get carried away….you really need to force the belief that you are THERE.
      6) Go back to sleep….this time, no alarms. Wake naturally….write down everything you remember.

      The point of the gibberish, jumping jacks (moving around) and lying to yourself about where you actually are, is that it confuses consciousness. If you confuse it enough, consciousness will start to question the validity of any and all input…..this then relaxes the filtering and allows you deeper immersion.

      This has rebooted my lucid dreaming many times…or made recurring themes more accessible. Only problem: It takes free time most adults don’t have…and no interruptions…..my oncall pager makes this pretty difficult these days. :( Ok…two problems: This also takes some practice….

      Anyway….works for me, maybe it will work for others.

      -Siddle

      • Good idea. I’ve been thinking I need to write down the random gibberish dreams, but whatever reasons I don’t get to write them down. One of a few things occur: Most often I lack the modivation, can’t make sense enough to write it down. Or I get woken up by something like the phone or my alarm to work and either forget everything or don’t have enough time. Or interestingly I will be sitting down with a notebook and a pencil/pen writing it down but am actually dreaming it!

        That said I naturally seem to wake up some time during the night after a dream. I can remember several dream sequences, even if I don’t remember them in full. I’ll bring up a notebook and make it my goal to write down whatever fragmented details I can.

        BTW my most recent dream I was trying to catch a bus running around the city. I kept missing it or seeing the wrong one. Finally the dream got lucid and I realized heck, why am I waiting at this bus stop when I can fly? I flew up and got an areal view of the city block I was standing by. Unfortunately that woke me up, but it was long since time for me to wake up anyway.

        • JI,
          Bwahahaha! Yeah, if it’s anything like my city, the bus stop isn’t really for stopping buses. In my version, there are bus stops, and a few folks usually standing around them talking. I’ve never seen anyone get on a bus from the bus stop, because the locals usually just stop talking long enough to watch a bus go by…..then start talking again. Like they hold the bus drivers in high esteem, despite the fact they never stop to give anyone a ride.

          In the center of town (again, in my version of the city) there is a huge building (part Hospital, part school, part mall, part residential)….I call it the “central building” (original, I know). Sometimes, in the circle drive out front, there is a bus stop twice the size of any other in town. Never does a bus pass in front of it, but plenty of people go inside and disappear. Never cared enough to try to travel through when I was lucid….always think of it when I wake up. That’s not fair, actually….I have thought of it when lucid, but usually have other things I wish to work with instead.
          Like the basement full of storage rooms and ICU beds. No idea what that’s about.

          Not gibberish when I’m there, however. Makes complete sense to me.
          (I’ll focus on that with my next reply)

          -Siddle

          • My dream buses pick people up. I mean it’s kind of rare to get on any of the buses, but I have gotten on a few times. One thing for sure, if I do manage to get on a bus, it is nothing like getting on a real bus. The size and shape of the bus transforms. They tend to get huge, sometimes like a moving building. Sometimes it transforms to looking like a school bus (but not narrow like one). One dream I was on one that had no seats, just poles to hold onto. I was standing there taking to the driver but I don’t remember anything of the conversation.

            Once on a dream bus, I don’t remember ever getting off. I think I end up waking up before meeting my destination.

            There’s a building sort of like the one you described that shows up in one of my dream cities. It’s not a hospital though as far as I can tell, just a mall. Many levels. There may be some offices there too and mayby a clinic of some sort. Sometimes it will have a school attached to it, sort of like a boarding home or something. Interesting what you say about people coming in and not coming out. Really interesting! I’ve gone into the building a few times. (One time I was just looking for a bathroom) I hate being there, because once I get in that building I’m stuck there….I can’t get out! I just keep looking for the exit door and just keep finding endless hallways and passages. I’ll open the doors to either a flight of stairs or another row of offices or shops. If I find the exit stairs, I’ll keep going up or down until I wake up. Unless… some recent dreams I have somehow freed myself. It takes me becoming lucid enough to recognize I’m trapped and that I’m not getting out no matter how many doors I try to open… If I recognize I am there and trapped, that usually breaks the spell. Where I come out though is usually not where I left off. I end up somewhere completely different usually.

            One thing that bothers me with many of my dreams is lack of interaction with people in general. I’m kind of a loner in real life and spend more time listening to conversations than joining them. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but still I’d like to meat my dream guide or someone. They just seem to hide from me or something.

