Lucid Nightmares: When Lucid Dreams Become Nightmares

Several people have written to me with reports of lucid nightmares.

I have to admit, this was an under-researched area of lucid dreaming for me. Until recently I had no idea how to respond; in my years as a lucid dreamer I'd only had uplifting lucid dreams.

What's more, I couldn't understand how they were having traumatic dreams against their will - when they were supposed to be lucid and in control.

I concluded that they were having a lucid dream, but later lost lucidity and became absorbed in a regular (if somewhat vivid) nightmare.

Boy was I wrong. There are such things as true lucid nightmares and I will try my best to explain how and why they occur - now that I've had a few of my own!

I should add that lucid nightmares are normal and healthy and some can even be quite interesting. However if you do feel stuck in such a nightmare, my best advice is to increase your lucidity and take back conscious control of your dream - or wake yourself up by saying "wake up!" and blinking heavily in your dream.

What are Lucid Nightmares?

Just like lucid dreams, you know you are dreaming. There is no dispute over that. But instead of guiding your dream, you are consciously observing whatever comes up. I like to observe my own subconscious imagery in lucid dreams - it's fun and can be way more inspired than my conscious dream choices!

But sometimes, this "subconscious following" can lead to disturbing imagery. Some people have said they were extremely upset by their conscious nightmares although others report being a calm observer. Once I watched a man get disemboweled in front of my eyes and didn't even flinch. Does that make me a psychopath? No... just like watching a movie, you know it's not real.

My Lucid Nightmares

Now to the lucid dream that inspired this article. It was a long one, I think easily more than one hour, perhaps my longest yet. It was also very intense - not least because I died and reincarnated into a different body at one point. I've published the full lucid dream below, but if you only want to read the lucid nightmare part, you can skip to "In The Submarine"...

Becoming Lucid

I'm walking through my old school at night and suddenly realize I'm dreaming. Everything zooms into focus and I can hear cicadas in the trees. A man I assume to be the Principal says: "do you want me to help you find that thing we spoke about earlier?" I say "no thanks, I already found it." I don't know what we're talking about, but something tells me this was part of my subconscious offering to show me something. I often ask lucid dream characters to show me stuff and this particular authority figure appeared the moment I became lucid.

Submarine Man

Instead, I walk into the main building and find G, who I haven't seen for years since I was at school. I ask him to come with me. We sit on the wall out front and I ask what he's been doing with his life. Suddenly the view from the hill disappears and we're now facing a dark, choppy ocean. He explains "I've been working on a submarine for years and I don't even know what I've got to show for it." He shows me a daytime scene - via the dream - where he's some kind of scientist studying the ocean. Then it switches back to the dark sea in front of the school.

The Drama Begins

An old friend from school approaches us and warns us something bad is coming. So we get up and walk down an alley beside a river. It's still night time. I'm lucid and aware but am not controlling the dream. I get the feeling I'm being "told a story" from my subconscious and I want to hear all of it.

G tells me to hop over a 10 foot metal fence, because he wants to look at the building inside. Before I can do anything, I am given a massive leg-up over the fence and I go flying over. Inside it's like a high security car park, fenced all around. I'm wondering what to do next and take control of this dream, when a dark, stick-like man comes charging through the fence we just climbed over.

Aliens Attack

"Oh great," I say, as I realize my lucid dream is turning into a nightmare and I'm losing consciousness. Then I say "no, I can deal with this!" and start floating up in the air with G. More and more creatures congregate in the car park below and I realize they're like super alien zombies from the movies. No matter - we float up.

I surrender control back to G (or the dream, whichever it is) but maintain the desire to keep floating up away from the creatures. We float up through a kind of warehouse in the sky which harbors lots of baby alien creatures, incubating in tubes like little pupae. They fly off the shelves at us, trying to attack. "G, come ON!" I say and we float higher into the night sky.

In Space

We float up and up. Then I realize we are so high up, I can see the whole globe, all of it plunged in darkness with the smattering of lights in the cities. We are in space. I realize there should be no gravity here and we immediately start twirling round and round, not knowing which way is up. Then G pulls us back to the intended plot.

In The Submarine

He is suddenly up against a wall in some kind of futuristic caravan or self-contained unit (in hindsight, a submarine?) Water begins to seep in then. Soon it is gushing in and G is sucked off to the other end. I let the drama play out this time, because I am so completely engrossed in what will happen next. The water turns murky yellow and green... and as I look out the tiny window I see the alien pupae banging on the glass. Seems this can only end one way now.

