How do you know when you're in a nightmare?

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Nightmares make you suffer horribly but at a certain point you realize that reality cannot possibly be that bad and you escape the nightmare. You can escape it consciously by allowing yourself to be overcome by whatever's creating horrible fear and pain for you in the nightmare and dying (so you wake up then).

What's to distinguish unbearable suffering in real life from a nightmare.

I long since reached this conclusion: "If you are awake you know you are awake but if you are asleep you can think you are awake or asleep".

In my dreams I often fly by swimming through the air. I've tried using this as a clue to know I'm dreaming. However, it doesn't work because I either don't remember the clue or I have the thought "Whoa - this is the first time I've been able to fly while awake!". It is as though the brain suppresses some of the mental faculties while dreaming so you have difficulty knowing it is a dream (or nightmare). Only occasionally do I have lucid dreams where I positively know for sure that I'm dreaming - and those are a lot of fun - talking to people I know aren't real and looking at the scenery knowing my brain is creating / simulating the entire thing.

Going back to nightmares, I used to have lots of nightmares as a teenager about being chased by a horrible giant / monster (around ten feet tall) and I had difficulty running away - it was like trying to wade through water. These nightmares persisted for a long time until one day I decided enough was enough and I turned and confronted the monster and punched it so hard my fist went right inside it and killed it. Never had that nightmare again; whatever the fear was it was conquered.

There's a famous Chinese story about a man who dreamed he was a butterfly. The next day he wondered: last night was I a man dreaming I am a butterfly, or today am I a butterfly dreaming I am a man?

Nothing could be simpler.

First: shut your eyes.

Then: open them.

In a dream your 'virtual' eyes shut when you shut your eyes and it gets dark.

But when you reopen them (in a dream or in real life) your real eyelids always open.
If you were asleep recopening your eye lids will instantly wake you up, and youll find yourself safely in bed.
But if it were your real wakeing life- then the same reality will continue no matter how many times you flutter your eyelids.

I discovered that by accident when I was child. I was always falling off tall buildings in my dreams. Thus I was always bracing myself for hitting the pavement by tensing up and shutting my eyes-in the dream- and then expericncing disorientation when I reopened them a moment later -finding myself safely in bed.

Ofcourse you dont get the fun of having scentient dream (lke what tallyman is talking about) but its a quick way to abort an nighmare.

Just woke up from a nightmare, actually. My 5-month-old has been moved into a crib in the room with his older brother. He still wakes up and cries at night, it just takes one of us longer to actually respond. But the point is that waking up more often during the night, I'm remembering more of my dreams.

Anyway, here's the nightmare I just had, and I think TBG will appreciate this:

I was driving down the road when I notice someone has a huge trash heap by the road in front of their house. This isn't unusual, but what caught my attention was what appeared to be a nice Marshall tube combo, something like a MA100C 2x12. So, of course, I immediately stop and check it out.

It looks like it's in great condition, so I figure I'll take it home and check it out. You never know...if it's junk, maybe all I need is to replace the tubes or the speaker or something, overall a couple hundred bucks and I've got a great amp for cheap, right? Well, the first thing I notice is how light it is. I'm like, that's weird, but whatever, I got me a Marshall!

So I take it home, and I notice that the power cable is 2-prong, not the heavy gauge 3-prong that it's supposed to be. Looks like it got pulled from an old table lamp or something. Meh...no big deal. So I plug it in, and before I can even check the power switch, it starts playing music. It doesn't even sound good, more like AM radio quality, really scratchy and all. I'm, like, WTF??? So I look at the back of the amp, and it turns there have been holes drilled into it for radio hardware, the speakers were taken out and replaced by el-cheapos that look like they came from Radio Shack, and the tube circuitry is gone.

When the baby woke me up, the amp was sitting on MY front lawn. I'd also broken out in a sweat, I was breathing hard, and my heart was pounding. I'm glad that's over.

Even in a dream there is no such thing as a bargain!

When you wake up and the girl from the grudge is in your bed.