dreams

[sakura]

about a year ago i had dreams in which i was full consicous...i can do whatever i want and literally move on my own but i couldnt wake up like i was trapped there and all things there seemed strange and hateful i dont know but i just wanted to just return to my real world but great effort i somehow managed to return..

but now i dont suffer from that but can anyone guide me what was all that because i couldnt find any explaination 

[Eise]

I do not think this is a philosophical topic, I would say it is psychological. But whatever.

This sounds very much like sleep paralysis.

I have had such episodes twice. The first time was during a big milestone in my life: moving from the Netherlands to Switzerland, so to speak leave my whole life until then behind. During the night I woke up felt my heart beating, and could not move. I thought I was dying. Then I noticed that I could steer just one thing: my breath. I started to breath consciously and intensively. On doing that, I returned to my 'normal mode'. I could move again, and all the fears blew away.

A second time, many years later, I recognised the feelings, and started breathing immediately. And so the bad feelings vanished pretty quickly.

Do these things (my experiences and the Wikipedia article) sound familiar? Please let us know.

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

Moved to Psychiatry & Psychology.

 

[Prometheus]

Sounds to me more like a lucid dream from which you were unable to wake, as sometimes happens in nightmares. 

Sleep paralysis is often accompanied by the sense of a malign presence and/or impending doom. Did you experience this? Were you just trapped in the dream or were you unable to move your actual body?

[Eise]

On 10/16/2018 at 4:15 PM, Prometheus said:

Sounds to me more like a lucid dream from which you were unable to wake, as sometimes happens in nightmares. 

Also a good suggestion. But when Sakura does not react, we will never know. 

[Prometheus]

2 hours ago, Eise said:

But when Sakura does not react, we will never know. 

True. Let me take the opportunity to ask about your experience in a little more detail: i've had thousands of these episodes in my life , many atypical compared to the literature, so it interests me.

You had the sense of impending death, but was this embodied in a presence? When you controlled your breathing did you not find it constrained to a degree - normally the intercostal muscles are also paralysed and the mind interprets this as a weight on the chest (in European cultures) or being bound in chains (Japanese)? Also did you experience pain anywhere?

[Eise]

On 10/18/2018 at 10:42 AM, Prometheus said:

You had the sense of impending death, but was this embodied in a presence? When you controlled your breathing did you not find it constrained to a degree - normally the intercostal muscles are also paralysed and the mind interprets this as a weight on the chest (in European cultures) or being bound in chains (Japanese)? Also did you experience pain anywhere?

Uih.. it is a long time ago. I interpreted the phenomena as the possibility of dying: my heart beating strongly, and not being able to move. Maybe (but now I am already interpreting) I did not breath when I woke up, realised that after a while, and then started breathing consciously. I do not remember pain. Sorry I can't tell more. It is about 25 years ago.

[sakura]

i am sorry i couldnt respond earlier..

yeah i have experienced sleep paralysis too....but i didnt bother me much because i have heard about it and it seemed natural to me..

actually i was concerned about the condition happening in my dream...casually we dont control our dreams i mean consiously..but in my dream i can control it the happenings and other stuff just like i said i could move on my own..but i could everything except of escaping from my dream..coming to reality..

i just wanna know an explaination and out of curiosity if anyone has experienced it ?

[Prometheus]

It's definitely sounds like a lucid dream. Being unable to wake from a dream happens frequently, to me at least, usually in nightmares proceeding a sleep paralysis event. I'm unsure how well being unable to wake is documented in the literature' sleep and particularly dreams aren't well understood processes, so i'm unsure of a name for it. Does your dream experience have negative connotations? Otherwise why the need to escape; you could enjoy it - you can do pretty much whatever you want, although it is a subtle skill to control your dreams. If you really want to learn to break out of your dreams all i can tell you is that it is a skill i managed to pick up so i imagine it possible for others too.

Edited October 19, 2018 by Prometheus

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, Prometheus said:

It's definitely sounds like a lucid dream. Being unable to wake from a dream happens frequently, to me at least, usually in nightmares proceeding a sleep paralysis event. I'm unsure how well being unable to wake is documented in the literature' sleep and particularly dreams aren't well understood processes, so i'm unsure of a name for it. Does your dream experience have negative connotations? Otherwise why the need to escape; you could enjoy it - you can do pretty much whatever you want, although it is a subtle skill to control your dreams. If you really want to learn to break out of your dreams all i can tell you is that it is a skill i managed to pick up so i imagine it possible for others too.

I've "woken up" twice and  still be in a dream before. I realised I was lucid dreaming and proceeded to launch myself into the sky and over the rooftops.   You are actually not far away from waking in this state, so I always did my best to stay in it.

