6mo ago

How to wake up during nightmares?

Warning: The content of this post might be troubling, especially to those with a sensitivity to nightmares or suicide.

I have nightmares that turn into meta-nightmares. I will be in a dream and something threatening is trying to get me. I notice that what is happening is unrealistic or nonsensical, so I tell myself I'm in a nightmare and try to wake myself up. I try yelling as loud as possible, shaking, slapping myself awake, and just telling myself over and over to wake up. I even dream that in my bed in my bedroom fighting through sleep paralysis while trying waking up, while the threat is coming to my bedroom. It's terrifying. Many times, I wake up happy I was able to finally escape the nightmare, only to realize I'm actually still asleep and the nightmare resumes. It's very exhausting and disappointing because I will go through many cycles per night (up to 10 times) of thinking I wake up only to be in the nightmare again. It's like I learn to not be hopeful that it's over.

On a few occasions where the threat was so severe that I rather die, I have killed myself in the dream, and that works but it is terrifying and I wake up as if it were really happening. I wake up breathing heavily, sweating, super confused, and scared to go back to sleep again. It's like I'm checking if everything is real and having to come to terms that I just committed suicide in my dreams. This only happens when I know I am going to die in the nightmare and rather end it on my own terms. So while it works, it's not really an option in nightmares where the threat isn't certain death since they seem so real in the moment. I also don't want to build a mental habit of committing suicide every time I'm scared for obvious reasons.

In general, the nightmares seem to come in episodes of a few months. They then go away seemingly out of nowhere, and I'm back to normal dreams. I'm currently in the beginning of a new episode, so I'm trying to prepare for the next few months. I don't have the option to speak with a therapist. I'm looking for remedy that I can employ myself. It can be anything, but I really enjoy learning, so if there is a book or skill recommendation, I would highly appreciate it!

Any tips on how to wake up during nightmares or any other remedies?

38 comments

So id caution against resorting to extreme measures, especially if you are unsure of what is reality. That can have very permanent consequences.
It sounds like you're close to being aware its a dream when its happening. You can start to recognize the signs and when that happens you should be able to assert control over your dream. Check out lucid dreaming, spinning around in the dream is a popular technique.
When I was young until about 16 I had night terrors. ID walk around my house seeing demons trying to get in. Would wake my parents up by slamming doors and putting sticks in the windows to stop them from opening. Spooky shit would crawl down the walls, dead ghost girls would climb into my bed. Grim reaper would stand in the middle of the room imperceptibly moving to stare at me with hollow sockets. They were terrifying ordeals and I feel you. My dreams went away when I started smoking pot honestly. Once I was done with that the horror movie dreams came back but not the night terrors. I write the real fucked up ones down as outlines to short stories. Maybe one day I will write a book thats a collection of them. Helps me cope.
- Yep! It's that scary doom feeling that no matter what you do, you can't avoid the fear. It's exhausting.
  So id caution against resorting to extreme measures, especially if you are unsure of what is reality. That can have very permanent consequences.
  Exactly! I think this is why I only employ them when the outcome is the same, so I choose a favorable method in which I am in control...ooh, maybe there's something related to control that I need to think about. Thank you!
  
  This sounds like sleep apnia. When you dont get enough oxygen you can get a deep feeling of doom or dread.
  
  You're welcome friend. Hope you find a method that works for you

I suffer night terrors, not horribly frequently, but frequently enough that they are memorable experiences. I wake up screaming and I apparently scream very loudly.
Entertainingly they have a common theme across all the years I've been having them (they started in my teens, so over 40 years). The always feature men in black leather trenchcoats (think SS), dogs, concertina razor wire, an cliff's edges.
I always end up dead either from machine gun fire or going over the cliff.
I blame The Great Escape.
I would love to be able to wake up before the screaming starts.

I had something similar ptsd and all that jazz i couldn't wake up but I found learning about lucid dreaming helped me control my dreams to be something I wanted. It was like my own holodeck. It doesn't always work if i go to bed stressed out but it helps on the nights I can realize I'm dreaming.
- Yep, I'm going to look into learning about lucid dreaming. Thank you!

lucid dreaming would be my recommendation... its a little hard to do, but a great way is to ask yourself 'how did I get here' every time you cross a threshold like a doorway or hallway. eventually you'll start asking yourself this in your sleep, and if you have no idea, you're dreaming... this is normally when i fly away.

