How Do I Induce....a nightmare?

OK, so I want to have a nightmare. (But i’m not 100% sure why.)

Why?? What could possibly make me want to experience something everybody tries so hard to avoid? What’s wrong with me?
Well, I cant remember ever having one.

I have had some memory problems in the past, caused by a head injury a few years back. This has resulted in me having very few trusted memories of my life pre-injury. I do have an old DJ from that time but there is no nightmares recorded in it. And I have had no nightmares since then.(I have gone back through my current DJ to check if I had). I think the closest thing to a nightmare I have had was during one of my cliff jump dreams.
I often jump off cliffs in my dreams but there is usually water below me or I have a parachute.
On this one occasion I jumped and then realized I had no chute and the water had dispersed. There was now nothing but rocks below me. When I realized this, I began to freak out. But the moment I did, the dream changed and I was on a cliff with another cliff opposite. I could see a person that had fallen off the cliff and was already about half way down, still in free fall.
I laughed as he hit the rocks below, and stopped existing. I mean, what kind of idiot falls off a cliff?

A few days latter I re-read the entry in my DJ and realized that I was the one that had died when I hit the rocks.

I don’t consider this dream to have been a nightmare because it wasn’t a negative experience at the time.

I’m not entirely sure why I want to have a nightmare, I have heard about how bad they can be. But for some reason I still feel like I’m missing out on something.

So, is there a way to induce a nightmare? I kind of want to have one, just once.
Or is this something I shouldn’t be chasing?

You have to be really happy you have no nightmaress… look: I get nightmares if i am afraid, like that feeling you get after you watched a horror movie, and then sit 10 minutes staring in the dark and slowly seeing things and stuff. Nightmares get more if you feel uncomforteble, and its like a phobia and a big fear trought the day, and then it gets in your dreams. I tell you, you dont want this problem. I stopped having nightmares when i realized i need positive vibes, and only think about good things and then it was getting better… but i tell you: people have most of the time only 3 nightmares in a year and sometimes you dont even remember so you dont have to be afraid of them, but please dont try to give yourself a big phobia because of thisss…

Some people suggest reading/listening to some creepypastas.

As a kid i liked having nightmares… just the feel that you wake up after a scary experience is very thrilling. Its the same as people liking adrenaline. Its pretty fun.
Just be careful, don’t underestimate nightmares power. I’ve had some very, very rare and terrifying nightmares where pure horror could be felt to the bottom of your soul… its not a pleasant experience at all.

Ok, so, I did it.
I had what I think was a nightmare. My nightmare involved me taking too much of a medication. I’m not on any medication in real life but at the time of the nightmare I was about to go into surgery to get some glass out of my hand. (This is the reason it is taking me so long to document it, typing is slow with only one hand)
In the nightmare I was extremely scared that I could die from taking too much medication. I woke up sweating and with a high heart rate. I was also relieved that I was only dreaming. This was a strange feeling to me as I usually wake up disappointed that whatever I was dreaming about was only a figment of my imagination.
I have been trying several things ,recommended by others in this topic, over the last month and a bit. Thanks those that recommended these things. I finally think I understand what a nightmare is and what they can become.

This is really interesting, congrats on success! So what are your thoughts on nightmares now, would you like to explore them more or would rather avoid them in the future?

Congratulations on your successful incubation!

I have noticed that I get most nightmares in two time slots: the first two sleep cycles, and the last one after I have already had enough sleep. The early nightmares are usually of the “fear” type, and the late one the “angry/sad” one.

It is interesting that you got a nightmare after injuring yourself. Could it be residual fear from the incident where you got the glass into your hand in the first place?

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I couldn’t use a computer for the two weeks after the surgery because my full arm, according to the surgeon, looks good in a cast. They apparently had to cut out some tendon and therefore had to immobilize it. I have also been flat out with stuff since I got the cast off. We had another fatality off the rocks on my local coastline. And I was one of the volunteers selected to search for the body. We found the guy today. :sad: So I finally have some time to relax and stare at my computer.

Anyway, onto the matter at hand.

I would like to continue experiment and discover. I would like to have more nightmares in the future but I don’t want it to get to a point that I can no longer control. I already have a few basic ideas of what a nightmare is and why they exist.

