Lucid Dreaming Trouble

Bit of background first, I try to lucid dream most nights and I keep a dream journal to both keep track of all my dreams and to enhance future ones.

The dream started like this - I was trying to enter my mom's number into a phone, but no matter how many times I tried, it just wouldn’t work right. The phone seemed to flicker with an unearthly light, the numbers shifting and dancing like an enchantment gone awry.

Frustration grew, and I paused, a whisper of doubt crossing my mind. Almost like I was being possessed by another dreamer.

Suddenly, I found myself in a moonlit forest. An altar stood before me, candles flickering with an otherworldly flame. The air was charged with the presence of something powerful, and I realized I was not alone. Shadows danced around me, figures with glowing eyes watching from the darkness.

A voice, deep and resonant, broke the silence. "You are at the threshold of power, but you turn away." It was then I realized I had stopped myself from dreaming, from embracing the full potential of the dream. I noticed demons lurking at the edges of my vision who seemed to mock me, their laughter mingling with the rustling leaves.

The realization hit me hard, and I woke up with a start, sweating. I had been so close to unlocking something profound, only to let it slip away. Lucid dreaming, and indeed all dreaming, is a sacred journey, a realm where we can tap into hidden truths and unlock the vast reservoirs of our imaginations. I keep asking myself today why I failed to harness the transformative power of my own subconscious last night and was so frightened I had to stop myself.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

Why, though? What do you hope to achieve?

We cannot help whether we dream, nor our dreams' contents.

They are thought to an effect of the brain's internal "housekeeping". The brain needs us to be asleep while it gets on with its vital self-care work, while also keeping the rest of alive. Dreams often reflect real memories but rarely if ever have any real "meanings", "interpretations" or "hidden truths" - whatever they are.

(Those people who claim to be able to "explain" your dreams are mistaken at best, charlatans at worst.]

Your last paragraph suggests you want to worry needlessly about something genuinely harmless, meaningless and out of your control; and I wonder where you have gained these ideas.

Stop worrying over this mix of cod-psychology and amateur mysticism, wherever you found it. Let yourself sleep properly, let your brain look after itself - and you - while your are asleep, as it should!

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

@SparklyPrincess Thankyou for explaining it.

I do have extremely well-detailed dreams but curiously even when they are supposedly set in real places (including my former work place!) or include one or two real people, the locations are very surreal versions of reality.

I recall dreaming about work only once when I was working - and I was on holiday at the time - but have done so several times in the years since I retired.

Otherwise my imagination - or whatever it is that generates them - creates totally new locations, indoors or out, based on little or nothing I have ever seen! Yet the people in them are usually just vague palimpsests; or perhaps one is recognisable and the others are vague and out of focus.

I've also had unpleasant dreams of the type I think called "hypnagogic", for me at least, hallucinations created by seeing real objects in the very low light while almost asleep, and my mind distorting them into strange and even threatening things.

Have you ever dreamt music, as something "heard" but not "seen"? I recollect this only twice, the first time when I thought my parents had gone to bed but forgotten to switch off a radio downstairs, as I could "hear" an operatic soprano signing. Yet I was too young to know anything about opera or art-songs, and did not like those genres at the time!

As I say, I don't believe in "interpreting" dreams or trying to use them in any way, but I know there are many anecdotes of people waking having solved some problem in their sleep. Instead, I am intrigued by what may be happening to construct dreams.

If, as I gather is the accepted theory, dreams are a by-product of the brain refreshing and re-storing our memories, that may account for the work dreams. Yet why would mine go and totally invent finely-detailed settings, or warp real ones into bizarre versions? Odd!