  3. JI,
    I was born into this life, a natural lucid dreamer. It was so bad (yes, “bad”) when I was young that I could not tell the difference between dreams and reality. I would constantly ask my family why certain things had happened….blank stares. Then about 8 years ago, I started having a recurring theme…..that’s still how it is to this day. I go back to a world…..the same one, every night. Not a “recurring dream” in and of itself, because actions and dream figures are seldom repeated. Just the landscape is the same.

    The difference? When I was young and went literally ANYWHERE and would do whatever I wanted, it was most likely because I had not received most of my conscious filters.
    I go back to the same places in dream now, and the only “control” I have here is localized. Meaning, sure I can fly and use telepathy in dreams to communicate, but I can’t change a building into a tree. On occasion I can start storms here, but it takes energy……and it upsets the local dream figures a lot. My new theory is I’m currently in a place many dreamers go…..making it Hyper lucidity……The upside is, it’s a feeling beyond “lucid”….you are actually conscious. With reality and dream memory fully accessible. Exhilarating, really! But the price here is “control” over other areas that don’t really seem like “mine to change”.

    I’ve mentioned on this site before (and keep in mind, this is just my humble hypothesis) that dreams work less in “levels” and more in configurations. Meaning you get different things from consciousness, subconsciousness, unconsciousness, etc.. Depending on configuration, you could come up with a dream in which you are in little control, but things correlate better then in reality……or you could be flying around, but it feel like mostly just a vivid dream….or you could do what I do on those beautiful rare occasions, when I reach a new overall achievement in dream configurations. The last one I remember like that was a multi-presence dream that gave me a headache.
    I (we) was lucid….but I was also multiple selves. Meaning I was having many dreams at the same time, as different fragments of an original “self”. I don’t know I’ll ever be able to explain in a way that gives proper justice, but suffice it to say, I could think on a multidimensional basis. That dream changed my life!
    This is why I happily let the dream evolve on their own. The less control you try to enforce, the more you seem to have.

    So first suggestion: Don’t limit your desire for “control” to “what you would do in reality if you had super powers”…..doesn’t work like that in my experience. To have actual “control” you need to simply be lucid and observant of the environment you are given while in a particular dream state.

    Also, I think you may be trying too hard. I say that because the more I try to “decide what I will dream”…especially as I get older, the less successful I am.

    And you are not alone. As active as my dream life is, and despite the fact that I remember about 90% of all of my dreams…….I have dry spells (which really means I just didn’t bother to carry the dream recall over to the waking world…..even our minds know the “meh” feeling )

    A few things that can cause issues with lucidity (just things to consider):
    1) stress
    2) age in relationship to conscious filters (are you more jaded, angry, cynical then you used to be?)
    3) any and all medications can have a devastating effect to dream life. On rare occasions a new med will make you more lucid for a night or two….watch out for those….this is proof that the drug has the ability to deaden serotonin receptors making, DMT less effective (which gives you the ability to see—-ok, hallucinate/dream, really)
    4) drinking can also make lucid dreams difficult. Get drunk and you may have a wild ride, but will remember very little. If you casually drink one or two beers every night….yup, same affect….makes dreams harder. Sorry….true lucid dreaming is a bit of a sacrifice for some.
    Nothing specific to you, there JI….just a bit of a check-list that I personally live by.

    Lastly, you seem to know a thing or two about lucid dreams, so I won’t accuse you of taking the movie “Inception” too seriously….haha! I’ll spare you, but only mention for other people on the site, that while that movie had it’s interesting (and surprisingly accurate) information about how the brain works during sleep, it’s still very much off the mark regarding application, in my opinion.
    It’s like the movie Hackers. It won’t teach you to be a hacker…..at all.

    Lastly, controlled induction doesn’t make you a master lucid dreamer….it makes you “controlled”. Meaning if you mainly change things in your dreams, then how would you ever see a dream object that was there for a reason beyond your waking knowledge? I personally would hate to have missed experiencing what it felt like for there to be more then one of me at the same time……simply because I was too busy trying to fly or create a storm.

    Hope that helps. I know everyone works a little differently. Dreaming is one of my biggest hobbies in this life….so I know the frustration one can reach when trying to assert your own will in them. I say, enjoy the natural achievements, and let the dream evolve on it’s own…..it will be way more fruitful, I promise.

