Waking up in the morning feeling like absolute crap is horrible, but it’s something you know well.
You don’t feel like crap because you got up on the wrong side of the bed. You also can’t blame your partner unless they have a habit of kicking you in the face in the middle of the night. Something else is at play and we’ll get to the bottom of it.
I think lucid dreaming stops me from feeling horrible when I wake up in the morning, and I think it will stop you from feeling horrible too.
Stop letting your dreams affect you
Just because your conscious mind switches off while you’re asleep doesn’t mean you are not still living life. You live life in the dream world multiple times per night. If you dream about horrible things it will obviously affect you in a negative way.
Most people can’t remember their dreams. If you got eaten by a tiger you would feel horrible in the morning even though you didn’t know why. If you were drowning in a swimming pool and down to your last few breathes it surely must affect your mind in a negative way.
Knowing it’s a dream will save you
I remember my first (and only) time being attacked by a tiger. Seeing one running around on the loose was pretty nerve wracking. It was so big and powerful. I once naively thought it would be possible to fight off a big cat if you jumped out of the way and eventually tried to poke their eyes out. Seeing one thundering around in my dream taught me how silly that idea was.
The tiger grabbed me and started dragging me around by my arm. Do you think I was scared? No, because I knew it was a dream and I couldn’t be hurt. I woke up feeling great because the experience was so powerful.
I’ve nearly drowned a few times too. Before I took my last breath I realized it was just a dream. So once again I woke up feeling great. I probably felt great on those occasions because I knew I wasn’t really going to die, but great is great so it still counts.
The nightmare isn’t the problem
You have to realize it’s not the actual nightmare that makes you feel horrible when you wake up. You don’t feel like crap because you got attacked by an axe murdering zombie, thrown off a building, or knocked down by a car.
You feel crap because of the affect it has on your mind. If your mind thinks it’s real it will affect you in a negative way and you will feel horrible when you wake up.
All those scary things could happen to you again, but this time if you knew it was just a dream it wouldn’t have the same effect on your mind. You might wake up knowing something horrible happened, but your mind won’t feel permanently traumatized.
Remembering your dreams can help too
If you know it’s a dream your mind won’t be affected in the same way. We’ve already established that, but you don’t have to become lucid to feel better after you wake up from a nightmare.
Even if you remember the dream clearly it will do you the world of good. Your mind might still be messed up for a few seconds after waking up, but because you remember the nightmare was only a dream it goes some way to repairing the negativity thoughts stored deep inside your mind.
I’m sure you’ve felt relieved after waking up from a scary dream before. It was maybe so bad your heart was pounding and you couldn’t catch your breath. Imagine how messed up you would have been throughout the day if your mind didn’t find out it wasn’t real.
Not knowing is dangerous
It amuses me when people say they don’t want to learn how to lucid dream because they’re scared of nightmares. They don’t even want to remember their dreams because they’d rather be completely oblivious to what happened once they wake up. But not knowing is dangerous.
Not knowing is what’s going to make you feel like crap during the day. Would you rather be a little bit frightened for a few seconds, or would you want your dreams to stop you from feeling brilliant when you wake up?
How to get started
It’s possible to manipulate your dreams so you feel amazing every morning, but if you don’t want to go that far there are still a few things you can do. I’ve covered these dozens of times so I’ll just quickly mention them. You can start by:
- Remembering your dreams
- Increasing your awareness
It’s obvious why remembering your dreams will help. If you increase your awareness you have a higher chance of becoming lucid during a nightmare, which is why that will help too.
Lucid dreaming is the next step
Once you start to become lucid more regularly you’ll notice something strange happening. You’ll start to feel a lot happier when you wake up. With the amount of cool things you can do each night it’s no wonder you’ll wake up with a big smile on your face. Even the fact you’ve been walking around in a non-physical world is enough to make you feel good.
I’ve realized it doesn’t really matter when or how you become lucid. Passing directly into a lucid dream is great, but you’ll still be happy if you become spontaneously lucid at some point during the night. Obviously you will need to remember it first otherwise it won’t count for anything.
Manipulating dreams so you feel great
I’m not going to guess what is going to make you feel like a champion when you wake up. It might be because you flew like Superman. Maybe you drove around a racecourse at 200 miles per hour. You might even get a kick out of exploring strange and mysterious worlds.
I’m just going to tell you what makes me feel pumped when I wake up because it might spark something in you. Just because you can do almost anything in the dream world doesn’t mean you can ignore the real world. At the end of the day you spend most of your life there.
You must have goals in life, so what are they? Do you want to become rich so you can buy a fancy sports car? Do you want to move abroad so you can live in a tropical country? Think really hard about what you want more than anything else in the world.
The connection between dreams and goals
I’ve found that acting out your goals when lucid makes you feel a million times better when you wake up. This is because your life’s goals are very important to you and when you’ve experienced them during a bout of lucidity you wake up thinking they are actually possible.
Think about how great it feels to daydream about your perfect future. Now imagine actually living out your perfect future in real time. I’ve actually spoken about this before when I said it’s the strongest affirmation possible. It can help you achieve your dreams, but in the meantime it will make you feel really good.
Sports cars and tropical countries
Using the examples I mentioned before, you could drive sports cars or visit tropical countries in your lucid dreams. Just conjure up a fast car, climb inside and drive it at high speed. Conjure up a dream door and walk through to find yourself on a tropical beach.
I don’t care about sports cars, but I have visited tropical beaches in lucid dreams. I’ve also used them to help me think of ideas about how I can achieve my perfect life. Try it the next time you become lucid and I promise you will wake up with excitement and hope coursing through your veins.
Lucid dreaming about your real life future is the greatest high you’ll ever have.