My questions and concerns about lucid dreaming

I have had several lucid dreams in my life but none of them were intended to happen. I'm busy trying to figure out how to choose when to go lucid.

I have a question to those who have experience with lucid dreaming. Does lucid dreaming attract spirits/jinn/demons (whatever you want to call them)? Because I've dealt with them quite a while ago in my 'normal' dreams (nightmares). I really don't want to deal with them again, is lucid dreaming a way to appear on their radar?

Also, do you have any tips and tricks that worked for you?

a reply to: EveryUsernameWasTaken
I started listening to Michael Sealey to help me sleep (terrible insomniac) but soon found that they do often lead to lucid dreaming. I have had strange dreams but never bad dreams.

I have had many lucid dreams over the years, but can not control when they happen at all. I would be interested to see if anyone has ideas on how they can be. In these dreams I am always fighting "something" but not exactly sure what it is......

originally posted by: annoyedpharmacist
In these dreams I am always fighting "something" but not exactly sure what it is......

Do you sense that something has an evil nature?

You are a food to them.

Jokes aside... What you had is a nightmare. When you dream and it feels "scary" and "real".
We call it "sleep paralysis" on scientific" terms. It happens when your brain is active while your body is taking rest. That's the main cause on scientific terms why we experience "nightmares".

There sure is a demon or "evil spirit" interacting with you when that happens. It seems like "demons" or any other worldly entities has a "language". And they answer to your "call".

Just take it like this. You or someone seem to have taken their attention thru meditation, prayers, or being in fear. I believe they're attracted to fear.

My suggestion on that matter is turn on the lights and let the fear fade away.

a reply to: EveryUsernameWasTaken

No - they don't attract any entities any more than any other psychic-related activity. If anything, it might make you more aware of them, but that's about the extent of it. I tend to see it this way if it comforts you: If I were an entity, and noticed that you learned to lucid dream, I might be curious for a couple minutes, and then leave, as there's plenty of other people to bother that are actually trying to summon me. Plus, why bother you when all you have to do is wake up?

As far as tips and tricks go - Listening to any kind of soft music, or something such as white noise will help you get into the right frame of mind. I also look for patterns that have appeared in the past (For example, I have a real-life friend that shows up in quite a few of my dreams; I see her, I know instantly I'm dreaming).

Once you're in a lucid dream - do not get excited! The body's first reaction to you being "awake" in the dream is to wake you back up. I can usually tell when I am about to wake back up because the dream starts to "fade" around me. Also, keep in mind that whatever you observe cannot hurt you. Same applies to astral projection.

I practice every night, even on worknights - I haven't noticed any side-effects during my daytime hours.

-fossilera

originally posted by: EveryUsernameWasTaken

originally posted by: annoyedpharmacist
In these dreams I am always fighting "something" but not exactly sure what it is......

Do you sense that something has an evil nature?

sometimes yes, and I am fearful, other times no. An interesting note on these battles.....I usually lose in the end and wake up. Also, there are dreams that feel very real to me in which I am trapped in a kind of a maze or trying to solve some sort of puzzle to escape from somewhere........somewhere that I am terrified to be in.

originally posted by: boozo

There sure is a demon or "evil spirit" interacting with you when that happens. It seems like "demons" or any other worldly entities has a "language". And they answer to your "call".

Just take it like this. You or someone seem to have taken their attention thru meditation, prayers, or being in fear. I believe they're attracted to fear.

My demonic nightmares started to happen when I was experimenting with meditation, I must've done something wrong perhaps because there are plenty people who meditate without having this problem. That's why this time I wanted to ask advice before going through with lucid dreaming techniques.

a reply to: EveryUsernameWasTaken

If you are really serious, you need to start a dream journal and invest in some supplements. People also have mixed results with stimulating L.E.D. masks that detect rapid eye movement and softly flash light to generate cognition. You can buy or attempt to make your own.

www.shamansgarden.com...

www.instructables.com...

The point of the journal is not to record only your lucid dreams, but every dream that you can remember after waking. At any point in the night after you wake up and you are able to recollect specific information, you need to immediately jot down every detail that you can remember. Time frame, location, weather, inanimate/animate objects, shapes, colors, identities, actions, motives, your own thoughts, etc.

The goal is to strengthen the mind's association between all that was mentioned above from your past dreams and future dream states that may recreate similar environments (assuming that you have a regular sleep pattern). Alcohol and other suppressive substances are not recommended and will severely compromise this development.

