Thread: Unexpectedly introduced to lucid dreaming

Hey all. New guy here. Just thought I'd be polite and introduce myself rather than carry on lurking these forums.

So a bit about me: I guess you could say from being a child I was thinking about solopsism (before I knew it was a thing). I was often weirded out by the concept of 'me'. I don't subscribe to the idea these days, but maybe that's what got me interested in the occult, AP, and lucid dreaming as a teen. I just always felt pulled to explore the nature of reality. Although I had some interesting experiences, I never had the discipline to bring about a lucid dream. But then life happened and I forgot all about that stuff.

Well, that all changed about half a year ago (I'm mid twenties now) when I was 'introduced' to that world completely unexpectedly. I took a nap on the couch, and then suddenly I found myself sitting on a chair in an unfamiliar room. I knew I was dreaming from the beginning; I had no idea about RCs at the time. So I just sat there, enjoying myself and marvelling at this new world I had found myself in. After some time I finally decided I'd get up and explore a bit. For some reason I decided I'd try and fly around and then find a girl. Needless to say I lost control and woke up. But I was completely blown away at what just happened.

The interesting part about this, although I didn't see it then, was that around that time I had begun to play with the practise of mindfulness. I was getting pretty good at keeping my presence 'on' for most of the day. I stopped that practise for a while, not sure why. I'm pretty confident, having spent a lot of time these days studying the theory behind lucid dreams, that this was the major factor that caused my lucidity. It all clicked. Lucidity in waking life causes lucidity in dreams! Something I wish I had known when I was a teen. So, presence switch is back in the 'on' position.

So here I am. My interests lean towards the sleep yoga side of lucid dreaming. Piercing the veil of reality has always been one of my ambitions. Although it would be nice to have all those wonderful pleasurable experiences that I know are possible in dreams (not much experience yet I'm afraid), one of the side effects of practising mindfulness all day is that you start seeing experiential phenomena as innately empty and not something to be chased. Not necessarily a bad thing, since I find my enjoyment of life has actually deepened.

Anyway, nice to meet you all. I hope in the months and years to come I can contribute something to this fantastic community.

Bye!