At Robert’s book website, lucid dreamers send in questions about their personal lucid dream experiences. Here are some recent questions, along with Robert’s reply.
Lucid night terror! How do I stop this?
Hi Robert,
I have never practiced lucid dreaming it started happening when I was in high school and I was very scared. It eventually stopped and I started having it happen again recently.
Usually I’m in another dream and then I become lucid. I’m laying in bed and I can see myself and my boyfriend next to me. I know that I am asleep, and I’m desperately trying to wake up -- for some reason I’m terrified. The worst sense of fear imaginable…I feel like I need to wake up now.
Worse, there’s a deafening ringing in my ears and my head hurts like it’s going to explode. Sometimes I wake up in my dream and I hope that I am awake, but I find I’m still sleeping. The only way I have found to wake up is to fully give into the fear and the ringing and it gets so loud I wake up. Usually I have goosebumps all over my body when I wake up. It is so scary. I really hate this and can’t find much help or resources to make it stop. Does anyone have any advice?
Please help,
Lily
Robert Responds:
Hi Lily,
Thanks for writing about your experience. I think you can make a very positive improvement — so I hope you will listen to this advice.
By your description, it does not sound like a ‘lucid dream’. Instead, it sounds like you are describing the common characteristics of (what people call) an OBE or out of body experience. In my first book, Lucid Dreaming – Gateway to the Inner Self, I have half of chapter on the similarities and differences between ‘lucid dreams’ and ‘OBE’s’ — and your experience sounds like an OBE.
Why do I say that? Here’s why: 1) In lucid dreams, you normally do not “see yourself” laying in bed — however, in an OBE, that is very common, 2) In a lucid dream, you normally do not have “ringing” in the ears — but at the beginning of many OBE’s, that is very common, 3) In a lucid dream, normally a person is very happy because they realize, “Hey this is a dream!” — but for people who are having OBE’s, they often feel frightened or terrified, since they do not understand what is happening.
So, here is my advice:
If you have more questions, drop me a note at www.LucidAdvice.com
Best wishes (and nothing to fear),
Robert
On Asking Dreams What They Represent
Hi Robert,
I recently saw an interview of Robert mentioning how he began asking the “awareness” by originally asking Dream characters what it is they represent; he realized the response was not coming from the actual dream character, but somewhere above and so on. [Robert’s note -- As I write in my books, I asked a dream figure what it represented, and a non-visible voice boomed out a response. This led me to wonder if an ‘awareness behind the dream’ existed.]
A night or two later I was dreaming and the moment I became lucid was at a peak of anger at a dream character. Immediately I thought to ask what it represents and did so. But in asking I looked above the character, then receiving an answer in a voice similar to the experience Robert described.
What I would like to know is if this is a placebo? What Robert spoke of in the video – is it my unconscious merely imitated from my previous waking interpretation of his experience. The way I would have more clarity is if someone would cite that either everyone who asks a dream character experiences this, or instead some people experience answers coming directly from and only from the dream character.
Thanks,
Joshua
Robert Responds
Hi Joshua,
Great question!
In my interviews, I often tell the story of lucidly asking a dream figure, “What do you represent?” — and unexpectedly hearing a non-visible ‘voice’ give a partial reply. I then asked a follow up question and received a full reply to the question.
But in the morning, I wondered, “Why did a non-visible voice respond? Does this mean that there is an awareness behind the dream, which lucid dreamers can communicate?”
In my first book (which I encourage you to read), you can see how I began to look into your fundamental question — am I just hearing an ‘echo’ of my own thinking? Or does this responsive awareness represent a different or larger aspect of the ‘self’ of which Robert W is a part?
Now in your experience, you say you received a response (and by the sounds of it, the response seemed to make sense) — but on waking, you wonder if this experience just constitutes ‘expectation’, right? In general terms (and as you would read in my book), if you continue along these lines of investigation, you will encounter “unexpected” responses from this non-visible voice — as many lucid dreamers have.
In my first book, I share many examples from lucid dreamers around the world — who shared their experiences — and ‘heard’ the non-visible voice disagree with their request and offer an alternative explanation. For example, the leader of LD4all.com, PasQuale, asked, “Show me the beginning and end of the universe” — and then the non-visible voice responded, “The universe has no beginning and has no end. The universe is an everlasting cycle.”
And I can provide many more examples where the non-visible voice offers an alternative explanation, or unexpectedly cautions the lucid dreamer to “not” proceed with their request (and explains why).
As you will read, you see this non-visible voice respond with these characteristics — perception, apperception, memory, reflection, judgment, affectivity, creativity, etc. “all in subliminal form”. I bring this up, because Carl Jung said that if we have an inner ego or inner self, it should have all of these characteristics! Lucid dreaming, as you go deeper, and interact with this non-visible awareness — it shows all of these characteristics which suggests it exists as another conscious layer of the self/Self.
Anyway – great question — and please keep exploring. You will naturally begin to see that something more than placebo or expectation is happening here.
Robert
Dream Collapsing!
Dear Robert,
I hope this message finds you well. I still have lucid dreams quite often, but I’m facing great difficulties in stabilizing them and would like, if possible, to receive some advice on this.
My dreams have been happening in a curious and fascinating way. After waking up spontaneously at 5:30 am, meditating for half an hour and reading for another half an hour, I return to bed and focus a strong intention: “I will have a lucid dream now.”
After about two hours lying in bed and progressively relaxing, seeing a beautiful sequence of hypnagogic images, I feel that I finally “crossed a passage.” It is hard to describe it in words, but it is as if my “dream body” has finally broken free of my “physical” body. However, this “dream body” is still lying in my bed (it’s a strange feeling, as if I’m having an Out of Body Experience).
In order to “transport” this dream body to a lucid dream scenario, I put my palms close together and mentally say: “Chi” (I don’t know where I got the idea to do this; it occurred to me spontaneously once, as if “I knew I had to do it”; I also remember that I’ve read in your books about the relationship between life energy – “Chi” – and lucid dreams).
Then something fantastic occurs. I start to feel a very strong “energy ball” between my hands. My “dream body” floats, flies, enters a kind of luminous tunnel and, after crossing it, finally “lands” in a dream.
And at that moment the problems begin. Although rubbing my hands, keeping calm, modulating my emotions, the dream collapses as soon as I try to move or talk to dream figures.
Since I have no impression that I am nervous, I cannot say what would be the cause for this collapse. Would you have any ideas?
All the best,
Krishna
Robert Responds:
Hi Krishna,
Thanks for sharing your experience.
As a fundamental rule, we learn that ‘dreaming’ reflects the mind (and its beliefs, expectations, focus, intent/will, etc.). In lucid dreaming, we have the ability to see ‘how’ this process of reflection occurs.
In this particular case, there are a few things that may be behind the issue of the dream collapsing:
So those are my ideas. Lucid wishes on your journey of awareness,
Robert
This article was released in issue from
December 2019
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