I don’t think it was triggered by the injury because I am always injuring myself. Just yesterday I collected another souvenir by slipping with a hedge trimmer and cutting a perfect triangle out of my leg.( I know it was a dumb thing to do but I had to learn the hard way.) I have never had a nightmare about past injuries and wouldn’t expect any residual fear either.

But I think that my nightmare may have been triggered by my anticipation of the surgery. I had never had surgery before (that I have memory of) so this uncertainty may have caused a type of mammalian reflex that generated a nightmare to mentally prepare me for a possible danger. For example, if I had had a nightmare the night before I trimmed the bushes, and in that nightmare someone was injured with a hedge trimmer, I might used the chainsaw chaps that day, and avoided injury. This is just a theory I have thought of so I don’t know how sound it is.

Yo, I have actually induced nightmares before as a test of my lucid intention and execution skills.

My method was to first attain lucidity, then ask the dream to show me something scary. The key here is to not confront whatever fear manifests itself if you are trying to induce a nightmare; doing so (for this particular scenario) is counter intuitive.

Good luck and happy nightmares! (Never thought I’d say that, haha)

Thanks for the tip. It would be interesting to see what scary thing my subconscious might show me. I will try this next time I get lucid. ( Hopefuly tonight!)

I just now checked this thread, but I want to offer my opinion as well.

Well, for sure intense nightmares will be very memorable due to the strong emotion tied to the memories. I can understand the curiosity. But what if you start having constant nightmares? What if you start fearing falling asleep, praying that you don’t have nightmares?

Another scary thing: pain. Some people don’t feel pain in dreams, nightmare or not. I was one of those, but then a thread on this forum got me to test if I COULD feel pain in dreams, if I wanted to. The next time I got lucid, this happened:

[spoiler]I hear talking from behind a bush fence. I silently crawl through to the other side of the fence. There is a small dirt barrier along the fence that still blocks my vision. I lift my head to see over it. There are two dark grey female monsters floating above ground. They look a bit like dementors. They have no eyes or noses and their mouth is huge. They also have sharp teeth. The monsters are about 20 meters away and don’t react to me. I quickly lower my head.

[LD]I have a small hunch that I’m dreaming. I feel like doing something ballsy so I lift my head again expecting one of the monsters suddenly being right in front of me. It happens; one of them is right in front of me reaching towards me with her hand. I’m a bit surprised, but even more confident that I’m dreaming. I hesitate a bit, but then give her my left hand. She bites it and I feel her teeth. She doesn’t even break the skin though. I let her bite a bit longer to see if she manages to actually hurt me. Nope, she sucks. She wasn’t actually sucking my blood or something, just bad. I make the monsters disappear and summon a knife to my hand. I want to cut my finger with it and once again I hesitate a bit. I push the blade into my index finger and feel absolutely nothing. I see the blade being in my flesh, but there is no blood or pain.[/LD][/spoiler]

Ok, so my test to feel pain failed. But after that my nightmares changed. Links to relevant dreams: Agony andNuclear Bomb

Feeling pain in nightmares is really unpleasant.

This thread is very interssting. I never heard of someone who wants to have a nightmare and tries everything to incubete it :happy: Anyway congratiolations on your success. IF YOU WANT IT, GET IT ! :happy:

I know the feeling of wanting to have a nightmare! I have them from time to time. I love watching scary movies and really visualizing myself as the main character. A couple of years ago I hadn’t had a nightmare for a while so I incubated one. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. Not only because of the realism of the dream but because when I woke up I had sleep paralysis and was visited by the stranger. I actually just recently had a nightmare, which led me to this thread. Here’s that nightmare… Help Me!!!

I understand wanting a nightmare. My nightmares always have most, if not all of my senses, even pain. I feel alive and there’s the thrill of fighting something that I know I can’t win against. Knowing that these are my last moments before the next big journey. I learn a lot about myself with nightmares, plus they are the dreams that taught me how to LD! So I’ll always love them for that!

Play the game Cry of Fear.

I had countless dreams during that period that would be described best as dark. Dark as hell.

nightmares usually make me become lucid, which is why i like them. also the relief after you wake up from one is great!

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Unless if you wake up to sleep paralysis demons! :joy:

Yeah,i have not had an nightmare in a while as well,it is pretty good to induce a nightmare although i do not know how to yet,i guess so far i read that if you put your intent to have a dream,eat as much as you can ,watch horror movies,and think of something horror when you sleep,you might just have one!