    -Siddle

    • Whoa, I can relate to a lot of stuff you mentioned in this post. I’ll have to reread it a few times for it to sink in. I, like you, have very good memory of many of my dreams (provided they aren’t gibberish or full of random stuff floating in and out of consciousness.)

      Multi dimensional: Yes, I have a number of dreams where I can be two or more characters, sometimes switching perspectives and seeing them morph into something else. I’ve also had dreams where I am dreaming. Can you get an SP episode in a dream about SP? Really I did and ‘woke’ up some time in the dream to see perhaps the most vivid awesome sunset ever. I also had a dream where I was being told that my waking world was my “dream” that occurs when I go to sleep in that world and when I go to “sleep” in the waking world “this” place was it. I don’t think I ever wrote the dream out but I was left thinking whoa that was deep. Another dream was being transported into the future to an alien spaceship. I was some deformed man as my disguise. Somehow I manged to mess up the alien’s plans and save the Earth. I was transported back in time to my bed. I took with me flowers from that world, but lost them before I woke up.

      Odd thing is I don’t read a lot of sci fi stuff or watch a lot of movies.

      Not remembering what is dream and what is real: There are a couple memories from my early childhood i still to this day cannot tell if they were dream or real. I’m thinking they are dream because they have a supernatural feel to them. I have a number of very plot-like dreams that I can remember as vividly as a real memory.

      Somehow most of the time I can remember the difference, but there are some moments I get a feeling I’m experiencing something I dreamed or thinking something I had in a dream. I have memory in my dreams. I can remember places I’ve been and recognize when I am going to the same setting.

      I guess my problem is I can look at dragons floating up and down the street, ride my bike all the way across the country, look up at buildings made entirely of plants, and still perceive it to be _reality_ at least until I wake up…. No like am I dreaming feeling, just okay this is where I am and it is normal wherever I am. My thought process seems to remain consistent as the waking world. If I do realize it is a dream, I seem to default to either trying to fly (often my resort in chase type dreams. My chaser usually can’t fly.) or trying to take something back with me like a picture to bring with me to the other world (waking world.) Or in a recent dream, where I saw a lion in our basement, started to freak out and think we were in trouble and needed to get that thing to a zoo asap!

  4. Hi all,

    I wish I lucid dreamed, or maybe not, sounds tiring. LOL I hardly dream at all, but I am fascinated with the subject, so this me linking to the site.

    Love & Peace
    Ama

    • It’s a fun subject. I seem to be partially lucid through my dreams. I’m lucid enough to be aware of my surroundings, even pick things up sometimes, but not enough to be able to really interact with things in my dream.

      I’ve read of people having terrifying dreams and being able to ask whatever was terrifying them to find deeper answers about what their fears were, as well as people being able to contact their guides through dreams. I don’t have such luck with most dreams. It seems I’m on my own most of the time.

      But yes the more active my dreams seem, the more tired I feel waking up.

      • Hello JI ,
        Sorry for the delays in response this week. I’ve been working 70 hour weeks for the last two months…..so I have a response going for your last transmission…please bear with me, as I hope to get that posted today or tomorrow morning (as well as my e-mail response to Ama….)
        Agreed, this is a great discussion….probably my favourite on this site. So, response is coming for that….but in the meantime wanted to comment on your last entry really quick:

        1) In my observations, “vivid” dreams are still lucid dreams. Most scientists/researchers contrast between the two. This is one of the many reasons why I consider “lucid dreaming” to be more configurations of conscious faculties as opposed to “levels”. I have gone from vivid to lucid and back to lucid again, and to be honest the only difference I really notice upon waking is that vivid = lucid with little control (meaning you are consciously aware, but you are following a script….on autopilot), where as lucid = lucid/vivid, but with a conscious configuration that allows for richer conceptualization and commandment of self and environment. But I still follow the commonly accepted conventions. I still say “it was a vivid dream” or “it was lucid in nature” because most folks can better gauge the intensity of the dream based on those buzzwords.

        2) Fears. Yes, I’m one of those people. The only “nightmares” I have these days are about work. LOL! Being a lucid dreamer who grew up in a very strict religious household (and am not religious anymore) I had a LOT of dreams I was being chased by demons or vicious looking animals (not sure on how those two relate, exactly). During one very vivid dream (which was recurrent in nature) I was being chased by a man in black. A man that is now a friend of mine in the dream city I go to every night…..well, he used to chase/haunt my dreams a bit. So one day, taking note of this recurrence in the dream itself (natural catalyst for my lucidity), propelled me into full lucidity. When it did, I realized that i could NOT be hurt in the dreamscape. So I turned around and yelled at him. Then with the flick of my wrist, I turned him into a very sad looking clown. He started to cry, then laugh. Then we started to talk. He represented paranoia of being asked questions and not knowing the answers……uh…..ok (it was that specific).