As someone who has suffered from night terrors and other disturbingly vivid dreams, I would recommend starting to do "wake checks".
Set an alarm on your phone to go off every few hours at random times during the day. When the alarm goes off, do something that produces a reliable result, like turning a light on/off, turning on a faucet, checking the time on a clock, or pinching yourself. Make your checks as varied as possible, and do them in a different order from day to day, because you don't want the results to become part of a pattern.
Once you are in the habit of doing that, start doing those checks any time something 'out of the norm' happens. What 'out of the norm' means is up to you, but essentially any time you think that something is weird or out of place, do a check. What you are doing is training yourself to check whether you are in reality or not.
Once you start doing that, you will probably continue that habit when you end up in a dream. However, these checks will not produce reliable results when you do them in a dream. Turning on the faucet won't make it give water, the time will change drastically, lights won't turn on when you flip the switch, etc. These are now your cues to see if you are awake or not. If one of these things ever DOES start to give reliable results in a dream, stop using it immediately and substitute a different one.
Once you have a way of determining if you are awake or not, you have a way to wake up. Most people wake up after realizing they are in a dream, and even if you don't, realizing you are dreaming should result in a massive shift in what is happening in the dream.
One warning though: if you have night terrors where you end up paralyzed, you will want to have a contingency plan. My night terrors usually started in a situation where I was unable to move, and that is the main reason I struggled with them for over a decade. The only thing that helped there was meditation where I would focus on "feeling" my fingers and toes and how they moved, and then getting myself in the habit of using that meditation as an anxiety response. Doing that in a dream will usually end up waking me up because it forces my brain to focus and eventually move my body irl.
- I'm starting these wake checks today! Hopefully, I can get them to happen in a dream before it goes into nightmare mode. Once in nightmare mode, I can't tell if I'm in a dream or not because they seem so real and I'm overwhelmed with fear which makes thinking difficult. Appreciate the response and hopefully you're doing better with your sleep!
  
  I've got 1 dream check, that's fairly reliable, when I need it. I check my back pocket for "heavy weapons". Basically, think cartoon "hammer space". It's an almost unnoticeable check when awake, that doesn't do anything. In a dream state however, an ak47, or a bazooka is to hand.
  This is particularly effective against nightmares. My subconscious happily accepts that I can pull whatever cartoon doodad I need out of my back pocket. This let's me jam nightmares. I've not had one since I trained myself to do this a couple of decades back.
  The 1 trick to note, you need to "believe" on some level that it will work. It's akin to accepting a film. You know they are just actors and CGI, but you accept it as real. This belief gives it power in your dreams.

Did you try being bored by it? "Oh it's one of those nightmares again, let's get it over with. Where is the monster chasing me? Ah, there it comes, yes, eat me, I'm so scared, aaaah"
I never had such extreme episodes but enough that I did actually get bored by them.
What's important to say is that I was a very anxious person, scared of everything. I did decide to start confronting my fears and getting rid of them. Part of it was accepting the fears and just letting myself be scared without the judgement of fear being bad. Accepting the fear as part of myself and my psyche. Getting bored of nightmares definitely coincided somewhere around that time.
So yeah, I would suggest working to solve your issues in waking life.
- This is a great suggestion. I have had repeating nightmares in the past that resolved by confronting the fear in my dreams. The doom did not realize and the dreams eventually stopped afterward. Let's see if I can remember to try it in the dreams and how it turns out. I'll let you know if I'm able to do it. Thank you!

When you you're dreaming you're usually in a lighter stage of sleep. I was able to use this to close my eyes tightly on my dream and become aware of my actual body and not my dream body, so that when I opened my eyes I'd be awake. Doesn't always work but it's one more thing to try.
- I'll give it a shot. Thank you!

