Third Party Lucid Dreaming Interference

Hello ATS, I was wondering what thoughts you'd have on third party interference with Lucid Dreaming?

It is a skill which I use very very sparingly for thought experiments; the other night I was lucid dreaming only to have the session ended by interference. (yeah, playing superman and flying around is great and all, but being able to have a thought experiment in an atemporal environment where you control the settings has other vital applications.)

In this situation, the interference manifested itself as a doppelganger/vehicle with tinted windows. This (what I imagine is an anthropomorphic personification,) caused interference by creating atemporal/nonlinear events in such quick succession that I had no choice but to wake myself up. The funny thing was, each time I put myself back into that level of deep-sleep the level of interference would increase... more and more "actors" would start following me around in the dream and interfere with whatever I was doing. Culminating with me hiding from them and placing a linear marker for later reference.

This is not like the movie inception, but pretty close to it. The fact that the movie came out dealing with this issue, in part, shows how prevalent it is in the populace if anything. In other words, I'm not just saying this because I watched the movie.

Now, I'm not saying that it was some "demonic entity" or anything like that mind you; your dream state is effected by your brain, which in turn can be affected by inputs e.g. electromagnetic energy, light sequences, sounds, ingested substances, etc. so try not to get all weird on me.

So, has anyone else experienced this issue? And what methods are there to avoiding/remedying the situation. I'm going to go to a library to see what I can find, but the last time I checked there was a conspicuous absence of literature on the subject.

Of course, I'll ask others as well.

My initial guess is electromagnetic energy which affected the brains activity (brain waves,) in such a manner that certain frequencies (alpha waves, theta waves, delta waves,) experienced interference or sleep deprivation. You may thing electromagnetic energy is an "out there" explanation, but wireless technology/cell phones have been proven by the WHO to alter brain wave activity (not cancer though.)

What kind of applications do you use lucid dreaming for? I've been working on improving my skills with this for a while, and the other night I ended up doing an astral jump I guess - although it was pretty rough around the edges for sure.

If you successfully do lucid dream, I am fairly sure (as in sure but not done it myself yet) that you can use that as a platform for such things as astral and time travel.

My lucid dreaming abilities are incredibly inconsistent. The only interference I have in my dreams comes from a friend of mine whom I am psychically connected to, she will send me a message every once in a while, two nights ago, she was freaking out. Although I know that my mom at one time was meeting up with a council during her meditations (of Buddhist influence) before she ended up having a stroke - I'm not sure she can meditate any longer.

I would like to add that my mom would communicate with one of her friends both in a communal meditation ground and in person, and would share information that way, and it would be consistent.

What I am saying, is from my experience and my research efforts, I am sure that it is possible you could be getting interference - especially if it seems like these guys have free wills of their own - I would forget about the demon terminology, as extra-dimensional would be more appropriate, or anything, even interfering playful entities or other people who decided to enter your dream for some reason.

The best way to determine their threat level or whatever would be through behaviorism - just see what they are up to, and it is what it is. There are shielding techniques, banishing techniques, etc. you could try.

Since it is a lucid dream, you could just make up your own framework for whatever it is you want to do, a banishing technique would work, I've used that before, although not on anything I would consider interfering with my lucid dream - just a bad dreamscape situation.

Originally posted by darkbake
What kind of applications do you use lucid dreaming for? I've been working on improving my skills with this for a while, and the other night I ended up doing an astral jump I guess - although it was pretty rough around the edges for sure.

If you successfully do lucid dream, I am fairly sure (as in sure but not done it myself yet) that you can use that as a platform for such things as astral and time travel.

My lucid dreaming abilities are incredibly inconsistent. The only interference I have in my dreams comes from a friend of mine whom I am psychically connected to, she will send me a message every once in a while, two nights ago, she was freaking out. Although I know that my mom at one time was meeting up with a council during her meditations (of Buddhist influence) before she ended up having a stroke - I'm not sure she can meditate any longer.

I would like to add that my mom would communicate with one of her friends both in a communal meditation ground and in person, and would share information that way, and it would be consistent.

