Thread: I finally did it!

I have had a good many lucid dreams in my life, especially the past few years. What I was not able to do was have a lucid dream in a deep dream state and stay lucid for a long time. I would always either wake up or forget that I was dreaming after a short time. I also didn't have much control over them. After recently getting even more obsessed with lucid dreaming a few weeks ago, I finally had a lucid dream that lasted almost an entire dream cycle. Since then, I have done it many times. For me, what seems to work is a frequent questioning of my state of consciousness. When I ask myself many times throughout the day whether I am dreaming and try to fly, it helps me to ask that question in my dreams. Flying has pretty much always been my cue. If I am flying by my own power, I am dreaming. If I question the reality around me throughout the day and see if I can will myself to float up into the air, especially if I run that through my head right before I go to sleep and think really hard about looking for the dream world, I have a much better chance of having a lucid dream.

In this first long lasting dream, I had relatives staying at my parents' house without notice. I haven't lived at my parents' house for many years, so when I was in a guest bed there and hearing my father bitch at me for not being out of bed and greeting the Tennessee relatives who suddenly decided to show up, and then found myself in my old bed, I asked myself if I was dreaming. When I realized that I was, I decided to keep my cool and not jump to the conclusion that I was about to wake up. I stayed relaxed and walked downstairs. On the way out of the kitchen, I saw a picture of my parents at a party in the 70's. Although such pictures actually exist, this one didn't. The picture was very detailed and had many faces in it, but the people other than my parents were people my mind made up. I looked at that picture for a moment and felt a very deep childhood nostalgia. I then left the house and started flying. I flew over some hills and saw some people camping out on one of them. I landed at a mall. I walked into the mall and sat down at a bar. It was crowded. The detail was extreme. I saw that right outside of the bar was nothing but a department store that I would have had to walk through to get to the bar entrance but didn't recall. Some Cubans walked up to me, as I was now in the department store although I never stood up, and asked me to resolve an argument about which one of them was wearing a Miami baseball uniform. I told them that I had no idea, and they walked away. I then walked to the exit of the mall, which was now more like an office building. I looked outside and decided that this dream was going to be a preview of coming attractions. I wanted to get in a lot that I had always wanted to do in a lucid dream. I got in a few things.

The first thing I did was fly some more. I couldn't get going right away. I relaxed and just thought about flying, while having the will to do it. I started floating across the street with my feet still touching it and then caught air. I stubbed my toe on the street curb and actually felt it. It hurt for a few seconds. I decided to travel time while flying. I flew over a cemetary in the future. I didn't "decide" to fly over a cemetary. It was just there. Since it was in the future, I wanted to see if I recognized any of the names on tomb stones. I did recognize the name on the one tomb stone I looked at, and it was the name of somebody I hardly know and who is still alive. I then decided to fly to a museum to see the past (It didn't take me long to lose track of wanting to be in the future. It's probably because travelling to the past interests me more.). I walked in and saw my mother holding me as a three year old, so I actually looked at myself from a short distance. I guess it was 1974 or 1975. I have many times thought about how it is sad that the past gets lost and you can never return to what once was. However, in this situation, I was overwhelmed with the fact that the child I was looking at was 100% me, and that I had not gone anywhere. I had the same perception of my mother. I left the museum and flew some more. I flew over the Andes Mountains and the Sierra-Nevada desert. My flight was making a quiet airplane sound. I then flew into space at such a high speed that the stars were moving past me. I went to a galaxy that had the apearance of a single fireball in the middle due to the density of the star configuration. I travelled toward the center of the galaxy and concentrated on the fireball appearance, which got smaller and smaller as I moved. This became a meditation. I then woke up.

I have had some more like this since then, but this one was a milestone and a landmark for me. In one of my recent ones, I went to a fictitious major city that is a common landscape in my dreams. In this one, I went there deliberately and checked it out. I did that by flying and imagining the city, while having the will to go there.