My 1st LD experience- last night!

hi all, i'm new to the forum and new to Lucid Dreaming. i shouldn't say that exactly, i remember i've achieved lucidity as a child and occasionally experience it when my alarm causes me to wake up, but I snooze it and go straight into the same dream again.

after doing some research and beginning my dream journal, i have had my first DILD within 6 days of trying. It was short lived as I felt overwhelmed by how cool it was! The following is an account of the dream:

Justin, myself, and some girl were speeding around in Justin’s automobile. We were going tremendously fast. We are going off of jumps insanely high into the air. At one point, Justin loses control during a jump and we have to bail in order to, as he put it, “protect his phone.” Once back on solid ground, we begin to walk on a cobblestone road surrounded by old buildings on each side. A bird flutters past. It’s a cardinal. Then, another and another fly by. Soon an entire flock of cardinals are flying around us. They begin to form a cohesive group and then a shape. Before I can discern their shape, another flock of birds flies toward us. This time, they are bluejays, and they mix with the flock of cardinals flying in a strange formation, producing a stranger shape. As I continue to watch them, I finally realize what shape they are forming. It looks like a giant DNA strand, towering three or four stories into the air. I take out my phone so that I can capture this moment with a picture. I take the picture, but when I view it on my phone’s screen, it is no longer a towering DNA strand of red and blue birds, but instead an array of red balloons and feathers. The bluejays had completely vanished, and the only remnants of the cardinals were a few red feathers, floating in the air around the balloons. I was astonished by this. I was so taken aback, that I finally realized that I was dreaming. (weird that i found this strange and not all the other non-sense happening) The scene seems to flash to a stairwell of a large office building. I am so excited by my newly found consciousness that I want to jump over the railing and fly down the many stories to the base of the building, but Justin stops me, and I think to myself that he is right. I want to take my first lucid dream experience slowly. I decided to try to make myself float. It was easy, and I was so keyed up that I either awoke or lost consciousness, I couldn’t tell you which.

I found it mind boggling how realistic the whole scene was. I knew for a fact that I was asleep in my own bed, yet the world I was perceiving was so realistic. It is a battle to stay conscious while sleeping without waking up. I hope to experience that control again soon. Ideally, I would sustain consciousness for longer, and exercise more control.

My question is, how can I come to the realization sooner in the dream? Why did it take so long to "discover" my mental state with so much non-sense going on before my realization? Often times I wake up and think, "wow - that was bizzare, why didn't I call my sub-conscious out?"

Congratulations! Our logic centers are largely suppressed while we're asleep, so it is no surprise that you saw weird stuff without realizing you were dreaming. It sounds like you're off to a good start and will have lots of opportunities to learn what methods work best for you.