I know this topic in general has been asked before on past entries, yet I think my question to it differs from what has been asked before. Also, I don’t know if this is the right place to post this question. I thought first of posting in the Lucid Adventures but didn’t felt it belonged there. Likewise, I don’t know if it belongs here as well.
I have always been curious about something regarding lucid dreams. It basically boils down to when I had my first (unintentional) lucid dream when I was about 10 years old. I have to point out that even though lucid dreaming was at that time (I think it was 2003-2004) already a proven scientific term and all, I still never knew that you could be aware and control your dreams at night.
In my dream, I was having a nightmare where I was being chased by some entity. I was running through a path of bushes (a similar scene like the one in “The Shining,”) in the dark hours of the night. At some point in the dream, I became aware that I was dreaming, but because I hadn’t heard in my life about lucid dreaming, I just wanted to wake myself up to spare me the frightening scenario. The really scary thing though, was that I couldn’t wake myself up!
It’s kind of difficult to explain but, as I was trying my hardest to wake myself up, I was aware of both my dream self and my real body lying in bed. I still followed the script of my nightmare, (you could say I was at a very low-lucid level) yet I was aware all the time that I was dreaming. The weird thing though was that in my mind I tried to shout, move and basically implore my real self to wake up, but to no avail. Even as I was dreaming, I could feel SP in action. I tried shouting but my lips wouldn’t move, I tried moving yet my body stayed the same, I even tried willing desperately to wake up, but still nothing happened. It wasn’t until after some strong tingling sensations that I managed to wake up. So in other words, it was like I was watching both my dream self and my real self, but I was none of the two. I was like an inner awareness between both bodies, yet I could feel my dream body running for its life, and my real body resting in bed. Also, I couldn’t wake up and felt SP in my real self at the same time that I was dreaming.
I know there’s nothing to fear about SP, that is not the point to my question, nor about nightmares or lucid nightmares for that matter.
My question is: have you ever experienced such awareness where you could feel both your dream self and your real self at bed, but you were none of the two? Is it something that you chose or something which you cannot control? Likewise, have you ever experienced SP during a dream, or while you were trying to wake yourself up? And lastly, whether you’re inexperienced or have had many lucid dreams recorded in your life; do you still find yourself in rare and unexpected situations where you can’t wake yourself up, even though you wish and will for it to happen? Or is it something that, with experience, can almost become a trivial situation to resolve?
I’m very interested to know what you think about this.