Read A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming Online
Authors: Dylan Tuccillo,Jared Zeizel,Thomas Peisel
I notice that the town is no longer happy. It is full of darkness,
misery, and pain. It is hell on earth. As I start exploring this night-
mare, I begin to stumble across the “happy” people from earlier.
But they are no longer happy, because they are dead. When
I approach their dead bodies, I’m instantly sent back to relive
the last minute of their life. It always starts with them hiding
or running from one of the bad guys. Despite where I/they run
to, they always get caught and are brutally murdered. Right
before they die, I’m sent back into my own body. This happens
over and over again. I end up finding at least seven-plus bodies,
where I relive their deaths. The dream ends when the bad guys
find me in my body and chase me down. I’m about to be killed
and then I wake up. —JAReD Z.
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troubled relationships, or traumatic events can manifest them-
selves as dark forces come nighttime. If we have been avoiding
something in our daily lives, it will soon find a means to get our
attention. Nightmares might also be our subconscious’s response
to physical conditions such as illness, fever, medication, the use
of certain drugs (or a rapid withdrawal of them), upcoming life
changes, pregnancy, financial concerns, or a change in jobs.
Fortunately it’s possible to completely vanquish a nightmare in
a lucid dream. Like a bomb squad disarming a land mine, in this
chapter we’ll teach you how to defuse your nightmares. We’ll also
bring you in on a little secret: how to use nightmares as a shortcut
to becoming lucid. Nocturnal demons can be so frightening that
some people consciously commit to forgetting and repressing all
of their dreams, ignoring these urgent messages. If you are such a
person, don’t you worry. This chapter will give you the simple tools
you need.
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Integration of Our Shadow Elements
Although it might not seem like it, our nightmares are not
trying to scare us—they are trying to get across an impor-
tant message. Carl Jung refers to nightmares as “shadow elements.”
He believed that they are missing parts of ourselves. Nightmares
seem to reflect undesirable aspects of our psyches that we have
unconsciously rejected, disowned, or denied. Like neglected pup-
pies, they just want to be loved and embraced, accepted back into
our lives. In Jung’s eyes, if we accept our nightmares and integrate
them into our psyches, we’ll be on the way toward becoming whole
and balanced people.
In waking life, we try to overcome our fears. If you were to
overcome a fear of heights, for example, the resolution of your
phobia would open up more possibilities and a fuller, richer life.
Finally you can take that trip to the Grand Canyon. Resolving
nightmares works in the same way. By solving the problems of the
dream and facing what’s plaguing you, the result is more freedom,
less internal conflict, and a more balanced perspective.
The longer your nightmares stay hidden in your subcon-
scious, the more damage they’ll do. You can deal with nightmares
during the day by talking about them with your friends and family
or by writing them down in your journal. Acknowledging them in
your daily life is the first step in treating them, letting the sun fill
in the darker shadows. You can also vanquish them at night while
lucid. Our dreams might not be the first place our demons show
up, but luckily they can be the last.
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Using Lucidity to Face a Nightmare
In a nightmare, we lack a sense of control. Lucid dreaming is an
empowering tool to face nightmares and heal through them.
In fact, for the oneironaut, nightmares are a perfect springboard
to trigger lucidity. Running away from something or being scared
for your life—these situ-
ations can actually serve
as dream signs. Therefore,
I am being chased by the guy from the
Halloween
movies, the guy with the white
next time you find yourself
mask, Michael Myers. I’m aware of his
in a hot pursuit or mortally
presence in the house. He just seems to
afraid, ask yourself if you’re
keep killing people. It is nighttime, and I
dreaming.
think, “As long as we can make it to the
Stephen LaBerge tells
daytime we’ll be all right.” But then the
us of one such event in his
daytime comes and he is still chasing us.
book
Exploring the World
He doesn’t run fast, he is just always there.
We shoot him, and we think he is dead . . .
of Lucid Dreaming.
He
but no, he is not. There is a final standoff
was on the phone with his
on this steel bridge. The last thing I remem-
seven-year-old niece when
ber is running right at him. —DeRek A.
she told him of a horrible
dream: she was swimming
in a local reservoir when a shark attacked her. LaBerge, being the
maverick lucid dreamer that he is, told his niece that the next time
she sees a shark, she’ll know that she’s inside a dream. Since noth-
ing bad can happen in dreams, she could make friends with the
shark. A week later his niece called back: “Do you know what I
did? I rode on the back of that shark.”
Sometimes nightmares are standard hero-in-danger narratives.
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Other times there is no actual antagonist, but just a pervasive feel-
ing of anxiety or dread. We’ve all had the dream where we’re late
to a class (there’s an essay due tomorrow?) or a tooth falls out (it
will never grow back!) or we’re naked in public. It’s not the subject
matter that turns a dream into a nightmare; it’s the feeling you get
while trapped inside the dream.
No matter what kind of nightmare it is, the only way to get rid
of it completely is to face it head-on.
I’m walking down a white hallway in some very plain building.
Up ahead there are two guys walking toward me. I turn to my
right to open the door closest to me. It’s locked. The two men are
now walking fast toward me. I turn around and start running.
The hallway becomes longer to the point where it’s nearly two
football fields long. As I’m running, I can hear them behind me
getting closer. The thought crosses my mind, “What am I doing?”
I continue to run as a dialogue plays in my head. “Am I dream-
ing? Yes! Of course I’m dreaming!” I decide to stop running and
face these attackers. Immediately when I turn around they too