[sakura]

2 hours ago, Prometheus said:

It's definitely sounds like a lucid dream. Being unable to wake from a dream happens frequently, to me at least, usually in nightmares proceeding a sleep paralysis event. I'm unsure how well being unable to wake is documented in the literature' sleep and particularly dreams aren't well understood processes, so i'm unsure of a name for it. Does your dream experience have negative connotations? Otherwise why the need to escape; you could enjoy it - you can do pretty much whatever you want, although it is a subtle skill to control your dreams. If you really want to learn to break out of your dreams all i can tell you is that it is a skill i managed to pick up so i imagine it possible for others too.

well the dream starts just fine but then as soon as i realise it isnt reality then i felt like something hampering my way back to reality..

so you can say that it gradually becomes a negative one as it proceeds

[Prometheus]

On 19/10/2018 at 9:33 PM, sakura said:

so you can say that it gradually becomes a negative one as it proceeds

I'd recommend trying to enjoy the experience first: go for a fly around the cosmos - maybe look into the heart of a sun. 

But if you want out there's a few things you could try. Focus on something difficult; try to divide 377 by 13, try counting backwards from 500 in intervals of 7, try to solve that crossword clue that was bugging you all day. You could also try to focus on some detail of the dream, like a fork: what is it made of, what colour, what is it's texture, where did you pick it up from. Finally you could try focusing on your physical body sleeping in your bed. Pick a particular hand and concentrate all your will on moving that hand.

Pick just one of these at a time though. Good luck.

[mistermack]

I've had the sleep paralysis experience, but in my case, it was because I dreamt that I woke, when in fact I didn't. So I thought that I was awake and unable to move, but I was just dreaming it.

The most dramatic dream experience by far that I ever experienced was more than 35 years ago. I dreamt that I had killed someone, and hid the body in a hedge. I woke up for real, but somehow, I was still believing the dream. It took till the middle of the day to work it out. I was in a deadly depression, thinking of the rest of my life being spent in prison. I started to try to think of ways of getting away with it, and thought I should move the body to somewhere safer. But I just couldn't remember exactly which hedge I had left it in. That really confused me, and I sat down and thought, "surely you would remember where you left a body" ? And then I realised that I didn't even know who I'd killed. And it slowly began to dawn on me that it must have been a dream.

This had been all so real, that you can imagine the incredible relief that flooded through me, that I hadn't killed anyone, and I wasn't going to prison for life.

(no drugs of any sort were involved by the way)

[DrmDoc]

On 10/16/2018 at 6:55 AM, sakura said:

about a year ago i had dreams in which i was full consicous...i can do whatever i want and literally move on my own but i couldnt wake up like i was trapped there and all things there seemed strange and hateful i dont know but i just wanted to just return to my real world but great effort i somehow managed to return..

but now i dont suffer from that but can anyone guide me what was all that because i couldnt find any explaination 

If I'm not too late to this discussion, definitively a lucid dream wherein you experienced an awareness of being within a dream.  To understand your experience it's best to know that all dreams arise from activations in the brain associated it's metabolic needs during sleep.  Our brain consumes about 20% of our total energy uptake, which is a continuous process even while we sleep.  These brain activations in sleep involve the same cognitive centers we use to navigate our conscious experience of physical/material reality.  Therefore, dreaming is a type of wakefulness or altered state of consciousness amid sleep.  The distinction in the brain between dreaming and true consciousness involves a distinction between the sort of stimuli or sensory information our brain receives and processes while in its divergent states of consciousness.  All dreams, including lucid dreaming, are a response to stimuli our wakeful brain amid sleep seek to interpret. Therefore, dreams and everything you experience within them are interpretations of stimuli that you perceive when your brain arouses amid sleep to service its metabolic needs.  In understanding what your lucid dream experience may signify, you should consider what sort of stimuli your sleep brain appears to be interpreting.  Focusing on the overall context of your dream, you were trying to escape a state or condition that you knew wasn't real or reality.  Was it, perhaps, a reflection of some social or mental state or condition you were experiencing around that time a year ago?    

Edited November 3, 2018 by DrmDoc

[sakura]

On 03/11/2018 at 11:07 PM, DrmDoc said:

If I'm not too late to this discussion, definitively a lucid dream wherein you experienced an awareness of being within a dream.  To understand your experience it's best to know that all dreams arise from activations in the brain associated it's metabolic needs during sleep.  Our brain consumes about 20% of our total energy uptake, which is a continuous process even while we sleep.  These brain activations in sleep involve the same cognitive centers we use to navigate our conscious experience of physical/material reality.  Therefore, dreaming is a type of wakefulness or altered state of consciousness amid sleep.  The distinction in the brain between dreaming and true consciousness involves a distinction between the sort of stimuli or sensory information our brain receives and processes while in its divergent states of consciousness.  All dreams, including lucid dreaming, are a response to stimuli our wakeful brain amid sleep seek to interpret. Therefore, dreams and everything you experience within them are interpretations of stimuli that you perceive when your brain arouses amid sleep to service its metabolic needs.  In understanding what your lucid dream experience may signify, you should consider what sort of stimuli your sleep brain appears to be interpreting.  Focusing on the overall context of your dream, you were trying to escape a state or condition that you knew wasn't real or reality.  Was it, perhaps, a reflection of some social or mental state or condition you were experiencing around that time a year ago?    

