How being a lucid dreamer helped manage intrusive thoughts

Retrospecting the way becoming a lucid dreamer helped with my OCD intrusive thoughts

Photo by Shot by Cerqueira on Unsplash

I remember the first time I heard about lucid dreaming; it was around the 4th or 5th year of elementary school when a school friend said he could control his dreams. I was reluctant about believing in such a thing, but I was having a recurrent nightmare, which was something following in an endless forest/abandoned building and I wanted to stop it.

Around that time, my family life was going through some big changes I couldn’t manage well, and most likely that’s why the dreams were like that. Having something I could control with my creativity was something I must have been compelled to have as an ability.

Day after day, instead of waking up frustrated by not being able to stop dreaming it, it turned into a challenge of forcing a resolution or changing it. The frustration of any beneficial change made it worse when I talked again with that school friend, and I remember they mockingly saying “It’s so easy! You must be dumb”.

Inspiration when I was alone in this adventure

My stubbornness helped me to stick it up by finding a way to change the dream, so again when I was dreaming…