Comment on How to wake up during nightmares?
Firebirdie713@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 week ago
As someone who has suffered from night terrors and other disturbingly vivid dreams, I would recommend starting to do “wake checks”.
Set an alarm on your phone to go off every few hours at random times during the day. When the alarm goes off, do something that produces a reliable result, like turning a light on/off, turning on a faucet, checking the time on a clock, or pinching yourself. Make your checks as varied as possible, and do them in a different order from day to day, because you don’t want the results to become part of a pattern.
Once you are in the habit of doing that, start doing those checks any time something ‘out of the norm’ happens. What ‘out of the norm’ means is up to you, but essentially any time you think that something is weird or out of place, do a check. What you are doing is training yourself to check whether you are in reality or not.
Once you start doing that, you will probably continue that habit when you end up in a dream. However, these checks will not produce reliable results when you do them in a dream. Turning on the faucet won’t make it give water, the time will change drastically, lights won’t turn on when you flip the switch, etc. These are now your cues to see if you are awake or not. If one of these things ever DOES start to give reliable results in a dream, stop using it immediately and substitute a different one.
Once you have a way of determining if you are awake or not, you have a way to wake up. Most people wake up after realizing they are in a dream, and even if you don’t, realizing you are dreaming should result in a massive shift in what is happening in the dream.
One warning though: if you have night terrors where you end up paralyzed, you will want to have a contingency plan. My night terrors usually started in a situation where I was unable to move, and that is the main reason I struggled with them for over a decade. The only thing that helped there was meditation where I would focus on “feeling” my fingers and toes and how they moved, and then getting myself in the habit of using that meditation as an anxiety response. Doing that in a dream will usually end up waking me up because it forces my brain to focus and eventually move my body irl.
DankOfAmerica@reddthat.com 1 week ago
I’m starting these wake checks today! Hopefully, I can get them to happen in a dream before it goes into nightmare mode. Once in nightmare mode, I can’t tell if I’m in a dream or not because they seem so real and I’m overwhelmed with fear which makes thinking difficult. Appreciate the response and hopefully you’re doing better with your sleep!
cynar@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’ve got 1 dream check, that’s fairly reliable, when I need it. I check my back pocket for “heavy weapons”. Basically, think cartoon “hammer space”. It’s an almost unnoticeable check when awake, that doesn’t do anything. In a dream state however, an ak47, or a bazooka is to hand.
This is particularly effective against nightmares. My subconscious happily accepts that I can pull whatever cartoon doodad I need out of my back pocket. This let’s me jam nightmares. I’ve not had one since I trained myself to do this a couple of decades back.
The 1 trick to note, you need to “believe” on some level that it will work. It’s akin to accepting a film. You know they are just actors and CGI, but you accept it as real. This belief gives it power in your dreams.