When you are constantly recording this information after waking, the mind will begin to recognize and associate more and more similarities, essentially creating an "aha moment" during your dream. This little "snap" is supposed to generate a realization of your surroundings, causing your brain to remain in R.E.M., but cognitively become aware of "something" familiar.

I've also suggested in the past that people find an alarm clock with an adjustable snooze alarm and experiment with long snooze times. As the alarm sounds, it causes just enough noise to generate cognition and the threshold between wakefulness and rest is maintained. I can understand that I'm awake long enough to shut the alarm off, but can still remain in a "lesser" dream state.

This allows the brain to "wake up" from R.E.M. sleep and usually if the snooze is longer the ten minutes, one can effectively fall back into the same sleep state, but with slightly more awareness. I can personally fall back asleep into the same dream multiple times on a good day, though only 80%, more or less will be similar. No joke.

Results may vary.

a reply to: annoyedpharmacist

I tell you man. Your description fits perfectly to "nightmares". I experienced them personally too many times recently.

a reply to: boozo

Nightmare would be an apt description I guess, and they probably have to do with job or personal related stress and fear. I do not have them all that often now, but when I was in school and working with a boatload of stress and exhausted all the time, they were more frequent........

ETA: what differentiates between a lucid dream and say a nightmare? Is it just the feeling of it being real, or is it more than that?

originally posted by: fossilera
a reply to: EveryUsernameWasTaken

No - they don't attract any entities any more than any other psychic-related activity. If anything, it might make you more aware of them, but that's about the extent of it. I tend to see it this way if it comforts you: If I were an entity, and noticed that you learned to lucid dream, I might be curious for a couple minutes, and then leave, as there's plenty of other people to bother that are actually trying to summon me. Plus, why bother you when all you have to do is wake up?

My fear is that they will interfere in my sleep, I've had terrible demonic nightmares on a daily basis for more than 3 months when my meditation experiment didn't go well. Do you know if there's a link between lucid dreaming and meditation? Because if there is, I won't go through with this.

a reply to: annoyedpharmacist

Now is clear.
Since lucid dreaming is you're having control. I guess it's not nightmare after-all. I guess it's work related stress. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But if you said that you don't have control over your dreams. Then it's not lucid dreaming.

A lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment.

NO. and please dont let anyone fool you into believing there are any demons or entities out to get you. there are a lot of people on ATS obsessed with that junk but guess what they are the ones MANIFESTING it. and CREATING that crap... happy dreaming!

a reply to: EveryUsernameWasTaken

You may need to start viewing this as separate instances:

A nightmare is just that: a really, really bad dream. While it can be influenced by an entity, most of the time, it's not. It's usually tied around a stray thought or something that has been bothering you for a long time. I still get them occasionally - how I cope is that because I remember the nightmare in full detail (you think waking memory is bad, try remember the entire nightmare in the sequence of events that happened?), I actually turn them into horror stories - Many of which you can read in the short stories sections.

I'm no psychologist - but I would say that the nightmares represent your fear of the unknown, which could have been tied to a meditation session that scared you.

As far as a link - Many of the same elements used for lucid dreaming are used in meditation. You prep the mind by allowing yourself to go into a relaxed state, but instead of focusing on something specific (IE: Communicate with a spirit guide, find an answer to your question), you are focusing on becoming aware in a dream, and attempting to manipulate that dream (usually for fun).

In short: I'm more inclined to say that your nightmares might have been triggered by some fear of the unknown or bad experiences while meditating. Meditation (and lucid dreaming) require no fear to work effectively. You must be positive throughout the entire experience, regardless of what you witness.

-foss

a good technique to wake yourself up while your dreaming is setting an alarm maybe 8 times a day. Have a specific ringtone (not your normal alarm). Every time your alarm goes off, look at it, turn it off, and ask yourself "am i dreaming?" and really pay attention because sometimes dreams can still fool you into thinking they are waking physical reality.

Get in the habit of doing this everyday. The alarm will translate into your dream reality because the dream world is an echo of what your physical day was like. Eventually when the alarm goes off in your dream you will ask yourself during your dream if you are dreaming. Hopefully you have the awareness to realize you are.

Another thing to do is every time you walk through a doorway in real life, ask yourself if your dreaming. The same concept apply's here. It is a little harder to remember to do though.

Also remember in the lucid dream/astral realm you have complete power over your entire experience including the beings that are sharing the dream with you. Remember that what you think is what you get in a dream, this is why you can fly, or shape shift, or teleport, or use telekinesis, or literally whatever you can possible imagine.

