Thread: Was I lucid?

Hi all, I'm new here!

I just started experimenting with all this LD stuff yesterday, after reading dreams.lucid group messages on Google. Anyway, I decided to give it a try last night, and attempted to induce WILD state on myself. And here's how it went:

1) I was retaining my consciousness by reciting the multiplication table, while lying with my eyes closed and completely relaxed, as if having normal sleep.

2) Having read many ghost and paralysis stories, I was anticipating something scary to happen. All of a sudden, I clearly heard a *THUMP* on my computer desk, and it prompted my heart rate to speed up significantly! By this time I was quite drowsy, and didn't feel like opening my eyes and going to check out what might've stumped at 1 am in my room, in absolute darkness.

3) During that, I was performing simple math computations in my mind to stay conscious (multiplication table rules at first, but then, after finding them too hard and distracting, I just started adding 1+1, 1+2... 1+9, 2+1, 2+2.., 9+9, instead of 1*2, 1*3, etc.)

4) Then, I started seeing hypnagogic imagery (I hope that's what it was) - random images, color dots, and fragments of images. That, I figured, was an indication that I was falling to sleep rather than just lying in the darkness with my eyes closed.

5) Then I shook my shoulder REALLY HARD! I happened spontaneously, and I couldn't believe that something like that actually happened! On the google message board I read that weird stuff like that happens to us every night, whether we are aware of it or not.

6) Then I heard weird noises again, like thumps in the kitchen and bathroom, and another one in my room. And doing math calculations must have put too much stress on my poor, consciousness losing brain, and it boosted my heart rate once again!

7) All of a sudden, I sensed something really freaking weird, like if there were something or someone floating around my room. And at the same time, I imagined a really scary face, a dead woman's face. I felt terrified, it was like a nightmare! I was thinking to myself, "Man, I can't believe this is what normal going-to-sleep process feels like! I can't take it anymore, I want to freaking wake up, turn on the lights, then go back to sleep normally!!" I know this sounds ridiculous now, but it really felt awful for a semi-conscious person in the middle of the night!

8) Then, I started feeling numbness in feet and hands. I read that that was like the last stage before LD supposedly would kick in. Also, the fear was gone, and my heart rate stabilized. Boy, finally I could relax and concentrate on my multiplication table! I found it increasingly difficult to do simple calculations, like 3+6, so I had to repeat the equation a couple times before I finally got the answer and could move on to the next one. I found it easier to perform one calculation every once in a while, as opposed to non-stop, so I would do something like 1+2=3 and 3+6=9 every 20 seconds or so, when I felt like I was losing it!

9) Then numbness has come and gone at least a couple of times, and I was somewhat distracted by mild skin itching here and there. At some point, I must have blacked out for a brief period of time, though I clearly remember that I kept myself conscious by math computations, so I can't be quite sure whether I blacked out or not.

10) I say I could've blacked out because I don't remember how it happened when suddenly I found myself lying on my side, with my hands and chest muscles twitching slightly, and eyes closed tight. I was like "I'm sleeping at last!" The muscle twitching felt really funny, so I couldn't help but laugh at it, thinking how silly I must've been looking at that moment, like a sleeping dog or something! But instead of laughing, I would just smile or giggle really fast and then return my face to its default, completely relaxed position, so smiling, too, felt more like mere twitching of facial muscles.

11) I really liked that state, because I realized that I was seeing pictures and was completely conscious at the same time! I knew that tightly closed eye lids were the only obstacle between ?? dreaming ?? and full awakening.

12) I realized that I actually COULD CONTROL what I was seeing! Namely, I saw a computer motherboard in front of me ( I built a new computer last week, so the memories are quite fresh), and saw myself installing components, like RAM sticks and fans on it. To my amazement, I was in full control of what to install next! So I decided to take ram sticks out, and I took them out one at a time, and they were like floating over there, waiting for what I would do next! I broke one of them in half, and then I broke each piece into two more pieces, then I was like "Join them back together!", and four pieces would join back into one whole memory stick! I could follow along every cable, observing how they intertwist together. Every once in a while I was making sure I was conscious by adding 1 and 2, for example. It was said that in LD, a person has full control of what's going on in his/her dream, so I decided to try something more exciting, something absolutely impossible! I said to myself, "I want to see if I can jump really high or fly!" But there was nothing around to jump on to! So I said, "Let there be a skyscraper!" And the thing would grow instantly under my feet, bringing me really freaking high in seconds!

13) I found it a little difficult to keep up with the path of the events in my dream. It felt like the dream would go on by itself if I didn't have the next event in a dream scenario ready! Thus, my mother board disintegrated into something incomprehensible while I was thinking where to mount a cpu fan! And the skyscraper turned into flat plane, while I was standing on top of it, thinking what to do next. So I decided to try something simpler, namely, I imagined a driving lane, with lots of traffic lights. The trick was to switch every light to green before I approach it, so that I would be able to pass. So I imagined myself driving along the highway (though I didn't even see myself in a car, I was more like floating along the road), and whenever I saw a light in the distance I would set it to a random color, and then after I would get closer to it, I would switch it to green! With a simple dream like that, it was very easy to keep track of events and decide what to do next!

14) Now, I have a small concern about all this. While these were real dreams, and I could control them, they weren't really vivid. What I'm saying is that I constantly realized that I was sleeping in my bed while watching them, I wasn't completely sucked into them. I could hear real life street noises coming from my window. The dreams felt more like fever dreams, only without the fever. Have you ever been sick with flu, for example, and dreamed of doing some mindless task all night long, like putting wooden blocks together, or counting ants on the ant hill? If you have, you probably realized at that moment that your dream was nothing but a hallucination induced by high body temperature.

What I would really like LD to feel like, would be like a normal dream, in which you\'re completely isolated from reality, yet retain a full (or even partial) control of what\'s about to happen next in the dream.



Anyways, I'm gonna try WILD this coming night again, just to see how it goes this time! Please comment on my impressions, I realize that what I described could probably be described by a couple of sentences, but I don't yet know what it was and hardly understand at all what I am talking about!! LOL!!1