Strange Semi-Lucid Dreams

[Azuyre]

Hello everyone! I've come here before to read up on techniques and such before but I figured I may as well make an account. I've been trying to consistently lucid dream for a while now through various means, reality checks, WILD, playing certain sounds while sleeping and a bunch of other ways. I haven't had much luck though, I've been keeping a journal going as far back as 2008, though I wasn't as consistent with doing it daily until 2011. I've had a few lucid dreams but they're usually a bit far apart, the main one I remember the most and that got me really interested in lucid dreaming was this (copied from my journal): Spoiler for Lucid Dream: It started out in a grocery store, I was putting masks on and going up to the manager and taking other peoples checks, for some reason if I just wore a mask they thought I looked like the other person completely. I got a couple checks but someone realized what I was doing and started chasing me, I got out of the store and the person chasing me disappeared. I ran out to the parking lot and it seemed like the lot from Kroger (a grocery store I grew up by), after I got out to the lot I instantly realized I was dreaming. It was the middle of fall and I started walking down the sidewalk by the road, I don't remember seeing any cars on the road or any people along the sidewalk. After a little while of walking I realized there was a girl around my age with long black hair walking beside me, neither of were surprised when we noticed the other so we just kept walking. Eventually we just started talking about random stuff, at one point we instantly went from being on the sidewalk to sitting at the top of some bleachers that were on the side of the road facing the street, for some reason everything around us was flooded and we were watching cars and other stuff float by and laughing about some of the stuff we saw pass. After a little while we were instantly back walking down the street again (the water was gone) and we continued talking for awhile, things were changing as we walked, seasons were passing and random objects appearing and disappearing all over the place around us but we ignored it, we eventually came up to a house that looked like the one from the Simpsons, I knew in the dream that it was "my house" though. We stopped in front of it and she turned to me and said "It's too bad I'm asleep." which really surprised me, I said I was sleeping too and she seemed a bit surprised, I tried to write down my phone number to hand to her but I kept having trouble, I could tell I was close to waking up and the numbers and letters kept changing, I did my best and handed it to her though. I walked inside and passed by what was my family in the dream, they called after me but I kept going, the stairs were directly in front of the door. I went up to my room and stood there for a second before looking up and noticing a large hole in the ceiling, I looked for a second and a piece of paper eventually floated down and I grabbed it, it had a phone number and the words call me on it, at that moment I woke up. Unfortunately I couldn't remember more then half the number. That was a few years ago and I've had a few more lucid dreams since then but none that were as vivid or lasted as long, I usually don't have any problem with recalling a dream when I wake up, the journal has definitely helped with that. My main issue is that in all my "lucid" dreams since then I haven't technically been lucid, in at least every other dream I have I have the control over the dream you would expect from being lucid but not the actual lucidity. I end up just mindlessly changing random or major details about a dream but I'm usually going along with the events of the dream and somehow just have the power to control everything. For example, I recently had what seemed to be the beginning of a nightmare, I was in a strange underground lab with bloody walls and I sat at a computer and got some creepy messages, rather then going along with it I closed the chat window, calmly stood up and completely changed the environment and had a different dream, though I had no conscious control over what I had changed it to and after that point I just mostly went along with the dream, changing small details that seemed out of place rather then using my control to fly or try all the things that I consciously want to do in a dream. So, what I'm asking is does anyone know of the best way to proceed from here? I'm sure reality checks would probably work the best but I've been trying a lot of different ones and nothing seems to work, I try checking my hands and blinking to make sure they don't change, pulling on a finger to see if it stretches or something strange, double and triple checking the time to ensure it doesn't change when I blink but no luck. You'd think I would notice I'm dreaming if I'm in control of everything in the dream. TL;DR: Basically I have almost complete control over most of my dreams but I can't seem to actually achieve lucidity to take advantage of the control.

[Zoth]

Control is most easy when you're not lucid: since you aren't aware that it's a dream or that the laws of physics exist, you just follow through and exercise control without any problems (in most dreams). But don't convince yourself that control needs to be different in your lucid dreams! I'm sure that the attention that you've been giving to it will make things just as easy Like you said, reality checks are a great help, but I'd say go ahead and dig deep into the questioning of your state. You want to take your time to see if you're lucid, to prevent any chances that something in the dream distracts you. This is sadly only a matter of practice, so the work is on you. But at the same time, you will be able to recall this same issue that you've related and think about your intention. Visualize before going to bed (and several times a day if possible as well) your intent of becoming lucid, of stopping what you're doing and ask yourself what are you doing there, why, how, when. You seem to have an excellent control so once you solve the problem of being more self-aware, the lucid dreams will start to appear regularly. Good luck!

[Azuyre]

Control is most easy when you're not lucid: since you aren't aware that it's a dream or that the laws of physics exist, you just follow through and exercise control without any problems (in most dreams). But don't convince yourself that control needs to be different in your lucid dreams! I'm sure that the attention that you've been giving to it will make things just as easy Like you said, reality checks are a great help, but I'd say go ahead and dig deep into the questioning of your state. You want to take your time to see if you're lucid, to prevent any chances that something in the dream distracts you. This is sadly only a matter of practice, so the work is on you. But at the same time, you will be able to recall this same issue that you've related and think about your intention. Visualize before going to bed (and several times a day if possible as well) your intent of becoming lucid, of stopping what you're doing and ask yourself what are you doing there, why, how, when. You seem to have an excellent control so once you solve the problem of being more self-aware, the lucid dreams will start to appear regularly. Good luck! Thanks for the advice. I definitely need to work on not getting distracted after I become lucid, I've had quite a few dreams where I'd get distracted and forget I'm dreaming soon after figuring it out in the first place. In one dream I became lucid right at the start and left the area I was in to look around but right afterward everyone in the dream started speaking korean and I was seeing subtitles at the bottom of my field of view. o.o It threw me for a loop and I completely forgot I was dreaming again. It seems like every time I become lucid my dream goes into overdrive trying to distract me, in the dream I mentioned in the first post things were going nuts all around me like everything in the world was trying to get my attention at once. Thanks for that list too, I've already started using reading/time checking one.