Nightmare

It’s basically the same thing. Dreams become lucid when you realize you are dreaming. There are tricks to become aware of dreaming inside a dream and from that point it comes natural. You don’t need to be a light sleeper. The hardest part is inducing dreams themselves on frequent basis, but if dreams (nightmares included) are already present, this is not an issue. After some practice dreams become more vivid, more frequent, last longer and are easier to shape. Interesting thing about this is that while our imagination gets on par with real life, our mind is kind of slowed down, it’s not possible to think as fast and as clear inside a dream as in real life, hence the training beforehand to prepare how to handle those dreams. It’s quite hard to come up with an idea inside a dream unless you had that idea before you went into the dream.

It can be addictive, among other issues. The vividness can be misleading itself and create confusion whenever you did something in dream or in real life, whenever you spoke with someone or if it happened just in dream. It sort of blends into one image. During lucid dreaming you feel everything the same way you feel it in real life. You can enjoy food, cold weather, soft touch on you cheek or warm hug…. but you also feel pain the same way you feel it in real life. Few times I achieved absolute control over dreams, I was literally manipulating the enviroment. Blowing stuff up, changing color of the clouds, creating huge waves. It felt amazing. Until my own projections attacked me, bitten me and stabbed me to death. But as long I kept things subtle, all was fine. Once I actually scared the nightmare itself so badly it literally ran away. The hunted became the hunter.

Fun trivia: The movie Inception is loosely based on the idea of lucid dreaming and many things from that movie are actually applicable in lucid dreaming.