When you are falling asleep, does your mind give you a warning that you're going to have a nightmare before you get there?

I don’t remember that specific thing, maybe mainly because I don’t usually have bad dreams right as they start.

But setting an intention before sleeping can definitely work, as can waking up from an annoying dream, and being partly aware of the dream and the waking world especially when falling asleep.

Mine doesn’t. When I was a kid, up to about 38, I didn’t have nightmares, or maybe only rarely (once or twice a year). Then from 38 to 52, I had nightmares pretty much every single night.

I also developed really bad insomnia as peri-menopause hit around 48. I hit full menopause last year at age 53.

At that point, the nightmares subsided, but I started taking Melatonin around the same time, or a little before, to help (not stop) the insomnia. It gives me crazy, weird, super vivid dreams, but not nightmares.

Either way, I don’t care for messed up dreams, but that’s what I got now.

Not when I am drifting off. But when I know a dream is headed into a bad place I go lucid and can realize it is a dream while in the dream so I have the option to wake the fuck up.

I have lucid dreams a few nights a week that aren’t terrifying. And no.. When you have them you don’t get to instantly bang John Stamos.

It is a much more subtle manipulation of dreams.

Why the hell would anyone want to bang John Stamos??

I mean anal.. Not a snare drum.

I assumed you meant sex. So who the hell would want to have sex with John Stamos?

No, but if I eat a dill pickle before I go to bed, I’ll remember my dream the next morning.

Well I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crackers.

I had a few nightmares as a kid but I don’t really get them anymore. I never had a warning I was going to have a nightmare though I have experienced that “falling” feeling at the point of getting to sleep.

I do not have nightmares.
I once dreamt getting shot in the head. When I woke up, I only thought “well, that was weird”.

I’m a lucid dreamer. I can control most of my dreams, or create armor, or weapons. I can fly, and breathe underwater. It’s a great thing I developed it. I had plenty of nightmares as a child.

I still have nightmares. But they are more psychological. Like being stuck somewhere, or being lost…

I don’t think I have any precursors, to what kind of dreams I’ll have.

If I have nightmares it involves one or more of the grandkids being in danger. It got pretty crazy with the Chantix.

I lucid dream too @MrGrimm888.

I had nightmares a lot as a kid but discovered in my early teens that you can only have nightmares in a completely dark room.

A 15— or 7 watt lightbulb worked. I never admitted the reason but just claimed to my parents that I needed to see if I had to get up in the night. That turning a light or lamp on AFTER I awoke made it hard to get back to sleep.

The nightmares I had would put today’s horror movies to shame. And sometimes, those dreams would continue past the time of waking,

I’m so sorry @Yellowdog. Do you have any idea why you had them?

That sucks @Yellowdog . I can remember some of my bad ones, from before I could control things. I had to develop and hone my lucid dreaming. I researched it, and worked on it. Maybe you could try it…

I was into lucid dreaming when I was in my late teens and early 20s—

I will say, once lucid dreaming didn’t work for me. I dreamed that the middle daughter of a friend of mine who had three daughters had disappeared—it was in the old Civic Auditorium (where my friend’s graduation was held in real life) . The girl disappeared quite suddenly. Although I realized I was dreaming and could do almost anything—fly or transfigure myself—I could not bring the girl back.

The best dreams I have are kind of homesick or bittersweet—or are so real that you awaken with a kind of ‘something’ that moves you to tears.

Sleep derivation or being very tired or stressed may be the source of the nightmares I had as a kid. I remember many dreams about giant spiders or webbing, moving shadows of things that weren’t there, imagery or eyes in mirrors—but fearsome and unknown sounds/noises for some reason were particularly terrifying.

What about white noise? You can customize it with different apps on your phone. Listening to a rainforest, or beach all night, might aid you…

Recently I’ve found that, when having a night of not good, not acceptable dreams, if I eat something to raise my blood’s sugar level, my dreams switch to good, acceptable.

On rare occasion I start having bad dreams when I’m first falling asleep, and I can force myself awake and change my thoughts. It’s not directing the dream, but rather interrupting it. I’m not even sure it’s technically a dream yet.

Mostly, I can fall asleep with a clear mind.

When I’m under a lot of stress I have reoccurring nightmares. When that’s going on I try to purposely think happy thoughts before going to sleep. I don’t know if it works. It’s horrible having nightmares almost daily.