        I know it sounds very silly, but this was an epiphany in the dream world. From this point on, I no longer had what I consider “nightmares” because the minute I’m being chased, hurt, etc….I naturally bump up to lucid and immediately start asking what it represents.
        Now I love when nightmares are enforced because it means I will automatically become lucid. If this does not happen, then at the very least, I simply don’t feel fearful….and the dream goes on until I wake up.

        Surprisingly (and again, just in my personal observations) I find that most “nightmare” dream subject/objects represent my own trepidations. Never an outside fear…more they represent my fear of how I will handle a situation. So if you ask a dream figure, I highly recommend asking “What do you represent?” Then maybe “Ok, what do you represent in MY understanding of reality”. If it’s anything like my dreams, you’ll find answers like “I represent fear”. But this may not be “fear” from an overview, but rather, “how you deal with a general or specific fear, personally”.

        I’d say this takes practice, but that would be a lie. For me, it was right place, right time. If you have nightmares often, I suggest creating a bit of a mantra….something to the affect of “If I see a scary dream object, or am fearful in my dreams, I will KNOW that I am dreaming and become lucid”. Maybe it will help prepare for that “right time” scenario.

        Lastly, completely agree with your final comment on the post. The more lucid I am, the better I feel overall, but the more it zaps me. False awakenings, even more so.

        Arg….already 15 minutes late to my 7th meeting for the day……glad it’s the weekend soon.
        Cheers, JI

        -Siddle

        • I get a lot of false awakenings. One of them I was trying to write down a dream. I wrote it in amazing detail, then I woke up, realized I didn’t write anything down, forgot what I wrote and the dream I was trying to write about. Grrr.

          I can’t really say I’ve had any true nightmares either. I have some that if I repeat back (share with others) they’d think it was a nightmare. Some sleep paralysis episodes will produce some creepy visuals and voices.) I had one ask me “Is your granny home?” in a demonic voice that was rather crisp and clear as any real voice would.

          Being chased: I had a similar looking chaser: black shadow with glowing eyes. I never do get to meet him. I just knew no matter how far I run or fly he always knows where I am. He usually can’t hurt me if I fly, but if I land, I am at his mercy. Either it is him or a different chaser, but I’ve been chased by a hunter (I was an eagle in that dream) and could fly. I saw his gun pointed right at me as I tried to perch in the trees. It was winter, so there was no place to hide. Another dream the hunter was after me and I was some Phoenix-like creature with atypical coloring (pink and pastel shades of blue instead of orange and yellow). Same story here: in flight I was safe. I also tried hiding in a tower-like building. On retrospect years later, I wonder why a Phoenix would be afraid of dying? Really.

          I also had a government oppression like dream where it was like some agent with a brimmed cowboy-like hat that was after me. I did actually try to confront him or at least stop running so I could find out why he was after me. My experience wasn’t so pleasant. I did not make a friend. He DID hurt me. He took out a huge gun with a needle on its end and shot my ear with it. I got a bad earache upon waking up. The ache didn’t last long after I woke up fortunately, but it was enough. I probably had the earache all along but it was odd how it showed up in that dream. But it was enough to scare me. I’m not afraid of needles in real life.
          I’ve had other chase dreams after that, but not lately in these last several months. I’m not sure how that got resolved if it got resolved.

          I’d still like to know why I don’t see any guides in my dreams or angels. It’s hard to find people in general and I never remember my conversations.

          • JI,
            Whoa….so did you self inflict pain on your ear? Or were you laying on your ear funny in your sleep, or was it a manifestation in the dream itself?

            I ask because your story reminds me of one of my early dying dreams. It also “sounds” like a nightmare to many people…and probably was when I was that age (think it was around 10 years old). But I mostly thought it was neat because I was already pretty accustomed to dying in dreams by this point (happened a LOT when I was younger)

            Mine: I was riding in the bed of a pick-up truck. My mother was driving and my sister was riding passenger in the cab. In real life, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, but we lived close to a medium sized city……well, one big enough to have a “rougher part of town”, which is where we were in the dream version.