What I am saying, is from my experience and my research efforts, I am sure that it is possible you could be getting interference - especially if it seems like these guys have free wills of their own - I would forget about the demon terminology, as extra-dimensional would be more appropriate, or anything, even interfering playful entities or other people who decided to enter your dream for some reason.

The best way to determine their threat level or whatever would be through behaviorism - just see what they are up to, and it is what it is. There are shielding techniques, banishing techniques, etc. you could try.

Since it is a lucid dream, you could just make up your own framework for whatever it is you want to do, a banishing technique would work, I've used that before, although not on anything I would consider interfering with my lucid dream - just a bad dreamscape situation.

edit on 27-8-2013 by darkbake because: (no reason given)

I'm sorry, to me "psychic" means having to do with the mind. What you refer to is something which falls outside of my experience. Astral projection/time travel/remote viewing/psychic communication isn't something I have any input on.

As to applications, I use it for whatever thought experiment needs a atemporal dimensionless stage that can be populated by my mind? For example, playing out scenarios. I'm told most people use it for playing out fantasies which would otherwise be impossible. I try not to lucid dream too often because

1.) I'm not really trained to do so, aka I'm piss poor at it.

2.) It makes my head hurt sometimes.

3.) Not being able to control a lucid dream and ending up getting chased by "entities/constructs" is terrifying.

As I said regarding extra-dimensional beings, etc. I don't believe in them. If you see any, make sure to tell them for me.

That being said I'd imagine that compartmentalization of stages would make more sense then "shielding" yourself from (what I hope is,) your subconscious? Could you explain what you mean by "shielding"? Specific techniques?

Or for that matter, how do you go about studying such a entity/construct? As I said, I'm firmly of the opinion that such constructs are merely my brains way of depicting interference with brain waves and sleep stages, rather than sentient beings. That is the nature of dreams when you get down to the brass tacks.

reply to post by teachtaire


I see, that makes sense. Well the procedure would be the same, nonetheless. If you find yourself in an astral dream state, you should be able to develop magical powers in there, or will the interfering entities out?

Well you are right, I think that most dreams are based on subconscious thoughts that are coming into play and being sorted out in your dream. For banishing, you could hold out your hand and shoot off a sonic attack or something at the interfering thing and it might go away, shielding...

That is hard to explain, and I'm not sure, this causes interference because it makes chaos in your dream that is probably not part of the normal dream sequence? I could see how that could get annoying.

reply to post by teachtaire


Check out this website: Dream Shielding

Don't worry about whether or not the entities are real or whatever, it is ultimately irrelevant, see if you can find some good techniques in there possibly?

I've both studied and done Shared Dreaming as well as remote dream influencing. Check my thread history, my first thread here on ats is about shared dreaming.

I'm not so sure what you've experienced is anything out of the ordinary.

Originally posted by teachtaire
In this situation, the interference manifested itself as a doppelganger/vehicle with tinted windows. This (what I imagine is an anthropomorphic personification,) caused interference by creating atemporal/nonlinear events in such quick succession that I had no choice but to wake myself up. The funny thing was, each time I put myself back into that level of deep-sleep the level of interference would increase... more and more "actors" would start following me around in the dream and interfere with whatever I was doing. Culminating with me hiding from them and placing a linear marker for later reference.

First of all, everything "coming at you" like that in a lucid dream is actually somewhat common. I call it "The Center of the Universe Effect". Everything just starts running directly at you, even helicopters!!! I can say with 100% certainty you're the one doing this. Dream control is all about directed attention through archetypal structures.

As for the focal point of your doppelganger/vehicle, I'd like you to consider the X factor of Novelty in dreams. Everything requires your attention to exist in dreams (this is key for stabilization and banishing), but novel, interesting or dangerous things draw more attention, making them more powerful.

I think it more likely you noticed something strange about this dream character, which caused you to put more attention into it, which in made it more powerful. Best way to defeat anything in a dream is to ignore it.


