Blog Psychologist

Yes, you can die in a dream. I know because I have done it. Mind you it was a lucid dream. There was a car coming at me and I knew it would kill me, but I chose not to move. I wanted to see what would happen to die within the dream. I guess you could say I committed dream suicide.

It was actually a good dream though. After the car hit me, I saw a light, like everyone talks about, and I felt a peaceful warmth come over me. Now, that's probably because that's what I assume would happen when you die. Still, it was an interesting experience.

As far as the myth that you die in real life if you die in your dreams, I could imagine getting so worked up in a dream, or more like a night terror, that you might have a heart attack.

Night terrors are much worse than regular nightmares. Your body physically reacts to dreams much like it would if you were in fear or flight mode while awake. Your heart rate increases, you may sweat and/or scream out, etc.

I once had a night terror that rats were running over my body and I physically climbed over my husband and jumped out of bed. I was scared to death. The whole thing seemed so real. Luckily, I don't have those often. In fact, I think I only had that experience because I was on a medication that did not agree with me.

My nightmares, however, have been known to get very intense. If I had a weak heart, I hate to think the reaction I might have had to them.

Please feel free to share your experiences.

I haven't done a lot of research on how to evoke lucid dreams because they come naturally to me. However, there are tons of resources on the internet. I will try and list some resources when I find some good ones.

From what I've read so far, dream recall is very important in becoming lucid, or aware that you are dreaming. It's important because you need to learn more about your dreams and dream patterns in order to recognize within the dream that it is in fact a dream and not reality. Some sites suggest giving yourself reality check. For me, a dream can seem very real but then I'll notice one thing that doesn't make sense. For instance, I've had dreams where I wake from my bed, in my room, and everything is normal. Then, I'll notice that it's snowing outside and realize I'm dreaming because it's July.

So how do you learn to recall your dreams? Again, I don't really have this problem because I've always been so fascinated with dreams. It's like anything else that you study and learn. When you think of dreams during the day, studying them, and focusing on them, it becomes easier to recall and easier to use different dream techniques.

Now, maybe it's not that important to you, that you want to devote a bunch of time toward it. In that case, you should simply tell yourself before you go to bed, that you want to remember your dreams. I also use this time to focus on any questions I want answered.

It always helps to keep a paper and pen by the bed as well. While you don't need to journal everything in the middle of the night; when you wake after a dream, you can quickly scribble down key words. In the morning, these words will most likely trigger the dream or you'll at least get a laugh from the crazy words you're likely to write.

If it is the morning and no one is around, I like to say my dream out loud. This is extremely helpful to me if I don't feel like writing anything right away.

Hope these tips help. Please feel free to share yours. I will post more on this topic in the future.

As I mentioned before, I eventually took charge of my dreams, or nightmares I should say. I was in my early 20's and was in a huge transitional phase as most are at that age. I was in college, working, exercising daily, and feeling great about life in general. Then I found this book on dreams that discussed the art of "spinning". I don't remember the name of the book now, but it changed my life, or my life changed and my dreams followed. Either way, spinning really opened up my dream life to a whole other realm.

Basically, if you've had dreams where you are lucid, or aware that you're dreaming, your first response might be to wake up. I know mine always was. Once I'd realized I was dreaming, it was like the fun was over; but I was soooooooo wrong.

If you can stay calm enough to remain in a dream once you become lucid, you can take control of your dream world. One technique of doing this is "spinning", which is just that. You realize you're dreaming and you spin around in circles right there on the spot, within your dream of course. Once you stop, you will probably find that your surroundings have completely changed. Now, you are in control. Don't like where you're at, spin again. Don't like the storyline, spin again.

You can do whatever you'd like. I usually choose to fly because that is just the best feeling to me. It's funny, but when I fly I always run and jump up in the air like I need a running start.

I've also gotten to the point that I don't need to spin. I can change the surroundings just by waving my hand. I was once having a dream about my dad, after we found out he was sick, and I was telling him how much I loved him. We were in a huge city with a lot going on around us. I waved my hand at the sky above his head and suddenly there was nothing but a clear night's sky and just us. It was a beautiful dream that I hope I never forget.

I tend to have a great memory when it comes to dreams, but not much else oddly enough. I can still remember the first dream I ever wrote down in my dream journal just as if it had just happened. That's why dreams are so important to me, sometimes they're more real than my "real" life.

I hope that you will give spinning a try and please feel free to share the experience with me if you do.

Read more on my dream history here.

Although OCD has become more well known to the public as of late, I do not feel like it has been portrayed fairly. I have had OCD since I was a child. While I'll admit that some of my actions may come off that way, I am not crazy. Not everyone with OCD is like Howard Hughes. He was an extreme example.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is just that, it's a disorder. You can't just "get over it". I can't tell you how many people tell me that. Or they tell me they used to have it and they got better. The fact of the matter is, we all have quirks where we check to make sure the stove's off or we make sure not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk. However, quirks do not make up a disorder.

If checking the stove becomes so urgent that you fly home from vacation early just to do it, or if avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk keep you from going to work that week, then you have a disorder. A disorder disrupts your life. So, if you truly have OCD, you're not going to just get over it.