Your consciousness dictates your reality in the dream world. It possibly works like this in the physical world too, but its going to take a little longer to prove that one.

Be careful about some of the advice above imo. Seek answers outside of ATS. Your experience with meditation is not unique and you probably will experience more--of whatever it/they are--if you seek to induce lucid dreaming. Not sure it's worth the risk. Google more and make up your own mind.

Good luck and please update here and let us know how it goes.

do not listen to anyone who tells you it is dangerous. I've been lucid dreaming since I was 6 and astral projecting for 14 years now. Never has a demon attacked me. I've never been physically hurt by something in the lucid realm.

When you fear something like a demon, you are manifesting it in thought form. The more you fear it, or think about it, the more power you give away from your own consciousness and you will manifest them (weird beings seeming to attack) in your lucid world.

They are not real, they are a manifestation of your own consciousness. I've had many dreams where demons have attacked me. Became lucid, and thought them away. Or killed them, or whatever i was in the mood for.

This is your own virtual reality created by the deepest part of your subconscious. Fear is the only limit.

a reply to: The GUT

I think the OP has a better shot at getting the answers on here, as some of us are knowledgeable on the topics. Lucid dreaming is safe, there is no risk.

Do you have any experiences of your own to share that say it is not safe?

My answers were based on years of inducing lucid dreams and astral projections. The only risk is believing that something can harm you.

Also, What advice specifically above should the OP be wary of? They asked for techniques, and what we all thought. You sound as if you're implying you know something we aren't aware of - I'd like to see what google links you are looking at.

-foss

I lucid dream often; I wouldn't say I can do it at will, like flipping a light switch, but I can create situations where lucid dreaming is more likely to happen.

There are three simply things I do to improve the likely hood thar I will lucid dream:

1) make sure that I'm already well rested. If I'm exhausted I can't lucid dream. So a weekend morning, when I have already slept a good 7-8 hours, but can stay in bed because I don't have anywhere to go, makes for a good time to lucid dream.

2) disrupt the natural sleep cycle. Everyone has their own sleep cycle where they move from a waking state (or near waking) and deep sleep and back again. Mine takes about 90 minutes. Its at the end of the cycle that REM sleep occurs and you are likely to dream. If you move yourself closer a waking state at the same time your body wants to preform REM than you are more likely to be more aware if your dreaming. Using some type of soft alarm to disrupt your sleep cycle when your in REM but than allowing your self to "snooze" helps.

3) be aware and open to the weird/mistakes/impossible things in your dreams. All dreams have things that are just not right and if you were mindful of them you would know with out question that you are dreaming. Problem is your not use to questioning the world around you; awake or sleeping. Most of the time you go through life just accepting what you see; so when you dream it's no different. But if you get into the habit of questioning your seroundings; than you'll also do it while dreaming simply out of habit. What I do when I've decided "I'd like to lucid dream this weekend" I'll start playing mind games a few days before; wherein I question everything in the waking world.


So I don't know about demons. I'm not the type of person who believe in such things readily. But I do try to keep an open mind in life.

I can't say my lucid dreaming attacks anything bad; most of the time it's a pleasint experience if a bit weird at times.

However one time while I was lucid dreaming; I was dreaming I was in my back yard when I became aware I was dreaming; I didn't plan this lucid dream so I didn't have any agenda so I just decided to fly around my back yard cause flying is always fun.

Well at some point I get back to my backdoor and I realize theirs a "person" standing on my deck. I didn't conger him and he seemed out of place like ... why would I even be dreaming of this guy unconsciously ... then he asked my to invite him into my house. At that point everything seemed wrong. I was still lucid dreaming, I knew I was dreaming, I could still control most of the dream but I couldn't control the guy. I couldn't just make him go away or change him and ext.

So I tell the guy that he can't come in my house and I proceed to go inside myself to put some distance between us. Thats when he got mad and started to advance and attack me in my doorway. I was able to push him aside and shut the door and look it. Then the dream went from a nice sunny day to a dark rainy night. I couldn't control anything anymore but I knew I was still dreaming.

The guy locked outside my back door was snarling at me and banging for me to let him in. Then I see him think about something as if a light bulb went off in his head and he begins to go round my house toward my front door. I quickly go over to my front door and lock it. Just about the time he would need to round my house I look out my window and instead of the man coming round he has changed to a rabid dog and is barking at my front door. But even though he was now a barking dog I could still understand that he was demanding I let him in.

It was at that point I decided the best away to stop him was to just wake up ... so I did.

Like I said im not the type to believe in demons, but if they do exist than that was the only time I ran into one.