A few side effects of lucid dreaming
2023-08-19
Note: Quite a few people disagree with what I've written in this, so keep in mind that I have no special knowledge. Everything here is simply my own opinions and experiences. Question everything
Once you learn to lucid dream, you inadvertently learn a few extra skills as well. Or at least I did, so these are my experiences with them.
Sleep Paralysis
Around the same time I started trying to lucid dream I also started having sleep paralysis. I know some people have very annoying sleep paralysis, but it's never been to bad for me.
Sleep paralysis occurs when your body falls asleep before your brain does. When you try to open your eyes but they're asleep, you'll instead hallucinate what you think should be there. That's why people usually think they've woken up when drifting into sleep paralysis, and they don't notice anything wrong until they try to move. It's hard not to respond with fear when you find out you can't move, and that fear is what causes people to hallucinate scary things during sleep paralysis. If you manage to stay calm however, you won't experience anything scary like paralysis demons or anything.
If you do want to wake up from sleep paralysis, close your eyes and try lifting your hand. If your body realizes that you're not asleep yet then it'll wake up.
Sleep paralysis can be used as a way to get into a lucid dream, as after a few minutes in sleep paralysis you'll drift of into a dream while still remaining lucid.
While I don't want to offend anyone who has bad sleep paralysis, I personally enjoy it. In sleep paralysis, since you're hallucinating, it's much more realistic than a dream. Plus, it's easy to remember episodes of sleep paralysis as you don't get amnesia from it like you do with dreams.
Derealization
Derealization is when you suddenly get the feeling that your surroundings aren't real. It's a bit hard to explain, but I've always thought it made everything look very sharp. I started experiencing derealization before trying to lucid dream due (I think) to my visual snow, but I know it's a common side effect of lucid dreaming as well so I'm including it here.
Episodes of derealization have never lasted over two hours for me, it's sort of like a hiccup where when you forget you have it it disappears. It's a bit annoying, but it shouldn't really affect you except for feeling off. I do like to think about things when going through derealization as dissociating from an issue gives a better perspective of it. Wait to make any decisions though.
Lighter sleep
Being conscious whilst asleep doesn't let you rest as well. Also a lot of lucid dreaming methods out there include things that can also disrupt your sleep. Once you start being able to lucid dream I'd ditch any of those types of methods. What's the point of a fun dream life if you're dead tired in your real one?
Luckily however if you are tired there's a much smaller chance of you having a lucid dream since you won't be quite aware. This will stop you from having to many lucid dreams in a row if they end up being mentally draining for you. Keep in mind that even if you think you aren't having many lucid dreams, there's a good chance you may be forgetting some of them when you wake up.
Hypnagogia
I'm including this last as I'm not really sure if experiencing this counts as a side effect of lucid dreaming, but regardless I'm going to include it here.
Hypnagogia is what you experience as you fall into sleep. If you wait it out, you'll go straight into a dream, and if you open your eyes during it, you'll either wake up or go into sleep paralysis. I only ever experience this when I'm really tired but thinking hard about something. You'll start drifting off to sleep but if you're still aware of your thoughts you'll notice them become more and more vivid in your head. At first they'll be dim, but after a little bit your thoughts will become as vivid as sleep paralysis is. I say thoughts, but I've never been able to control the things I see in hypnagogia the way you can a dream or (to an extent) sleep paralysis. While looking more realistic the things that happen in hypnagogia are much less realistic than the things that happen in a dream, which always makes it fun to experience.
There aren't any other side effects lucid dreaming has given me. There are many more out there, but I wanted to stick with the things I've experienced personally. None of these things are really that bad, so don't start worrying about whether or not you should keep trying to lucid dream. They're all experiences in their own right.