Weird dreams

well sometimes during some dreams, I am conscious that I'm dreaming, but usually that makes me wake up.
I've never been "trapped" in a dream like you, not that I remember at least.
Tonight I had this sweet dream where I slept with the girl I have a crush on I wouldn't want to wake up in the middle of a dream like that

I've had dreams before i woke up for school sometimes, and in the dreams i am getting ready for school and i am partially conscious but when i start to eat breakfast and i don't taste anything, so I immediately wake up. It's pretty freaky, yeah but hey maybe you need to clear your mind before you sleep, that's what worked for my sister who kept getting nightmares.

Edit: Oh and when I was 7 I used to have partial sleep walks, where i'm partially conscious. I'd say some stupid shit like the house is going to blow up, but i couldn't control myself. I'm glad i got past that stage.

Yes, becoming conscious while dreaming is being called lucid dreaming. I for myself practice lucid dreaming now and then with more or less success (two lucid dreams so far). There are dozens of advantages of being lucid in a dream:
* The dream becomes A LOT clearer, most people say it seems more realistic than real life. The clearance in "normal" unconscious dreams is much worse.
* You can do everything you want when you know that youre dreaming. Fly, punch random people, have sex with anyone (or anything) you want. Ask people about the meaning of life or tell them to teach you how to play soccer. Combine this with point 1 and you can see that its actually awesome to have lucid dreams.
* You can get easily rid of nightmares when you're conscious - see a scary monster? just say fuck you and smile (or punch that fool to death)
* You can actively create your dreams. Wanna go to Disneyland? Just think of it good enough and start dreaming.
* There are no risks, dangers like being literally addicted to dreaming or something. You can use your dreams to expand your lifetime!
etc.

There's no reason to be scared. if you really want to wake up, just calm down, remember that youre actually lying in bed, and just say to yourself "Alright, time for wakeup now." Or ask a dreamperson to wake you up. But i suggest using the time in your dream. For the koreans, maybe they've heard of the tibetan monks. They practice lucid dreaming for over 1000 years as part of spiritual healing and stuff.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming and http://ld4all.com/

You can probably think of lucid dreaming as being Neo in the Matrix with knowing that it just isn't real, which gives you the chance of doing anything you ever wanted.

When you feel scared, do you feel paranoid too? If so, it might be sleep paralysis, which is when you wake up in REM sleep, but only your brain wakes up. I used to get it all the time, but it stopped about 6 months or so ago. Good luck figuring this out, I know how scary it can be.

Heh, the way Wolfsclaw put it, makes it sound pretty cool. I guess I should really calm myself the next time, since everytime it's happened so far I've just panicked. I'll post again when/if it happens again..

Awdofgum: I've done the partial sleepwalking thing aswell, it's not as frequent as the dreams but still it's kinda weird. And apparently I talk in my sleep from time to time.. Pretty strange eh?

Scary thought; my unconsciousness is vying for supremacy over my conciousness..

Pikadude: not really, the main thought going through my head when it happens is 'OHSHI- I GOTTA WAKE UP!'

think I get exactly what you get a combination of lucid dreaming and sleep paraylsis, do you ever seem to wake up but your bodys not awake? Thats some scary shit right there, especially if your face down in your pillow its hard not to panic. But I've never got scared from having lucid dreams before.

Edit: Should have read pikadudes post. :S

Ye I think that's exactly how it is, a combination of combination of lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis. It's never happened when I was face down, but it has happened while I was under my covers.. Thought I was going to suffocate.

I totally feel for you, I seem to get it quite frequently for a while and then suddenly it stops happening but randomly starts back up again. Wish I had some tips but I dont.

Yup but thats what happens when your body decides to stay paralyzed a little bit longer than your heads' thoughts. Dont forget that it is -normal- to be paralyzed during sleep - that is because when you're dreaming your head sends signals just like in waked state to the rest of your body when you do something. If you dream of waving an arm around, you would actually do that in real life - but thats what sleep paralysis is there for. When you are sleep-walking, then the paralysis is not 100% active which COULD be dangerous if for example you stumble upon things and fall. Thats why evolution created the paralysis - however, as you can see from sleep-walking, mother nature is never perfect.
When you sleep-walk often it could also be helpful being able to lucid dream - for example you could choose in your dream to wake up or not too move too freely, when you fear that you could hurt yourself in real life. Or, as a joke, if someone is also in your room say things like "hey im sleepwalking lulz" and your partner will be quite confused if your mouth is not paralyzed and the words get transmitted to the real world.

And for your case, it's best just to hold on to your state of being paralyzed with knowing it and trying NOT to move. The paralysis will weaken after a few seconds or minutes, there has never been (as far as i know) a case of someone not being able to pull out of sleep paralysis. On the other hand, being still paralyzed and conscious is a great oppurtunity to enter a lucid dream (if you still have some time for sleeping, i.e. on weekends), just don't try moving and "say" to yourself in your head that you will know that youre dreaming once you're awake again.

[quote name='moozxy' post='1085274' date='Apr 13 2008, 08:48 AM']Every now and again I get really really scary dreams. I wouldn't call them nightmares, since it's not the content of the dream that it's scary. I'll try to explain; while I'm sleeping, I suddenly become concious about the fact that I'm sleeping, in my dream. This sort of makes me panic, and I try to wake up, but I can't. I try to move, but I can't. It's scary as hell. Eventually after a some time (it's hard to keep track of time) of struggle, I manage to wake up, but then I'm really really tired and often I fall straight back to sleep and fall into this weird sleep again.

When I speak to my British friends about this, they've never heard of it before and they think it's really weird, but when I speak to my Korean friends, they've all heard of it and some of them have experienced it aswell. There's a name for it aswell, in korean. They said it's to do with stress, which could be true since my exams are coming closer everyday..
I guess it's kind of like Lucid Dreaming, but is it meant to be this scary?

Have any of you guys had a dream like this, and know what the term for it is?[/quote]

This happens to me when I don't wanna believe someone died in my dream... scary stuff.

Its called Sleep Paralysis. When you are "asleep", your mind is active. Because of this, your brain automatically shuts down your body to prevent you from doing anything stupid (to say crudely) since you are technically "sleeping" and are capable of doing stupid things.

Worry not, it is very normal although it can get rather scary at times. I find suddenly jerking my arm a good way to break out of Sleep Paralysis.

[quote name='ZAFDeltaForce' post='1085549' date='Apr 13 2008, 03:53 PM']Its called Sleep Paralysis. When you are "asleep", your mind is active. Because of this, your brain automatically shuts down your body to prevent you from doing anything stupid (to say crudely) since you are technically "sleeping" and are capable of doing stupid things.

Worry not, it is very normal although it can get rather scary at times. I find suddenly jerking my arm a good way to break out of Sleep Paralysis.[/quote]

So does this mean people who sleepwalk have this mechanism shut off?

Like a lot have said, its called sleep paralysis, i read about it some time ago, and the Wikipedia link is a great page about this.
Wikipedia Entry on Sleep Paralysis

Few times in my life I had dreams that I knew that I was dreaming but I didnt wanted to wake up, when you have a concious dream you can do anything like flying or other things that you are not doing by day . Next time when you will realize that you are sleeping in your dream try to levitate or fly it is quite fun.

Aha thanks for all the informative replies. I'm actually kind of looking forward to the next time it happens to see if I could do the Lucid dreaming thing.