Dying In Dreams (Lucid or Otherwise)

[The Funslinger]

Recently, I have been having dreams in which I somehow end up dead.
The usual fall from a large height or get in a car wreck is popular, and my mind took note. However, I've also been smashed by a boulder, eaten by a swordfish, and blown up in a parking garage; all within the same week!(Sometimes twice a night.)

Now as a practicing lucid dreamer, I am usually able to control my surroundings to avoid dying, "respawn" after my death, or at the very least, wake myself up.
Not the case lately.
After my demise, I go into this ethereal, "Who's Who"-esque free roaming camera situation where I am above my dead body and just get to watch the rest of the dream play out. I do not get to actively participate in the rest of my dream unless someone else dies, then I can talk to them.
Sometimes I realize I am dreaming before I die, sometimes after. But even then, my control seems limited.

So my questions are, does this ever happen to you? What is your "life after death?" Do you have any suggestions for me to avoid this rather annoying nightly occurrence?

So how does Lucid Dreaming work exactly?

OT: I used to have a recurring nightmare where I'd wake up in an maze of ice caverns, and wander around for a while, they come into an open area only to be mauled by the Fox's Mints polar bear.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I die in almost all of my dreams.
And most of my dreams are severe nightmares that are too fast paced and realistic for me to ever realize that I am in fact dreaming, so no lucid dreaming for me

Its horrible. I'm usually viciously stabbed or beaten to death (and I feel the pain, it hurts so much) or sometimes shot (I never feel pain for that one but it scares me the most). I usually wake up right after I stop breathing and everything goes black. Then I wake up in a cold sweat, usually with tears, heart pounding, eyes wild. I don't scream anymore at least.

I hate my dreams.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

My in-dream deaths have mostly been apocalyptic. I've also had dreams where I lose my balance somehow and fall to my death but my most spectacular deaths are always more along the lines of, "what even the fuck?!". Like watching the sky literally shatter and take on a yellowish tint before dying and waking up. There was another time where I ended up inside of the moon and found that it was hollow, everything on the interior was copper-tinted but it reflected what was outside of it so I got a weird fish-eye version of Earth.

Now that I think about it, I get shot to death in most of my dream-deaths. Mostly by random criminals too; car jackers, alley-thieves, random stalkers...shot-and-killed. However, I will sometimes realize that I can control the dream and it's at that point when I become the most violent fighter in the history of all history and beat them to an absurdly cartoonish death...I kind of envy OP, who seems to be able to take control of their dreams with no effort. Lucky...I'll get there eventually I suppose.

 

[Aramis Night]

I mentioned this happening to me in a different thread. My death experiences are usually far more like actual experiences. It feels like i'm learning about aspect of dieing i was unaware of before the dream. Beyond just the usual cliches they show in movies. More subtle details. Like the feelings of despair and the eventual suffocation you feel after you are past the point of being able to physically react as your body slowly shuts down while your brain just sits in your head taking in all the final stimuli.

Just wait till you start dreaming of what comes after death. That is where the real fun begins. If your dreams let you get that far, it can ruin you.

 

[SwimmingRock]

I don't remember how I died, but the one time I can recall dying in a dream, I ended up in an eternal void kind of place. I no longer had a physical body and was just sentience. I remember thinking:"Huh. Is that it?" and then got bored pretty quickly. It was not, unfortunately, a dream where I managed to wake up immediately. I was just there, nowhere and formless, unable to do anything. Not looking forward to a repeat.

 

[DugMachine]

When I die in dreams I always wake up. I have this recurring dream of being crushed by the ceiling coming down on me. I feel the impact of the crash but before I die/lose consciousnesses I wake up sweating and breathing heavily.

I'm glad I don't have the dream often but it's usually once every 2 months since I was about 14.. 28 now.

 

[LaughingAtlas]

I've died in dreams, but most of the time I pause the dream and reload to a few minutes before that point. Yes, it can apparently work like that, though it's never been lucid in my case. There were two or three times where I got the life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. (that is, the dream replaying itself, much faster up to the point I get myself killed) And then of course are the times I just wake up upon slamming into the concrete from 50 stories up. Marshmallow watchtowers don't even work in dreams, apparently.

I have very little experience in lucid dreaming, so I'm not sure if this can help at all. Only one I remember was just flipping channels on a window looking for something fun to divebomb after flying onto a rooftop, getting bored, and waking up.