If I entered your dreams with the intention to mess with you, I can't do anything to you directly because even though it's a shared dream, we are each creating our own unique dreams which my not necessarily synch up perfectly. Because everything requires your attention to exist, the only thing I could actually do is trick you into harming yourself by manipulating your attention.

What I look for to identify outside influences is something messing with or otherwise manipulating the dreamer's attention. You hear the same thing in alien encounters, dmt trip reports, ghost/demon encounters. This is something that is common in ALL paranormal encounters.

When remote influencing dreams. I can send one thing. I try to choose something novel and attention grabbing so it will be noticed and hopefully remembered. Something like Fire, Tornados, rampaging elephants, explosions. I suppose in theory, I could make what I'm sending more complex a la Tulpa or magically constructed servitor.

I like how you're practicing stuff in your lucids. If you want a great in depth guide to dream control that works regardless of belief systems or paradigms, check out the link in my signature.

schizophrenics often experience dreams where they cause disasters or people make fun of them or follow them. The voices and paranoia increase this, but i believe it is induced and not a symptom. Someone out there may be experimenting with mind control on you, trying to scare you away from lucid dreaming. Until you understand things better, id say be careful of how you expiremnt, you could attract unwanted attention.

I almost never post. I have been a long time "reader" but never really feel compelled to voice my thoughts, until now! I don't have much time while at work, but I have for some time been thinking about posting my lucid dreaming experience on here. What you have described is exactly what has ENDED my ability to lucid dream. It started very basic, the ability to jump high for periods of time, not the ability to fly, just jump. As I continued to dream night after night I became stronger and could extend my flight time until I was eventually able to fly in my dreams! This took what seemed like months or even years. Eventually I was able to realize that I was in a complete dream state, always trying to explain to everyone in my dreams that "they were actually not real, and only a part of my dream state". They never seemed to listen. Anyways, it got to the point where I could jump from place to place, the beach, the mountain, where ever I wanted to be, until one night. I was jumping from place to place, taking complete control of my dreams until I ended up in a country setting. I was standing in a field of grass and the only thing in front of me was a barn in the distance with a ladder extending up to an open door, above the main door below, so in other words the second floor. I attempted to jump out and back to where ever I wanted but it was as if I was frozen to this spot. All of a sudden I was at the top of the ladder and a dark figure told me I was taking advantage of my abilities and from that point on I almost never lucid dream anymore. Occasionally I try to jump into the air again, but it never lasts...

I have had lucid dreams and the ability to fly has been practiced and achieved.
Then the attacks started, there are certain people who are trained to 'feel' a lucid dreamer and 'THEY' know who would be capable of this so THEY keep an eye on your abilities.

In the astral world there are artifacts that have been destroyed and THEY are getting a bit pissed off because these artifacts hold much power.
Everything that is physical is also in the astral world and there are artifacts in the physical world too, that Hitler started to find in WWII.

THEY have decided that all lucid dreamers are potential artifact destroyers so if you are a lucid dreamer you are now a target. If you are frightned enough by them to stop lucid dreaming, they leave you alone. If not they send nightmare dreams after you.

These I have had, they are not nice. So I found a way to get them back.
I wake myself up and find the thread they leave, follow it conciously and then attack them before they can rise out of their dream state. I usually leave a calling card; physically. This usually leaves them too frightened to be of any use to their controllers.

It can only be used in defence though, they have to attack first otherwise you are in violation and your abilities get demoted.

There is a war in the astral world at present and all psychics who dream, are being called up to serve-on both sides. The dark and the Light.

It is weird this thread appeared.

I have had only a handful of dreams over the past 15 years. Seriously I do NOT dream. I wish I did as I remember having them as a youth.

Now don't go telling me that I just don't remember them blah blah. There is honestly no remnants or even a hint that I dream. However 'IF' I do dream, (which may be once every few years) I immediately awake because I know darn well it is a dream.

OK, now back on topic, the AMAZING thing was just a few nights ago, I had what many of you may consider a 'lucid' dream. It was honestly something I have failed to remember that even existed. 'The dream world'!!

