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A 2-Night Adventure in Lucid Nightmares (S&D)

by Alexandra
(Stanford, CA)

One night about a year ago, I had a terrible and extremely vivid nightmare where someone was trying to kill me. I didn't see a knife or anything like that, but somehow I just knew. The whole dream was spent in panic running away from this killer woman, until my alarm clock woke me up. The nightmare was so vivid I remembered it when I woke up and all through the next day.


That night, once I had gotten into bed and started trying to sleep, the nightmare started exactly where it had left off - in the same vivid detail and terror. I knew that it was a dream though, because I could still feel my bed and hear things in my house. The weirdest part was that I could open my eyes from the dream and see my room, but in the dream this would be the equivalent to me closing my eyes! While I could have probably consciously and willingly finished the dream, I was so terrified I made myself wake up and get out of bed. Occasionally I still dream fragments of that nightmare, but I always know it's not real, and I can still voluntarily remember the dream.

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Welcome! This site is continuously being created by students of Dr. William C. Dement's Sleep And Dreams course at Stanford University.

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