Thank you for your consideration..acually that was the thing that there wasnt anything that stressed me during that time period..and these dreams were repeated after almost every 3 months so if there was anything that tensed me ,although that wasnt the case, that cant repeat after 3 months almost in a pattern..

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by sakura

[StringJunky]

On 03/11/2018 at 6:07 PM, DrmDoc said:

If I'm not too late to this discussion, definitively a lucid dream wherein you experienced an awareness of being within a dream.  To understand your experience it's best to know that all dreams arise from activations in the brain associated it's metabolic needs during sleep.  Our brain consumes about 20% of our total energy uptake, which is a continuous process even while we sleep.  These brain activations in sleep involve the same cognitive centers we use to navigate our conscious experience of physical/material reality.  Therefore, dreaming is a type of wakefulness or altered state of consciousness amid sleep.  The distinction in the brain between dreaming and true consciousness involves a distinction between the sort of stimuli or sensory information our brain receives and processes while in its divergent states of consciousness.  All dreams, including lucid dreaming, are a response to stimuli our wakeful brain amid sleep seek to interpret. Therefore, dreams and everything you experience within them are interpretations of stimuli that you perceive when your brain arouses amid sleep to service its metabolic needs.  In understanding what your lucid dream experience may signify, you should consider what sort of stimuli your sleep brain appears to be interpreting.  Focusing on the overall context of your dream, you were trying to escape a state or condition that you knew wasn't real or reality.  Was it, perhaps, a reflection of some social or mental state or condition you were experiencing around that time a year ago?    

If a dream is recurring, it can be because of a particular sleep routine. For example, I used to have dreams of being  underwater and running out of breathe as I desperately swim upwards to the surface and then wake up. I eventually pinned it down to burying my head under the blankets. I presume the carbon dioxide levels rose to the extent that it triggered that narrative.

Edited November 8, 2018 by StringJunky

[DrmDoc]

On 11/8/2018 at 11:37 AM, sakura said:

Thank you for your consideration..acually that was the thing that there wasnt anything that stressed me during that time period..and these dreams were repeated after almost every 3 months so if there was anything that tensed me ,although that wasnt the case, that cant repeat after 3 months almost in a pattern..

Apologies for this delayed response.  Although our dreams may seem profoundly significant, dreaming isn't the most significant aspect of the sleep process.  Actually, what occurs before and after each cycle of dreaming is more important to brain health and mental acuity than understanding what your dream experience or content may signify.  Wakeful brain activity, which is both consciousness and dreaming, requires energy that produces cell waste.  For our brain to function efficiently that waste must be removed, which is what occurs more efficiently during the sleep process when the brain is not dreaming. We experience several cycles of dreaming that increase in length as the sleep process progresses.  During the earlier cycles of this process, we experience longer stages of non-dreaming (NREM) sleep as our brain works to remove the extracellular waste produced by wakeful brain activity.  Dreaming cycles are shorter during this period as sort of a neural test of our brain's sustain connectivity after each period of waste removal.  This connectivity test effectively increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which arouses our brain's cognitive and perceptual centers.  Our dreams are a narrative of what our brain believes it is perceiving during these periods of cognition and perception.  Although you do not believe you were stressed when you were experiencing your lucid dreams, your dreams suggest that you were.  Understand that dreams are unconscious interpretations of experience; therefore, they are interpretation of experiences that may not have reached your conscious awareness...like being stressed and not being consciously aware that you were.  

Edited November 12, 2018 by DrmDoc

[EugeniaCarignan]

Lucid Dreaming usually allows a person to control the flow of events within the dream. However, the degree of control experienced will vary from person to person and from dream to dream. So sometimes you will have more control over your dreams than you will at others. The two things that are constant within a Lucid Dream are that you will have some degree of control over what happens within the dream and you will be aware that you are not awake, and that you are in fact dreaming. I agree that being stuck in your dreams can be stressful. You can ask someone about this, to the one who would have known about this or should have any unique ability in them like can say a psychic ability like commercial advertising link removed by moderator because people with different abilities can see things in a different way than others. One can also look for help by searching about it online.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Phi for All
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