Now of course I 'knew' I was dreaming yet did not awake! How I knew it was a dream was the very fact you mentioned.... a doppleganger! A person who I knew that was in this dream had a double, or as you say a doppleganger pass by in a TINTED out vehicle, yet with the widow open, seemingly spying or just noticing my dream companion. I even mentioned this to the person (in this dream state) and we concluded we must be in some parallel universe or something to that effect.

You have to understand my urge to seek the profoundness of actually having this dream, let alone the duration of it. While my biennial dreams are fraught with brevity, this particular one lasted, and was really one of the few dreams I've had in the past 15-20 years.

I hope someone can shed some light on this "double" phenomenon, and could there possibly be something interfering with the (my) dream world??

reply to post by teachtaire

So, has anyone else experienced this issue? And what methods are there to avoiding/remedying the situation. I'm going to go to a library to see what I can find, but the last time I checked there was a conspicuous absence of literature on the subject.

Just like inception, there are PROFOUNDLY deep levels of the psyche subconscious, of which you are just scratching the surface in lucid dreaming. Exactly what you experienced is exactly what happens when you start to plunge into the depths of the Subconscious.

There is stuff/things down there that will mentally/psychologically and absolutely destroy you if you are no prepared in various forms of detachment/mantra/prayer/disciplined Faith. I'm talking collective conscious Archetypes, inner demons, the source of Animalistic lust, the source of thought, there are portals from which you can never return and will never be the same ever again.

Of course, this is part of the Enlightenment process, to Spring clean the subconscious and ultimately transcend it entirely, by finding it's source in the depths. If you want to do this while completely awake, eyes closed, in meditation, go on youtube and look up 42 Hz Gamma brain Entrainment. It's the frequency which those who have Enlightenment vibrate at.

I must strongly warn you though. Do it once, or a few times, if you go more that 3-4 days in a row, then that is your own fault. There needs to be an acclimation period......

Also, you'll find that stuff the surfaces from the Subconscious, will also have affects on your regular everyday reality, job, relationships, luck, women, health, etc......Don't ever say I didn't warn you. The rabbit hole runs deep and you're treading down one specifically in which people go into years of Solitude to conquer.

BE careful!!!!!

reply to post by AriesJedi

I have felt hindered, obstructed, and discouraged in my lucid dreams as well. I was never good at inducing lucid dreams (they're pretty rare for me, I've had a total of about 9) but when I do have them, I usually have decent control for a "beginner". I've had these types of problems before but one dream sticks out in my mind that seems to relate to what you were saying, maybe we are on the same wavelength here. I've never thought of these problems as physical interference though, I always assumed it was just my imagination getting a little out of whack. You could be onto something though. I hope this isn't too longwinded, just trying to share and hopefully be of some help.

In this dream I had just accidentally learned how to fly. I entered the dream not where I wanted to be but on a road in the middle of nowhere that stretched as far as I could see in both directions, so I decided to pick a direction and run superhumanly fast until I found something. Which worked out great until I accidentally lifted off and started flying for the first time, freaked out a little because I thought I was going to uncontrollably fly straight into space (lol) and finally found my control. I was having a grand ol' time looking down at everything when all the sudden I just ran out of steam and started falling back to the earth, and I crash landed in what looked like an old west ghost town but with abandoned vehicles. As soon as I hit the ground people started attacking me. I had to go into survival mode and summon my car with weapons and we proceeded to have a massive gunfight.

I didn't want to fight, I wanted to explore and try things. It actually ruined the whole experience and caused the dream to end early -- everything faded to grey and I "woke up" (still dreaming and lucid) in a room with a friend whom I was angrily complaining to about how everything in the dream had gone horribly wrong -- the location problem, accidentally flying and crashing, being attacked, gun jamming, etc. I summoned a room full of weapons behind a door and walked in examining everything and I picked out a few things stating that I was going to take these with me into every lucid dream from then on "just in case". Which was a good idea but it doesn't seem to work that way as I usually enter the dream with nothing but the clothes on my back, although I can usually manage to poof something into existence when I need it.

