Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Reoccurring nightmares are not you. They are someone else, like you, but a different you, in a different universe/timeline (think Jet Li in The One).
For some reason, our brains sometimes connect with these others while we sleep. Maybe it has something to do with a perfect alignment of brain waves or something, but this is also why time is often so screwy in dreams, or the facts of the dream change. You are like an old analog radio tuning in a faraway station while driving through the mountains. Sometimes the signal is strong, sometimes it is barely there, and sometimes you cross over a hill and suddenly you are listening to something completely different.
The next time you wake from a particular nightmare, stop and think about what you can do to help your other self. Make sure you take the physics of their reality into account... they are somehow falling to their deaths because they jumped too high? Then they must have the strength or low gravity needed to make that happen. So maybe it is only scary because you are applying your physics, but in their world they just need to brace for landing, or prepare to tuck and roll.... Did they get attacked by a nightmare creature? Well you just need to make sure that when you reconnect with them the next time, you reconnect earlier in the timeline, and firmly hold the idea they need to show up ready to fuck that creature up. Don't know how to fuck up a 30ft, fire breathing, strap on dildo wearing, pigeon? You don't need to. They live in that reality, I'm sure they know how to deal with it, they just need to know to be prepared. And even if they don't know, one of the other yous will. It's a pest that other other you deals with daily on the way to work. You just need to connect with one of them first, get the information, and then reconnect with the other you... odds are that the solution is a fire extinguisher, an even bigger strap on, and a bag of bird seed, and boom, you've turned their hell into a way to shorten their daily commute by a factor of ten (once they get a saddle for it of course, safety first).
Once you have your plan, you go back in with the intent to purposely reconnect to the nightmare and give the other you the tools they need fix their situation. And don't forget, time is not linear between universes. Your nightmare is reoccurring because you repeatedly keep reconnecting to this particular moment. So that also means, that with a little effort, you should be able to connect earlier in the timeline too.
Remember, it's not you, but you can help. You have all the time in the world to think it through and formulate a plan. And you can keep trying until you get it right.
Can you break this up a bit into smaller paragraphs? You've got my attention for sure :)
Whoops! Forgot about the need to do the weird markdown formatting...
It should be fixed now...
Thanks!
Thankyuuuuu!
Is this referring to lucid dreaming or are you more suggesting some kind of mental rehearsal to prime yourself to hopefully reflexively respond next time you're in a similar dream-predicament?
Not exactly, this is about changing your entire perspective on how you view dreams, how you respond to them, and how you feel about what happens to the characters within them.
You are not a helpless victim of your dreams. You are an unintentional 3rd party witness, much like watching someone else play a video game. You may be experiencing the same visuals and sounds as the user, but you are not actually at the controls. You don't have to feel guilty or helpless, it's not your game. But much like watching someone else play, you can make suggestions, or possibly even take the controls for a moment. You have time to look up tips and watch other play-throughs.
Also, you don't have to fear going back to sleep, especially if it is a recurring dream. In fact, you can be excited to have the dream again, because this time you have a plan.