            So my mom takes a left turn onto a street and I see a car on the road, as we pass. In the car was a young girl who looked extremely frightened (head was down, looked like she was crying) and middle aged man in the driver side who was holding a hand gun.
            I turned around (as I was facing aft) to the cab, knocked on the window and started yelling at my mom “That guy has a gun! He’s going to hurt the girl!”. My mom and my sister were talking and for some reason could not hear my cries for this young woman’s life. As I looked back (my dreams also had a weird panning-out wide angle view at times which made distances seem a lot closer as you travelled) and I started pointing at the guy with the gun and yelling more. Then he held the gun out the side of his window and shot me. He didn’t miss….one shot. Hit me right around the 3rd to 4th rib from the bottom on my left side. I felt intense pain! Then intense heat. Followed by a cold chill that went throughout my whole body. It was so unbelievably painful….but this only lasted a few seconds before it just went numb, and then I could no longer breath.
            I looked down and I was bleeding everywhere…..ok, yeah, this does sound a lot like a nightmare now that I recall the details….haha!

            But here is the interesting thing. My whole environment in the dream started to fade….not by black, but white, until all I saw was intense white light. Then I woke up.
            I gasped for air, as I felt I had been holding my breath for minutes, and then realized my right thumb was pressed so far between two ribs that it created a welt that didn’t subside in pain or discolouration for a couple weeks after the fact.

            I had manifest the pain physically. Weird part is, I don’t have to do this to feel pain in a dream. As mentioned, I had died many times in dreams before….sometimes more pain then I could even imagine at the time. Only to wake up and find I was not hurting at all (aka, wasn’t pressing a finger into my ribs, temple, throat, etc……)
            When I think of it, I have been killed more times in dreams by gunshot wounds then anything else. Even more interesting is the fact that I have been “shot” in dreams and awoke to find it was in an exact place of a birthmark.
            So I personally (not to enforce my own views), I now believe that it’s possible I left a past life after being shot. When I’m in the dream world, I know exactly what this feels like. So when I hear reports of victims discussing the feeling of being shot, it sounds way too familiar!

            Anyway….just wanted to know if you have ever had similar experience…or if you are more often in an SP episode and have more virtually felt the pain, rather then perceived it locally in the dream.

            Cheers!
            -Siddle

            P.S. work hasn’t calmed down, but is getting a tad less crazy, and was very sick last week but feeling better this week….so my participation should start to pick up on this site soon. So, hope to discuss more.
            It’s great to talk to other dreamers who have had similar experiences.

          • Hi Siddle,

            Your dream sounded very much like a past life to me. Can you remember the look, or make, of the car? And your clothes? Stuff like that can help you decide the era of your dream. Always interesting!

            Love & Peace
            Ama

          • Hello Ama!

            Don’t remember the car that well. I believe it was tan coloured and was a hatchback (like a bubblier looking version of a CRX….but I don’t think they came in tan/brown….have to look that up now that you ask).
            Pickup Truck….that’s easy. It was a Silver Chevy ….probably late 70′s model. Not sure on the clothes, but I vaguely recall wearing jeans. For some reason I always think I’m wearing a plaid shirt (flannel) or something like that.

            One thing is for sure. I could draw a picture of the man that shot me. His face might well stick with me for the rest of this life. The girl in the car….not so much. Pony tail, and brunette. That’s as much as I can recall as her face was down (more in shame then fear.. still plenty of trepidation but not the foremost emotion conveyed…….not sure why I’ve always known that either).

            Last thing to mention: I’ve never had this dream again, nor any variant of it. However, I do vividly remember the dream when asked in the dream world. Because there are so few dreams “asked about” in my dream world, I have to think it carries some amount of importance over other dreams.

            Hope all is well, Ama!!
            -Siddle

          • correction on my last post:
            I think there is dualism in nature about the mood of the girl in the car, now that I think of it further. I have often stated in writings that she was very fearful, but I see her as ultimately ashamed as well. I think I was a bit conflicting in my two posts as a result.

            So let’s leave it at this: The dream girl in the CRX looking car was very frightened and ashamed for reasons I could some how gauge at the time, but have since lost that recollection. That’s how symbolism works sometimes.

            :)

            -Siddle

          • Siddle, I think we are going to have to cancel the past life memory theory .. going by the age of the car .. 1970′s? What year were you born? I know you wrote your age somewhere but I can’t remember. Unless you died and were immediately born again .. I don’t think it will work? We usually spent time between lifetimes, to do our healing, before coming back down here again, particularly after traumatic deaths.