In short, I haven't really found a reliable way yet to counter these little lucid mishaps. But I do have some ideas about it:

#1: Play straight through it. Accept it for what it is, do what you have to do to end it, and go back to whatever you were intending to get done. This admittedly isn't such a good option because that was my plan in the dream above, and it resulted in completely forgetting about what I was doing, and ultimately leaving the dream early.

#2: Immediately leave the area. This might not be a viable option for you, but it helped me on one occasion. I basically told the interloper to go screw himself, ignored what he was doing, and hopped off a building to go do something else.

#3: If you have good control over your lucid dreams, try to make the distractions simply disappear. A lot of times I have a hard time making things appear or disappear within my vision, but I've had good luck doing it (with objects, not characters) around a corner, on the other side of a door, behind my back, etc. Something to think about.

You mentioned that it's scary when you can't control the dream and end up getting chased -- it's like what happened to me here. In later dreams I have started to realize that I don't necessarily have to react the way the dream is pushing me to react. Take this basic attitude with you: "I'm the god of this dream, it will go as I say." It was that sort of thought that made me able to have much better control for example in my 5th and 6th dreams as opposed to 2nd and 3rd. In one of my last lucid dreams before I went through a huge dry spell I had a situation kind of like the dream above, I was about to be attacked by 4 people and I wasn't in the mood for it (getting attacked is always my interference). But I stopped and made a conscious decision that if this was going to happen it was going to go my way -- I stretched out my hand and froze one guy into a solid block of ice and caused another one to age rapidly from 20s to 90s and beyond, beard and all. The other two who were going to attack me decided to go bother someone else after that.

Be creative, take control. Also, I second the recommendation to DreamViews. I used to post there when I was doing a better job of keeping track of my dreams and having lucids, it's a great community.

reply to post by duke396

I agree with you completely.
Whenever I lucid dream, there always comes a point in my dream when distractions start to appear.

If it's a natural disaster- I fly away
If it's a person trying to harm me- I either fly to another part of the world or simply make them disappear, I shut them out of my dream.

In the beginning when I was lucid dreaming I used to tell the people in my dream that 'this is a dream, I can do whatever I want', but now I just go on flying to the most beautiful spots I can imagine and using telekinesis, pyrokinesis, etc.

Whatever is causing these distractions during lucid dreaming,- I really don't know the cause- I have learned to get rid of them, by taking back the control.

Ps: This "doppelganger" thing in lucid dreams is new to me,I have never heard of this before, and have never experienced it, and I would like to learn more about this phenomenon, if anyone has information, please enlighten me.

reply to post by Rainbowresidue

Pyrokinesis, why have I never thought of that? Must try! I'm probably so out of practice with my dream skills though, it's going to take me some time to get back into it all. Real life distractions have made it difficult to devote time to my dreams like I used to; my main advantage was that I had been keeping a dream journal religiously for years before I even knew what lucid dreaming was, so my recall was great. Over the past two years though I barely ever remember my dreams. I'm finally to a point again where I can devote some time to it and I'm kind of excited.

I've never seen a natural disaster in my dreams, that might be interesting for me, maybe try to play with the physics of a tornado. My main focus before was exploring and trying new things, but I kept getting into stupid fights all the time and getting distracted. Not that it wasn't fun in itself, but it was kinda like "hey, a little busy here." On the other hand, it helped me learn how to handle my dream control better in a higher stress situation.

I really want to say I've heard of the doppleganger thing before but I can't remember, I think someone on DV was talking about it a long time ago? It's never happened to me, not in a lucid dream anyway...

I can only rarely get intentionally lucid in a dream these days, although it was constant for me until I was around 18 or so, and for a few months when I was around 28... that was 20 years ago.

I do practice a type of archetype meditation which is a semi-freeform interaction with the inter-worlds as Corbin labeled them. This is usually but not always done in an altered state, sometimes to the point of theta and delta, which would make it overlap with the definition of dreaming for sure, but is not what is classically referred to as a lucid dream.

