First time Lucid this Morning!
So recently i've been on a bit of a journey of self discovery and improvement (both physically and mentally). I've been dabbling in meditation a bit and other ways to expand my own self awareness (I find the workings of the mind, and things like perception of time and space and reality fascinating)
So about 2 weeks ago I found these boards, started practicing WILDing first thing when I went to bed (I know that isn't easy or even very realistic for LDing but I find it is a good way to meditate and is great for dream recall in the morning)... I've been very close to becoming lucid in the last week nearly every night (via DILD), to the point where a couple days in a row I really became lucid just as I was waking up, which was frustrating but exciting at the same time. Although in retrospect this is sort of common for me, I often imagine myself going to the bathroom in my dream, then minutes later being like 'wtf I have to go again' and going again. Then while i'm going the second time I realize that I am feeling no relief. This happens to me at least once a week, and it always happens the exact same way (you'd think i'd learn lol)... then at this point it dawns on me that I am dreaming and I really have to pee so I wake myself up. It's sort of like the worst dream sign ever, because you only become lucid to wake yourself up lol
So then this morning I woke up after about 6 hours and decided to try and WILD for real for the first time (strangely I didn't have very good dream recall when I first woke up this morning). I spent about an hour lying there, drifting in and out of consciousness as I visualized images, only to have false awakenings I believe 3 times (so frustrating waking up in my room, thinking I failed, then snapping back to reality and staring at the back of my eyelids, realizing I was in fact dreaming... stupid me lol) and other times where I could feel myself about to go into a dream, only to get sucked back to reality and blackness at the last second. Then out of nowhere it finally happened, I went into a dream and immediately knew I was dreaming (although I still proceeded to do multiple reality checks because I was so excited it had finally happened). I pretty much spent what I'd guess was 15 minutes walking around the upstairs of my house just enjoying the fact that I had done it, all the while panicking that I was losing lucidity and was going to wake up any second so I kept spinning the room and trying to change objects, anything to keep me connected. (I didn't try much dream control, but the little I tried worked easily, and from a previous LD I had as kid I remembered back then I had total control over everything, so I’m confident I can do it again). Turns out all that worrying was for nothing because after about 15 minutes I heard a sound at my real life door (or at least I thought I did) and decided I should wake up. Well it turns out that I was in my dream much more solidly than I had thought, because it took an extraordinarily large amount of effort to pull myself out of the dream and get my eyes to open. Next time I'm not going to stress so much and put so much effort into staying in the dream, it seems that isn't as big of a problem as I thought it would be once I get going. Hopefully next time I can just let myself go and enjoy myself, and get rid of that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I am going to wake up any second.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to all those people that post on these boards… I spent a huge amount of time reading tips and advice and experiences, and it motivated and helped me to attain my first LD (well first intentional, as I mentioned before I did once have one as a kid)… so thanks!