OCD, specifically, is about obsessive thoughts and the compulsive actions that are carried out based on those thoughts. The best way that I can describe it is, it's like having brain freeze. For example, like anyone else, when I get my hands dirty, I wash them. The difference is that I might get stuck in that thought that my hands are still dirty (the obsession), even if logic tells me that they are not. So I will have to continue washing my hands until they feel clean (the compulsion).

Some people might have to wash their hands a certain number of times, but it isn't the same for everyone. Like I said, not everyone is as severe as Howard Hughes. There are different levels of severity to OCD, just like with any disorder.

For me, I am functioning in my dysfunction at the present time, but I don't know what the future holds. OCD is a progressive disorder. It does get worse with time. Somehow, the process progresses so fast and yet slow enough that it seems bearable at the time. By the time it becomes unbearable, it's too late. I definitely worry that it will get to a point that I can no longer function "normally".

As far as treatment, I have tried the medication that doctors would have me take the rest of my life if they could, but as you've read in previous posts, I am not a big supporter of medication as a means to cure everything. Especially when they're not even sure of the cause.

I, personally, think that it's no different than anything else. Some people are genetically predisposed to things that are then triggered by our life experiences. I'll talk more about what may have triggered my OCD in pt.2 .

Today, is my father's b-day. Next month, it will be two years since he's been gone. Immediately after, I could have sworn it would never get better. I didn't know how people went on with their lives after losing someone so close. I didn't care about anything else. I would go out in public and breakdown and I didn't care who saw me. It was like I was in my own world.

I remember it took me about five months before I was able to talk about him without crying. I could even laugh at old stories of him. Still, the first year was definitely the hardest. I had a hard time accepting the idea that he wasn't coming back. I'd have thoughts like "I need to tell Dad that' or "I should call Dad". Once I even thought I saw him, I mean really saw him. It's when the reality hits that you can't call or that it's just a stranger who resembles him, that's the hardest part.

Now, I still think of him everyday and I know I will continue to for the rest of my life. Though the pain is there, it has dulled. Just like they say, time heals all. Of course, just because the wound has healed doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt or that there aren't scars.

I hope that this helps those who are grieving. I know that after I lost my dad, I wanted to know that I wasn't alone and I needed to know what to expect. I guess I needed hope that things would get better and I'm here to tell you that they do. Just hang in there.

I started keeping a dream journal when I was 12. I had a dream so realistic and so disturbing that I wrote it down and hid it like a secret. I knew then that dreams were important. They could affect you. In fact, I still remember that dream vividly, 18 years later.

It was the beginning of a 10 year stretch of time in which 90% of my dreams were nightmares. I'm talking a lot of dreams too because I typically remember 3 a night. Believe me, they were easy to remember. I am not exaggerating either. I actually went and cataloged my dreams, titling them, numbering them, and categorizing them so that I could get a better idea of how serious the problem was.

The majority of my nightmares were split between my being chased by a killer, a monster, or dogs. I am terrified of dogs and I had been studying serial killers from the age of 13, so it made sense that they may play parts in my nightmares. Monsters were a rarity and probably slipped in there because I was young. The other main component in my dreams was that someone would always be around, see what was going on and sometimes I'd even go to them for help but they never would do anything. I was always ignored.

The obvious answer being that I'm afraid of these things so I have nightmares about them and that maybe I have issues with feeling ignored in my life. I knew that it meant something more than that and that once I figured it out and did something about it, the dreams would cease. Like I said, it took 10 years, but I finally did it.

Turned out that my nightmares were all about a feeling of being out of control. That's actually why I fear dogs in real life, because I can't control them. They're driven by something primal, something I can't understand or reason with. They can turn on you at anytime and that scares me.

I figured that part out pretty early on. That's why I stress that you don't only have to understand why you're having the dreams but that you also need to do something about it. It wasn't until I did something about these control issues that the nightmares stopped.

Once I became more in control of my life, I still had similar dreams but when someone would chase me, I would turn it around on them. I know I had one dream where I stopped running, turned on the guy and lit him on fire with a blow torch. It was brutal but so empowering. I can't even tell you how good it felt to not be afraid anymore.

E ven though my experiences with therapists didn't turn out like I would have liked, I still believe in therapy. Just because the therapists that I had didn't work for me, doesn't mean they wouldn't have worked for someone else. There are many different types of therapists because there are many different types of people. As I mentioned before, I think that timing plays a part as well because my first therapist didn't work for me when I was seeing him, but maybe he would have been better for me at the time that I was seeing my third.

Unfortunately, it's harder to find the right fit than I would have thought. Still, I think it's worth it for everyone. I say "everyone" because there are still people out there who associate going to therapy with being crazy. It's just not the case. Going to a therapist for a sane person is no different than going to your medical doctor for check ups when you're healthy.

Sometimes it just helps to talk and get things off your chest. Whether it's the stresses of your job, or your family, or just the stupid things you see day to day. You shouldn't underestimate how good you can feel when you release those things. A therapist is someone who you can confide in without the worry that they will tell someone and that there will be repercussions in your day to day life. They're someone who can be objective and has no reason to deceive you or betray you. You should never feel strange about going to a therapist.

Don't let money be the excuse. Insurance should pay for it. If you don't have insurance, there are free clinics you can go to. There are also hotlines that you can call. I know because I have worked in these clinics and answered these calls. So, if you do want to talk to someone, there are resources available. You just have to seek them out.