martakartus

I was with my boyfriend in a really big building which somehow I knew was a bank. We were going down some stairs when something made me question my reality, so I looked at my hands and I saw a few more fingers than usual. I must have expressed my surprise somehow, because he asked me what was going on. I told him I was dreaming and I would try one of DV's ToTM which I had in mind: eating a moon rock. I got very excited because I would have the wings for the 8th of August, which is the day when exactly two years ago I had my first lucid dream.

At this moment I felt the dream fading away, probably because of the excitement, but I was determined not to lose this chance. When I awoke, I kept my eyes closed and concentrated on going back into the same dream. After a few seconds, I felt a strange sensation, as if my body was physically going through some kind of portal, and suddenly I was in the dream, lucid, again. I concentrated to make it look as similar to the other dream as possible and I succeeded. I then decided to go to one of the windows, which led to a terrace, and I imagined what a moon rock would look like. A white-greyish rock, the size of a tennis ball and with an uneven surface, appeared and I picked it up. I took a bite. The texture was earthy, as if it were soil (so to speak) and it was bitter in taste. I made a wry face and I put the rock down.

I was in a train which seemed to be going through the woods. After one of the stops, the doors nearest to my seat were left open, and that caught my attention. Before I could ask myself if I was dreaming, the railway came to an abrupt end and we fell down.

The scene changed before the impact. All of a sudden, I found myself on top of a small hill, it seemed like I still was in the same woods. I was fully lucid and observed the scenery. On my left and at the foot of the hill, there was a pond of calm water. Ahead of me, on top of another hill, there was a castle tower, but it was only a huge frame (like, the tower was just a frame). The sky was bright blue and there were a few fluffy clouds. The grass and the leaves were of a glossy green. I started walking down the hill towards the tower and I couldn't help but cover my mouth in astonishment. The scenery was unlike anything I've seen before and it was extremely vivid. My mind was clear. I remembered the list I had written the day before about the things I had to do once lucid. I started by looking at my hands to do a RC. I held both of my hands up in front of me and I was taken aback because they were an exact replica of my real hands. I kept staring at them but they were very stable. I was fully aware that I was dreaming, so I stopped with the RC and did what was next on the list: I looked up at the sky and shouted "clarity now!". The scene was already very vivid, but I did it anyway. Then, I shouted "all of my dreams are lucid". While I was doing all of this, I had got down the hill I was originally on and up the second, towards the tower. Once there, I decided I'd attempt to fly, still following my list. I thought I'd run in order to take off, but I finally stopped and let the wind lift me. I lifted pretty high and then took control of the flight, which I had never done before. I started flying at high speed, exploring the whole scenery. I did a looping and it felt as if I had done a backflip underwater (so to speak hahaha). In fact, I the whole thing felt like swimming, but the feeling of speed was stronger than that of a roller coaster. I kept flying for a little while and then landed, and the scene changed.

I was in some building with a lot of people, it was like an office building. I remembered the other list I have, called "Insightful LD", in which I list things to ask the dream while lucid. I wanted to ask DCs questions, but I was having a hard time choosing who to ask. I seemed to recall having read that it didn't matter who you asked, so I approached a random man. I said "tell me something I don't know about myself". He stared at me, but didn't say a word. I moved on to another DC and was about to say the same to him, but he interrupted me saying that question was too much for him. I complained, telling him he hadn't let me finish and I moved on. I thought I'd try something different, so I approached a woman and asked her "what can I do to improve at lucid dreaming?". Again, I didn't get an answer. Then, a classmate appeared and she wanted to go elsewhere. Before going, I turned around and shouted to the DCs: "you guys suck ass!" (so polite hahaha).

I went on with that classmate to a place which looked like a school corridor. She was talking about a mental illness, but I wasn't really listening. I thought the dream was already long enough and I opened my eyes.

I was in my room. There were big ants everywhere and they were behaving strangely. At some point I realised I was dreaming and counted my fingers: 11 in one hand. I stopped to think what I'd do next, so I first shouted "clarity now" and "all of my dreams are lucid". I remembered the advanced task about the candy store and decided to go for it.

