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  • I do know a way around this but you have to be at least mildly aware you are in a dream. I once punched a cement wall in a lucid dream expecting it to crumble to pieces. It did not, because I was expecting a reaction from the environment to the forces I was exerting on it. But there is no environment, and thus no reaction. The wall you arm everything is just the dream. The trick is to visualize the wall exploding when you punch it and then it happens. Or to take it a step further realize that you only need to visualize the wall exploding and it will.

    There is no spoon.

  • Be glad you can't, and that you don't have the super power of moving in your sleep to a large degree.

    I can punch full speed in my dreams, and then hit things in the waking world. Luckily, I've also got some kind of "radar" that excludes people that sleep with me on a regular basis, and animals that do the same. I've never punched a dog or cat, nor my chicken when we fall asleep together for a nap.

    Never punched a partner unless they tried to grab me when that's going on.

    It's not a fun thing. I also don't talk about it much outside of support groups because some ninny usually has to offer advice like I never thought to look into ways of fixing it. Don't be that ninny, if you're thinking of it.

    I have broken some shit over the years, including wall paneling, a headboard, multiple lamps, a window, plus stuff that falls off of headboards and shelves close enough to get shaken by the impact.

    Ain't PTSD fun?

    • my chicken when we fall asleep together for a nap

      Let's begin with this... go on..

      • Oh, she's a little cutie pie. Pad trained (mostly) and she loves cuddles when she's sleepy.

        She'll hop up on the bed, where her pad is laid out, then preen a little. Then she comes over to me and nestles in to my side, wiggling her little butt, then she'll take a nap. That's if I'm already asleep. My wife has watched it happen a goodly number of times lol

        Sometimes, she'll see and hear me yawning and start trilling and do the same little routine, but she'll also peck lightly at my arm or whatever to get me into position. When she was younger, she'd want my arm over her; not touching, but over.

        When I'm not showing signs of being sleepy, she will.

        She paces back and forth a little, fluffing up and trilling until I pay her attention. Then she'll waggle her tail and bok at me until I settle into position so that she can either lay up against my side, or against my arm. Then she'll purr a bit. If I don't lay my head down, she'll peck at my arm until I do. But once my head's down, she settles in and drops off. Since my old ass can usually nap at any time, I tend to drowse a little even when I'm not tired, just because it's easier than doing stuff that might wake her up.

        This damn bird lol. Between her and the rooster, who is not allowed on the bed when he's inside the house, there's always something going on.

        Lmao! I'm writing this, and she's in the living room with my kid. I hear a loud pweep! that is a chicken sneeze, followed by my kid going "awwwwwuuughh! She sneezed in my mouth!" Well, if you didn't keep trying to kiss her, your face wouldn't get hit.

        I can't say I'd recommend chickens as pets across the board; they're messy and more expensive than you'd think, and they take a good bit of work. But mine are worth it. If you'd told me at this time in 2023 that by this time in 2025, I'd allow a chicken in my house at all, I'd have told you you were crazy. But a few months later, the hen that was actually a rooster had come along, and then the actual hen, and here we are, creeping up on two years of chickening, and happy with it.

    • Friend of mine had to divorce her husband when he came home from Iraq. Violent as hell in his sleep, doesn't remember a thing. And then there were all the other PTSD things.

      Seems a jihadi ambushed him with a machete. Next thing he remembered was his superior officer, and a few other dudes, pulling him off the mutilated corpse. Took some doing to identify the remains, as in, not sure of the nationality, or gender.

      I've had "PTSD light", no use telling the stories involving robbers and bears, but I shudder to think what the real thing is like.

      What do you do? Fuck I know. It does fade over the years. Many, many years.

      • Being real, even "light" PTSD is no joke. Compared to some combat PTSD survivors I've known, my version is a cake walk. Like, support group meetings can get real because folks can trigger each other, and the vets, they can sometimes totally dissociate from the world around them because the trauma is just that deeply ingrained and suffused into their system. But that doesn't mean your trimmed traumas amd symptoms aren't absolute hell too. A different area of hell, yeah, but still

        Me, it took years of group therapy, 1 on 1 therapy, and support groups to get to the point where I was stable enough to return to life on a realistic level. Time helps for sure, but I'd not be here without the external support to get that time.

    • When much younger, I read the Odd Thomas series. In the first or maybe second book of the series, the titular protagonist encounters some coyotes. The protagonist suggests, when being hunted by them, the survival strategy of making loud, sudden and bold movements and sounds to startle the coyotes into fleeing.

      I can't say whether this would be effective or not, but apparently I took it to heart at the time. Very soon thereafter I was having a nightmare about being chased by coyotes through my dad's backyard (at the time probably the wildest place I'd been). I took the book's advice and threw myself forward, yelling. Unfortunately, that was apparently the moment my brain released me from my dream, resulting in me thrusting myself in my then-girlfriend's then-sleeping face, yelling.

      For what it's worth, I now would recommend avoiding that approach unless actually imperiled in waking hours.

      edit: Not to diminish the impact of PTSD. My hope was that the ideally humorous story would raise your spirits. Apologies if it did otherwise. However, I laughed at myself several times while typing the above. Hopefully you enjoyed the anecdote, too.

    • Have you tried actually following random strangers with no identifiable credentials unsolicited advice on your health and well-being? Like have you really tried?

      Personally, I think you can get rid of this behavior by punching yourself in your dreams as hard as you can. I don't see anyway that this could harm you and it will instantly solve your problems because I'm a super genius and you should listen to me.

      Don't be that ninny

      I'll do what I want! Lol cheers, PTSD fucking blows. I'm not violent but I always wake up in a panic, no matter what the situation is. Jolt up with a sharp breath every morning and then sit there doing breathing exercises for 20 minutes

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