            Have you checked the man’s face against known gangsters from the time period? The internet has all sorts of info on it.

            The other thought was you might have been visited by the ghost of the boy .. they do like to share their stories with us.

            Love & Peace
            Ama (baking cookies LOL)

          • Really? I kind of liked that one, Ama! :)

            The thought has crossed my mind, but if there is ANYTHING I’ve ever learned from my dreams, its that consciousness (in the way I know it at this very second, while I’m writing) is a lot different in dreams. It’s what brought me to the concepts of higher and lower selves. My “consciousness” seems to be the child of a very conscious/subconscious/super-conscious parent entity (I’ll explain that at another time….it was a great dream epiphany, but I now get the relationship and relevance of my waking consciousness in regards to the “overall me”.)

            So, I guess what I’m saying is, this doesn’t really discount much.
            My first death dream came at a very young age….I was flying a motorcycle over what would years later be my recurrent dream city I go to nightly. I’ve never known motorcycles to fly….but that doesn’t discredit the dream death that came right after when I realized I was flying, that bikes don’t do that, and that the ground was getting unsettlingly close. It was a painful death scene.

            If……big if, but still “if”…….in a previous life I died from falling off of a cliff;…but because my newly built individual incarnation (with it’s segregated levels of consciousness/ego/etc….and the physical manifestation of my corporeal self, with it’s animal and reptilian mindsets, etc..) was not privy to all the details of that demise (because of the death of that particular incarnation and resulting separation from that physical life), then all I have to go on from the soul side is something to the affect of “Fell, died, painful, then free…..If all of that is the case, then higher self (or “parent entity”) is the only one that has all the information. If there is any attempt to relay this information to waking world Siddle, it’s going to be a bit muddled at best.

            So, I know the cars and truck were from the 70′s, but I also can’t discount the fact that a great deal is lost in translation. Perhaps if this was a death from a previous incarnation, then it merely means I was shot. I probably heard/saw a news special around that time where a girl was kidnapped or murdered….that’s all it would take for a dream symbol to vaguely convey “death, by unnatural means…….Or it could mean that it’s a future incarnation that happens in the 70′s (another topic of conversation. Always wondered why if spirit time is “now time” how space-time could be so linear for incarnations). Maybe I just like the idea of being a space explorer in my next life, and a shogun warrior in the one after that!). Oh, and I’m a late 70′s child. 77 is my year, so 34 now.

            I’m not defending a past-life memory here….I’m simply scrutinizing a bit further before I chalk it up to “just a dream”. Besides, in my night, there is no such thing as “just a dream”. I have very little of daily life in my dreams…most of it I’ve never seen in waking reality. In fact, if I do see something that happened in waking life in a dream….it usually makes me lucid instantly. The correlation is quite different for me….so symbols are all I’ve got to go on.

            Side note, Ama: The city was quite active last night. I threw a party in my new dream house (yes, I apparently moved out of the flat in the post-apocalyptic alley, and am now in a nice residential area with a huge Victorian house. Been there for the last 5 weeks). Thanks once more for the visual exercise…..it has been providing better integration with every visit. I’m once again remembering the concepts of lucidity that used to come more natural to me. I also now know that I was being too conscious about my frustrations….when i’m not frustrated, I’m free to be the expected dream city Siddle. :)

            -Siddle

          • Hmm…knowing you and your dream state (a little), Siddle, I did wonder if you had combined the ‘past life memory’ with a dream and identified the car as modern .. though the dream sounds rather ‘gangster’ to me .. that was my first reaction before I read about the car. Since I can’t get inside your head, I’ll go with it still ‘feeling’ past life .. the rest was up to you.