I've had some offbeat dream interference in the past though. Some being programmed dreams, with sub-dreams. Others being what I called (in the dream itself, talking with someone else, both of us aware we were dreaming but trapped in the same place) a 'dream implant' -- they were numbered! (#25 was a beautiful woman who distracted men, such as my friend I was with in the dream. She sent me to a waiting room that took me a while to find my way out of, as it was a trap -- a woman already trapped in there talked with me about her.)

I've had dreams with entities before. e.g. the Abramelin entity on invisibility was very kind. I told him the whole story of the Flatlanders and why my people thought we couldn't see his, and he educated me about why we really don't see entities like him and how to do it -- nice Being. He was about the only one in the book I read that didn't seem either ridiculous or worrisome. I expect it might be possible for 'external influences' to get into dreams -- maybe.

I'm not sure how much of dreams are entirely 'us' projected; but then again perhaps we can say that about reality; and if it's universally true, then it becomes universally meaningless at the same time I guess. I think the frequencies where we are present when dreaming overlap the worlds of what Casteneda called the inorganics, and they show up in dreams. I think that is all part of us, but as noted, I guess if it's that way all the way it's too pervasive to bother noticing.

In my archetype work, by its nature everything -- even the landscape, structures, events, objects, and weather, as well as anything 'active' -- is all considered 'the symbolic manifestation of my relationship with certain energy'. Which is to say that since it's all considered a direct result of my relationship with something, then changing my relationship changes the symbol or how it manifests. I can do that directly (e.g. interact with what is there) or indirectly (e.g. create a meter, sort of a symbol-of-that-symbol, and work with that).

Perhaps you could try that. Actually that movie Inception you mention did something very good for me: many times when I've been in meditations since then, I stop what I am doing and tell myself: DREAM BIGGER!

Very useful.

Originally posted by AriesJedi
I have had lucid dreams and the ability to fly has been practiced and achieved.
Then the attacks started, there are certain people who are trained to 'feel' a lucid dreamer and 'THEY' know who would be capable of this so THEY keep an eye on your abilities.

In the astral world there are artifacts that have been destroyed and THEY are getting a bit pissed off because these artifacts hold much power.
Everything that is physical is also in the astral world and there are artifacts in the physical world too, that Hitler started to find in WWII.

THEY have decided that all lucid dreamers are potential artifact destroyers so if you are a lucid dreamer you are now a target. If you are frightned enough by them to stop lucid dreaming, they leave you alone. If not they send nightmare dreams after you.

These I have had, they are not nice. So I found a way to get them back.
I wake myself up and find the thread they leave, follow it conciously and then attack them before they can rise out of their dream state. I usually leave a calling card; physically. This usually leaves them too frightened to be of any use to their controllers.

It can only be used in defence though, they have to attack first otherwise you are in violation and your abilities get demoted.

There is a war in the astral world at present and all psychics who dream, are being called up to serve-on both sides. The dark and the Light.

Absolutely fascinating!!

How does one go about consciously inducing a lucid dream? Are there "easy" techniques?

I only ask because this subject astounds me and I wish to learn more!

reply to post by toxicspikes


Well, the non-spiritual scientific methodological way to do it is to either have external stimuli or to try to read something while you are in a dream. Having difficulty reading the same thing twice should be a major clue.

reply to post by teachtaire


I will definitely try the reading thing tonight, gotta program my subconscious to remember first though :p

Originally posted by teachtaire
Well, the non-spiritual scientific methodological way to do it is to either have external stimuli or to try to read something while you are in a dream. Having difficulty reading the same thing twice should be a major clue.

I was once in a lucid dream, sitting in a pizza parlor when I got lucid. I read the sign on the window (backward) and then looked away and looked back and sure enough it had changed some. Unfortunately, then I met this guy I really wanted to connect with -- in the dream, he was an employee who was quitting and walking out -- and I was trying to give him my email address or phone number, but I couldn't get it to work, of course, LOL! I finally told him, "I'd really like to give you my contact info, but I'm in a lucid dream right now, and writing won't stay still." This didn't seem too weird to him, but he left. Ah well, another good man lost.