"It doesn't actually bother me much -- as soon as I'm awake, I'm no longer scared and can usually go right back to sleep. However, my girlfriend would appreciate very much not to be regularly woken by someone screaming. :-) In the dreams, I'm usually about to be killed by someone (methods vary) and I can't get away. So I scream."

A man seeks advice at AskMetafilter.

The first answer is:

My mum used to always tell me, just before I was about to be killed to look down to my hand and see that I was holding a gun/ bucket of sand/ pale [sic] of water - which I could then use to instantly kill/ melt whoever was trying to kill me. It really worked!

This is the same method that can work to turn a dream into a lucid dream. If you can get yourself to think to look at your hands, when you see your hands, the dream will become a lucid dream — that is, you will understand that this is a dream and you can choose what to do within the dream world and know that whatever problem you are struggling with is not real.

Ah, yes, the next answer speaks directly of lucid dreaming: "Have you ever been able to turn a dream while dreaming? It involves becoming conscious that you are dreaming, and then deciding where things go next...."

Do any of you have this problem of yelling or screaming out loud into the real world of your bedroom as you face the dream people and animals that attack you? Have you ever called the police because you've got a neighbor with this oddball habit but you really think they're getting murdered?