Lucid Dreaming

Things NOT to Do in a Lucid Dream

WEB-OF-DARKNESS wrote: Some things you shouldn't do in a lucid dream I'd like to know.

Nothing you do in a lucid dream will be absolutely horrible, but it can scare you, end the dream, or confuse you later on, so here's a few things that you may want to avoid:

1) Don't close your eyes.  At least, not for extended periods of time/multiple times in a short time period.  This will wake you up.
2) Don't dream of real life people/events.  This can ultimately result in not being able to distinguish memories from dreams.  It'd be really awkward to go up to someone and bring up a dream event that they weren't actually a part of!
3) Don't use dream commands such as "trap me" or "scare me".  I've been over this, and it will work.
4) Don't do too many exciting things (ex: sex).  This will also wake you up.
5) Don't use your abilities too soon.  This usually leads to the dream ending, either due to your own frustration or because the technique isn't being done correctly.  I'll admit that I'm guilty of this and have paid the price for it.  Teleporting, for example, requires spinning (mentioned below).  Flying too soon will make you fall, you'll get scared, you'll wake up.  Manifestation isn't as unstable, so at worst it'll probably just annoy you into waking up.
6) Don't lucid dream all the time.  This isn't an issue for me since I have to struggle to gain lucidity, but for those with more talent, it can become a problem.  You'll lose interest in one of two things: lucid dreaming or reality.  This gets warned about very often, so it's worth noting.
7) Don't be violent or inflict pain on yourself.  Inflicting pain on yourself, even in a dream, can put you off of lucid dreaming.  As for violence, rewiring your brain towards it in a dream will rewire your brain the same way in waking life.  So yes, lucid dreaming can make you violent.  It can feel good as stress relief, but still, be careful with it.
8) Don't think about your physical body.  This one will wake you up, but it also— although this claim seems bizarre, it does come from a source I trust— can apparently correlate with bedwetting.
9) Don't try too hard.  You'll hold yourself back.

Things to be careful with, but that you can still do:
1) Looking into a mirror.  I went over this in "Things to Do in a Lucid Dream".
2) Spinning around.  This can work as a stabilization technique when done right, but when done badly, it'll just wake you up.
3) Negative or scary thoughts.  Sometimes you may have hypothetical questions in your head— for example, HowtoLucid mentioned wondering in a lucid dream what would happen if pianos started falling from the sky.  We all have unwarranted thoughts, especially in dreams, that maybe we don't want the answer to, but they can happen either way.  This can either be very interesting or very scary.