How my lucid dreams work - Riddled with Nightmares

"Riddled with Nightmares" as the name suggests, is a model of my lucid dreams that only happen in my nightmares, aka scary dreams. These are never fun to have and cause me great stress. Unlike "stage choices," my awareness of this being a dream is rather limited. There is an embedded idea that although this is a dream, my consciousness is trapped here. I will not be able to leave this space unless I solve all the riddles and uncover the mystery behind this nightmare. To wake up, I have to complete the story. Upon realization, I'd usually heave a heavy sigh before moving forward, and with that breath, I relinquish my consciousness that I am in a dream until the nightmare is complete.

Like the typical horror movie plot, I would usually be in a dark and creepy place when I find myself trapped or in danger. The only way to move forward would be to solve the riddle. However, most of the time, I need to find what the puzzle is first. It could be as easy as a cryptic message scratched on the wall or as puzzling as an infinite empty space. And there sure are no instructions on what I'm supposed to do. Seems like I started playing escape rooms in my head even before the activity became popular!

After several puzzles in each dream, I would then understand why the place I was in was dilapidated, how it came to ruin, and sometimes why I visited the location in the first place. The stories are usually filled with murders and tragedies that would leave me feeling melancholy. I would then come back to the realization that this whole ordeal was but a dream and spend the rest of my sleep in a mixture of feeling somber and relieved.