I've had very similar dreams, especially the part about constantly fake-waking up. One method I've found to work is to shut my eyes then open them in a kinda exaggerated / forceful way to wake myself up.
Always have a book by your bed and grab it, because you can't read when you're asleep. If you read one paragraph and then go back and re-read it, it will be different each time when you're dreaming
- I like this idea. It will help me realize if I woke up or I'm still in a dream and need to prepare for the upcoming doom. I already have a book on my nightstand. I'll start the habit of reading it every time I wake up. Thank you!

Any tips on how to wake up during nightmares
I've had vivid nightmares for the last 10 years due to antidepressants and on/off cannabis use.
Even if the situation is terrifying, I eventually found peace in knowing I'm getting rest.
Let's say I wake up now and can't go back to sleep. It'll be what, like 2am/3am? Now the rest of my day is fucked. Was it really worth waking up?
- Vivid nightmares from cannabis? My experience is the opposite... It's when I take a break from cannabis use that the insane dreams come.
  
  yeah, when I take breaks from it/run out

While the lucid dreaming comments may work, there is a lot of trial/error/luck to it, I think.
I had accidental lucid dreaming as a kid but have failed to do so as an adult. I have tried numerous times, even with considering suggestions from people online. Therefore, I will come at this from experiences I have had without intentional lucid dreaming. (Possible that I reached a point of accidental lucid dreaming during these, but hope it helps, nonetheless!)
Finding "perfect" hiding places after/during a chase.
Recognizing that waking up from a similar/the same situation very recently (eg the movie Inception) is basically impossible. Even if you have brain damage, the duration of a day and night are fairly difficult to ignore. Brain damage or medicine/drug use is more like losing chunks of time that feel lost vs waking up repeatededly and/or in short order.
I (at least once recently) had a scare that felt like sleep paralysis and/or attempted demonic possession. Basically, I was sleeping but "felt" awake but couldn't move/make sound and felt like darkness was "hunting" me. It was scary af. I just kept trying to scream or yell "ahhh". I think I tried it about 8+ times before I woke up finally. Each time I screamed, it got louder...slowly. I knew I was breaking free slowly, but it was extremely scary and I felt like if I didn't escape, I would be trapped/taken forever.
Depending on the feeling of the dream, you can sometimes play in/with it. This touches on the accidental side of lucid dreaming, I think, but I have had variations of feeling afraid and then treating it as a game, such as hide'n'seek or even flipping it to start finding/hunting the thing that feels like the agressor. Not sure I recall enough details to explain specific examples, but hope this general explanation helps!
Edit: typo

I don't quite understand. Do you attain lucidity? You should be able to alter reality in a lucid dream.
- The thing is that the dream is so realistic, that in the dream I think I'm in danger in real life. I think I need to wake up because what is happening in my dream is actually happening in real life. Waking up from my dream will help me respond to the danger I believe is present in real life.
  Like imagine you are sleeping in a hammock in the jungle. While sleeping, you dream of your real situation. During the dream, you suddenly think that in real life, there is a gorilla coming for you so you need to wake up. No matter how much you try to wake up, you can't. Throughout the dream, you think you finally woke up only to realize that you're still really sleeping. That is what keeps happening. It's terrifying and exhausting. I almost didn't go to sleep last night, but a friend agreed to stay over.
  
  I have not intentionally lucid dreamed but you may want to look into it as maybe it would help. I used to have a reoccurring kidnap nightmare when I was a kid. The dream would start in my house so it did feel real and I would be chased by the kidnappers and eventually I would wake up. Well one day I think I went lucid as I stopped running and like somehow just summoned my family around me and we went and chased them off and told them never to come back again. That was the last occurence of that nightmare and I never had reoccuring ones after that. I don't expect this to directly help or anything but maybe it will.

