Have You Ever Woken Yourself Up From A Bad Dream?

[Kaii]

One of my worst nightmares that is linked to my trauma, is the dream that it is my children( and not Sarah) who are abducted, raped and killed. I frequently wake up from these dreams crying hysterically. The feelings tend to follow me throughout the days as well. I know if I've had one of those dreams the night before, the day is just a write off.

Last night I dreamt my son was abducted while he was driving his bicycle, sexually molested and killed but this time it was different, I had a moment in my dream, during a moment that I was nearly hysterical with grief, that a voice came into my head and said "This is stupid. You're dreaming. Wake up".

And I opened my eyes and woke up immediately.

I was a little disoriented, going from full on nightmare to awake so quick but the end results were much better and the rest of the day was salvaged.

Has this ever happened to you?

 

[claudineriddle]

Yes, but it is a bit different. I saw that i am standing in the town. And I am alone there doing nothing.

 

[p-no]

Yes. I taught myself to do this and am still doing it sometimes. After waking up though I need to fully wake up, not just wake up for five minutes and getting dragged into sleep again. If I allow that to happen, the dream will either continue where it left off (no kidding) or it will repeat in some variation.
I have made use of this ability of "making it continue" for good dreams though! That's a good thing, continuing where you left off or restarting.

 

[Omnia vincit amor]

When you realize that it is 'just a dream' , the type of dreams are called lucid dreams. As soon as you are aware of it, you can learn to control the dream and you have the power to drive it in any directions
Many people are practicing 'lucid dreaming' techniques just to have some fun or adventures. In the case of nightmares it is a fantastic tool or ability.
I am also practicing now (rather trying to) but unfortunately not so far yet.

My typical nightmares are like loosing consciousness because of unbearable psychological pain (in my dream) or screaming because of the pain. So far I have no control. I wake up and the nightmare continues. It is my life.

 

[p-no]

Wow, I didn't even know there was a word for them. I thought I was nuts. ;)

I exercised it (no books or anything, just trying out what my mind could do) like I would autogenic training (hope this is the correct term; it's what the dictionary gives me). When I would go to bed (it takes me 60-90 minutes to go to sleep), I would focus on relaxing my body and focussing my mind on what I wanted to dream and it worked.

During nightmares, when you realize it's a dream, you can do a lot of things. One time, I dreamt that aliens were coming to earth with huge space ships making everyone sleep (aneasthesia) and stealing (no kidding) everyone's milk. The aneasthesia didn't work on me and I would hide behind an armchair and watch the one alien in my room. Then I would realize that this was a nightmare and I decided to face the "alien" because I wanted to know what that was a symbol for (or rather who). When I stood up two meters away from him, the alien turned into a human, a man. After all, what had scared me to death was only human. Then I woke myself up and the nightmare was gone. (I had had it several times over the years.) Incredible what the mind can do.

 

[Omnia vincit amor]

I was also told (it sound weird but actually makes sence) that if you test regularly during day whether you dreaming or not (touching or hitting objects etc), you can condition yourself to do it also while you are dreaming. It might also help to stop or control the nightmares...

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I tried once and couldn't. I literally thought I was in hell, as in dead and in hell. My family knows to never wake me up, but this day I was lucky that my brother knocked on my door and I jolted awake. Fortunately I never had a nightmare that bad again.

 

[Anna]

Yes, I have had this on many occasions. Quite often I can experience "lucid" dreaming. I also realise I am sleeping and can sometimes control my dreams.

The worst is when I try to wake myself up and then dream about being awake. Then something odd happens and I realise I am still asleep. I sometimes experience sleep paralysis. I will open my eyes and be unable to move. It is really terrifying.

During this weird paralysis I have seen some weird shit. I have seen demons, witches and other entities. The worst was this demon with black eyes. It was bald and white. It was sitting looking at my legs. My legs then twisted and moved in weird ways. I sensed it was trying to scare me. I stayed calm and thought to myself that it is just a dream and not real. This made it go away.

Strange the tricks the mind can play on you when you are sleeping or in the state of awaking.

 

[anthony]

Yep... in the past I have. Don't really have nightmares or such nowadays though.