Soon I have run out of air and I float in the submarine completely filled with dirty water, choking and drowning. I seem to have moved out of body for this part because I don't want to feel any pain. And I think how my soul must have chosen to dream of drowning so I don't ever have to experience it in "real life". That's when I know I have to see it through in complete clarity.

Drowning

It takes a few more seconds to drown and the main thing going through my mind is how violent it is. It's different from anything I've seen in the movies. It's like a cramping in my chest and knowing that there is no way to get past the suffocating water. I experience all this as only a fraction of the real pain my "body" is experiencing because I am floating next to it, and I can see she is suffering.

I see the body finally give up and knock against the wall, the hair splayed in every direction, everything limp and lifeless. (I see now, it's not me, it's a pale woman with long, thick blonde hair. Her skin is already swollen with the water).

The dream goes black.

The Next Life

But it's not over. I am zapped into my next life, maybe 30 years in. I feel a crunching pain in my chest for a moment and wonder if the drowning carried on into this next "dream life". I don't believe I am seeing past lives but instead, traumatic dream lives. The next scene is also vivid and nightmarish, but I'm again experiencing it in a calm, almost indirect way so as not to be overwhelmed and wake up.

I automatically zoom out to watch it as a third person. I'm still a lucid observer. I see that "I" am now a skinnier, slightly older woman with short dyed white hair. I am preparing to kill a man. He is sat down on a wooden chair, groggy and with his hands tied. What happens next grosses me out a little but I am still glued, the way you are glued to a horror movie. I still know it's not real.

The Murder

The woman (who is now definitely a third person, despite starting off as "me") cuts the man's throat and blood quickly seeps out. He raises his head, annoyed but clearly drugged, and says "what d'you do that for?" She tells him to shut up and quickly wraps a yellow string around his throat and pulls it tight. It cuts through the blood and his neck opens a little wider and I have the front row view. She then slaps a piece of silver masking tape over his mouth, yanks on the string one last time and shouts "oh my god! oh my god!" leaping away from the body.

People come running in - from the next room, bizarrely - and she acts like she just found him. He's not quite dead though, and his head rolls around as the blood spurts out. I know there's more to this story but I feel myself waking up and sensing the dog is on the bed next to me. I try to hold on to my lucid dream but it is going. I finally open my eyes and realize I have WAY overslept.

Lucid Dream or Lucid Nightmare?

When I woke up, I felt like something really big had just happened. It was like I had just watched an amazing movie - even though it contained death and pain, the kind of plot devices I would usually avoid - it just had that epic feeling. A great story had been told, and I was moved.

Yet this is the last thing I normally think when I've had a regular nightmare. I feel cheated or victimized. No one likes nightmares. So how are lucid nightmares different? And why do we have them, when we are meant to be "in control"?

The truth is, I haven't figured that out yet. The closest I came to understanding was in the lucid dream itself, when I rationalized that I had to experience drowning in a dream, so I didn't have to live it in real life. This makes a lot of sense if you believe in the soul and its need to develop and experience life.

From a psychological perspective, nightmares reflect our stress levels in waking life, and occur more frequently after suffering traumatic life events. They also have physical causes such as fever or eating certain foods. So, you could rationalize that I was meant to have a nightmare that morning, and my being lucid was just a coincidence. I could have had the same experience - although somewhat fuzzier - as part of a regular nightmare that I was destined to have.

This is still a huge area for research, so please do post your own lucid nightmares in the comment box below and I will update this page as I come to understand more. Incidentally, if you want to do the converse and use lucid dreaming to stop a regular nightmare, you might find Escaping from Nightmares useful.

Related articles

A Guide to Sleep Disorders

False Awakenings

Escaping from Nightmares

Sleep Paralysis

Sleepwalking and Sleep Talking

How to Stop Night Terrors

Out of Body Experiences

Lucid Nightmares

The Worst Lucid Nightmare... Ever!

What's the worst lucid nightmare you've ever had? What happened and what did it mean? Did you enjoy it at all or learn anything from it? The best submissions will receive a free copy of my lucid dreaming e-book, Lucid Fiction!

Click below to read other people's worst lucid nightmares and how they dealt with them.

Free Lucid Dreaming Newsletter!

Sign up for the FREE Lucid Dreaming Newsletter to experience more lucid dreams! This monthly newsletter is packed with valuable tips and advice, discounts and freebies, lucid dreamer stories and feature articles on the art of lucidity. Your email address is completely safe and you can unsubscribe at any time.