You know you are in a nightmare, as in you become lucid? I would thank my nightmare for letting me know I am dreaming. Not try to wake up. Try to make friends with it, to defuse the terror. That knowledge that it's a dream is valuable. Have done this several times myself, but my nightmares aren't necessarily about terrifying situations, it's more like the fear comes first then my mind sort of builds around it. So everyday things can be terrifying in nightmares but in regular dreams I could be in objectively terrifying situations and not care, and particularly in lucid dreams that is true.
Best of luck to you, may you have calm and restful sleep.
- The thing is that in the dream I think that my real-awake body is in physical danger, so I need to wake up to protect myself from the real danger, but I can't wake up. It's like I'm paralyzed and can't do anything to protect myself from the impending doom that feels very real in the dream. If it was just normal nightmares, I would generally be fine with them except for the poor sleep. These new ones are something else because they feel so real since they involve my real-awake body.
  
  Yeah, I think you are on the right track with sleep apnea then. Which can be life threatening, so not shocking your mind might be alarmed. This might be a question for a doctor.

I too think lucid dreaming is the way to go. Maybe there are even some smart watches that can detect the increased heartrate and wake you. I know the Garmin Watches scream loudly af if they detect an irregular heartbeat.
One more thing on Lucid dreaming tho. Go slow and either take full control immediately to wake up or try to do only the smallest corrections if you want to stay in your dream At least for me it feels terrible when your consciousness takes over from your subconscious. It feels like I'm tearing my mind apart, and if I'd had to guess it's the closest that I will ever feel to going insane.

I have a technique, but I don't know if it applies to anybody else: whenever I want to wake up from a dream, I shut my eyes and squeeze them tight, then open them really fast/hard. When I do the opening part, I'm always awakened.
Hope it helps...

The practice of Lucid Dreaming has allowed me to redirect nightmares successfully in most cases, there were only few instances that I could not wake up or change the nightmare's nature. Lucid Dreaming does take practice, though, but thankfully there are a lot of books on the subject. You'll be able to sift through the many to find the one which you vibe with the most, as the method is very individual in nature.
Secondly, at least two or three hours before bed, I make sure to only read or watch videos that are lighthearted in nature because horror or grim content can affect the dreams or nightmares you'd face during sleep. Let go of any stress or dark thoughts before going to sleep also helps, I find exorcising these thoughts with writing them down helps the most. It allows reason to smooth these thoughts and feelings over, giving them less power to shape a dreamer's experience!
- I'll look into the lucid dreaming. I don't really think my current situation allows for the peaceful pre-sleep period, but it should change within a few weeks. Now that you mention it, I've been quite stressed lately, so that may be causing the dreams. We'll see if they go away when things change. Thank you!
  
  You're welcome! Stress, I find, is often the biggest contributing factor to nightmares as the mind is trying to deal with it. Sleep is often the time feelings and experiences are processed. Stress is like a shotgun blast to that processing, that overflow of feeling seems to lead to nightmares more often. When your situation changes, that pre-sleep period will be vital to managing future dreaming, it also allows one to begin to settle in a mental state suitable for Lucid Dreaming. I certainly hope this will help you sleep easier!

I rarely realize when I'm dreaming, but when I do, those are some of the BEST dreams! Once I realize that it's not real, I think "Wait, in THIS world, I'm in charge!" and I take control.
I know you can't always realize the situation in your dreams, but maybe a perspective change could help.
Instead of trying to escape, embrace it! Pull out your holy hand grenade, count to three (5 is right out), and chuck it at the nightmare!
Before you go to sleep, focus on how excited you are to go in and defeat your monsters! Think about your flaming sword of virtue and how it will cut through anything that dares challenge your power in your own domain! Keep thoughts of victory and power in your mind and when you are in the thick of that nightmare, you will remember that you are in control and you will win that battle!
You created those nightmares, and until you know that you can beat them, you will continue to create them.
- Between another comment and yours, I think what my dreams are representing are how little control I feel I have over anything in my life. I just have to prepare for the worst. That's what I'm feeling.
  
  I couldn't agree more. You feel helpless, and that carries over into your dreams.

I have CPTSD, and suffer from nightmares, and night terrors. I have found a small dose of cannabis (≈3mg) just before bed has practically eliminated their occurrence. Might be worth a try.
As far as waking up, you might want to try jumping, in your dream, which can lead to flying/escaping. Or spinning in a circle, which can lead to teleportation. Either of which may provide escape routes, or lead to waking.
- I can't really do cannabis, but jumping and spinning sound like they might work. Thank you!

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