Anyone that knows me, knows that I like watching scary movies and movies that get your adrenaline pumping. Some may even call me a "fight or flight" seeker, but never sis I expect it to roll over into my dreams. In my 22 years, I have seen almost every horror movie and loved them. The downfall is when I try to tell people about the movies, they all mesh together. Especially when I dream.
I live in a loft style dorm room where I only share the kitchen and living room. When the lights go out, it is pitch black and I tend to fall straight asleep. If I have had a stressful day, I tend to have "nightmares". This particular night, I can remember dreaming about camping with my friends. We fished, ate s'mores, and hiked the mountain. As we settle in for the night, we realized that it was super quiet for us to be in the woods. This put me on edge.
First and foremost, I am the African-American (AA) girl who notices that in horror movies, the AA people die first or the person that is not Caucasian dies first if we are in a group. Two great examples are Friday the 13th starring Jared Padalecki and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D starring Alexandra Daddario. But I digress. So when I begin to hear noises, I immediately begin to wake my tent mate up. We instantly put on shoes and grab our flash lights to check out the noise. After this, I actually can't remember what happened.
I do remember running because I was being chased in my dream, tripping and hurting my ankle and when I look down, I am bleeding from a wound in my stomach. This is when I wake up with a shooting pain in my ankle along with pain in my stomach. How is this possible? According to an article titled Yes, You Can Feel Real Pain In Your Dreams by Jillian Rose-Lim, this is possible.
This article states that the reason we may feel pain in our dreams is because that injury happened to us previously while we were awake. This is can be associated with phantom pain. After finding this out, I wanted to know if I could change what happened in my dream. Through research, I found the term lucid dreams.
A lucid dream is defined as any dream in which the person who is dreaming is aware that they are dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment.
There are even how to videos on how to do it (see video below). I watched the video and attempted to do it. Unfortunately, I was able to do it, but it can be scary. When I dreamed lucid, it seemed very real to me. In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't really happening, but it was hard snap out of it. I was able to change my fate in the dream. Instead of me waking up to a noise and running for my life nearly dying, my friends and I were able to escape without being harmed. I may have learned how to dream lucid, but it doesn't mean I will be doing it regularly.
Sometimes you have to accept the hand that fate has dealt you even if it's in a dream.