            Speaking of falling off cliffs … I’ve died that way twice. One in hawaii .. one of the islands, big volcano .. unwilling sacrifice, suffered a knee injury in the moments before death as I fell from the top .. suffered from a ‘mysterious knee injury’ until I worked through the dream, and .. then it disappeared. LOL The other I reconnected to at Tintagel in Cornwall. I was staying to Camerlot, the motel, not the castle, and wanted to climb the stairs, up the side of the little island where Dintagel castle ruins are .. made it about 2 levels up, hit panic (struck speechless, terrified and shaking myself to pieces) and thought I was going to fall and die, and then had a huge flashback/vision and watched myself race up the stone stairs (rough carved) (I was on carefully constructed, and very safe, wooden ones at the time), just to meet my ‘true love’ at the top, and have him grab me in a fit of jealousy and chuck me off the side. The amount of emotion involved was enormous and I crawled (back pressed firmly to the ‘wall’) all the way down the stairs again and back onto dry land .. and I was still shaking hours later looking out the window at the island from my room. Now that, was an experience! LOL

            Who needs dreams when we can have ‘reality’ .. LOL

            Love & Peace
            Ama

        • I’m sorry for the delay. I lost the link to this thread until I checked my email. Replying here because the reply has been disabled on your newer post. No self inflicted pain with my shot in the ear dream. It was more like a medical syringe type shot. I sleep on my side. I can’t remember which ear was facing up. Sometimes the ear facing up will get plugged a little with allergies. That could be the physical cause. The timing was sure odd. But yes i have had painful sleep paralysis episodes. Or at least very uncomfortable. I’ll sometimes have whole body vibrations and then be left with an achy back upon waking.

          But yes I’ve been shot (gun) in a dream. I was in a public bathroom stall and my dad appeared with a gun and shot me. Once. Perfectly silent and emotionless. I died supposedly in that dream. It went to black immediatly. It disturbed me because my dad would never do such a thing in real life.

          I’ve died in a number of dreams. One I was flying and crashed down a chimney pipe-like thing. Inside it was a boiler filled with molten-metal or fire. Another dream I supposedly died (don’t remember or wasn’t clear how). God wasn’t going to accept me into Heaven, so I came back and floated around as a ghost. I was trying to speak with my parents, but to no avail. No one else seemed to notice me either. I don’t recall any repeat dreams of those events, but I have had variations of diving from flight into things. There was another dying dream that I hardly remember, but I was someone else, maybe a child. It went completely white, then I was floating out of body following the character.

  5. I forgot to add dreams that really frighten me more are ones that suggest things I cannot prove are true or not, such as warnings of cancer, future or current health problems (ones unknown if I am dealing with in real life).

  6. When I was a child all the dreams I can recall were lucid with total control in most. This was convenient for dreams that potentially turned to nightmares! While my sister was being chased by Freddy Kruger and then tormented I was chasing him *tag* and then he’d chase me…lol. Any nightmares I recall were things I seen during waking hours…eeks!

    As an adult, I still have some dreams that are lucid, but they are no where near the frequency as before. Unfortunately, I’m almost always only aware that I’m dreaming vs. having any type of control. Still, this helps with nightmares when my dreams are lucid as I do at least realize it is only a dream and I’ll eventually wake up. Sometimes, I can even will myself to wake up…also very helpful.

    When I am experiencing nightmares that are not lucid, they tend to be reoccurring on some level or another. While they aren’t exactly the same, there seems to be unchanging elements. During these episodes, I tell myself before going to sleep that I will realize when I am in dreamland. This usually keeps my dreams lucid – not always, but usually. Perhaps you could try telling yourself over and over you’ll realize you’re dreaming and even add that you’ll have control over the dreams if you so desire.

    Best of luck.
    Robyn

    • I had a chase dream this week. It wasn’t lucid. The POV character was a bug like hybrid creature (a human child with a dragonfly/wasp body) Aliens were after her. There was a tracking device imbedded on her. No matter where she went, they knew where she was. (seems to be common with my chase dreams. I can flee, gain considerable distance, but never be fully clear of the chaser.)

      Suddenly the character stopped flying (fleeing) and landed in a store. She rolled up a fist full of socks and stuffed one. (I don’t know what that was all about???) and she spoke through those socks. Upon waking I seemed to have a brief moment of lucidity. I asked why she stopped running, (I couldn’t seem able to ask anything else, more interesting questions like who are the aliens and why they were after me.)

      The scenario played out with her thoughts about being able to communicate with her great grandfather. The rolled up socks enabled him to hear. Okay…. I guess this is dreamland after all. There were other odd things showing up from that night. I never got to write them down. I just remember going through an outdoor food area. I met someone who claimed to be a guide and something to do with a tomato. I thought it was poisonous, but it wasn’t. There was also something earlier about growing plants outside in my parent’s house in December. (It doesn’t matter if it is winter and there is snow/ freezing temps, it seems I find some small patch to grow flowers amidst the snow. I wish I remembered more. It seems like a bunch of random weird stuff.

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