Going down the stairs to the street, I thought the door would be open and it wouldn't be cold outside. I was surprised how the dream let me control it and it was very vivid. Once on the street, a classmate joined me. We walked for a few minutes until I decided for a building, and put all my intent in making it a candy store. It looked like a restaurant from the outside, so I stopped by the door, feeling skeptical. A group of people entered the building and a girl said to me: "we'll wait in the same order we entered". I didn't mind going after them, so I let them first and followed them. Inside, the building looked like a shop to buy bathroom items (sinks and toilets and stuff), so I felt a pang of disappointment, but I wasn't going to give up. We went to the shop assistant, and as we were drawing closer, behind him appeared a truckload of candies. After the other group bought their candies, it was my turn. I asked him for the strangest candy he offered and he gave me a black little kind of sponge, 2x2cm, with a white and green sign in the middle. He said it tasted like Red Bull. I had a bite, but I've never had Red Bull before, so my brain was like "taste not found", and it didn't taste like much, maybe just a bit sweet.

I was super excited when I went out of the candy store and told my classmate, who still was with me, it'd be great if she could remember this dream too. She said she doubted she'd be able to and I told her some people believe in shared dreaming, but that in this case she was just a projection of my dream.

I was in my room, which was full of daylight. I had just woken up and I was going to get ready to meet a friend for breakfast. I could hear my mum and grandma talking in the corridor, but I didn't pay attention to them. I looked at my analog watch and it said it was around 3.20. I knew right away that I was dreaming. I looked at my hand and, sure enough, I had an extra finger between my middle and fourth finger. I caught a glimpse of my watch again, and this time it said it was 11.30. Then, I went to my desk, I wanted to make sure I remembered all the details of the RCs to explain them to my boyfriend, who recently took an interest in lucid dreaming (after hearing me talking about it so much). All of a sudden, I noticed a shadow behind me, turned around and saw a male figure standing there. He wasn't talking or doing anything, his expression was blank, but even so, he had startled me and I shouted: "don't scare me like this! Out, now!" As soon as I turned around again, he disappeared.

Then, I thought I'd get out of the bedroom and explore the dream. Before doing so, I remembered my mantras and said them out loud: "all of my dreams are lucid" and "I remember all of my dreams". After this, I thought it'd be a good idea to try out one of the month tasks from this forum. I was trying my hardest to recall them, and for some reason I thought one of the basic tasks was to get a pen and throw it at a DC to see how they reacted. So, I got a pen from my desk, opened the door and found my grandma talking to me. I threw it at her and after it hit her, she watched it fall without giving a crap about it and then went on talking.

I went back into the room, afraid I would oversleep and be late for breakfast. I checked the time on my phone (as though the time was going to be accurate), and it said it was 8.39 am. Apparently, I still had ten minutes until the alarm went off. I woke up for real soon after this, checked the time: 8.41 am.

I was paragliding along my street, up and down. At first I was going backwards, but then I realised I had to turn around. I landed and then started flying forward. I was having so much fun that I went too far away and got too close to the end of the street, where there was a very agitated sea and some very strong winds. I understood that was dangerous, so I landed again and started running the other way. Once I was back I realised that was non-sense, so I held my hand up towards the sky and counted seven fingers. I shouted: "boom, lucid!" and I remembered the mantra I repeat in my lucids: "all of my dreams are lucid". Then, I remembered about the two basic lucid tasks I had read on the forum. The first one was to hit a DC with a snowball. I saw a friend of mine, so I decided to start a snow fight with her, despite there wasn't any snow. I looked at my hand and tried to make a snowball appear. She noticed what I was doing, so she dug her hands into the wall of chalk, made a snowball out of it and threw it at me. It behaved as though it was snow, so I gathered as much as I could and threw it back at her, without hitting her. This whole thing repeated a couple of times until I finally hit her. She looked at me like: "really? Was it that hard to aim well?"

Then, I went for the second task, giving a DC a lump of coal as a present. I entered my house and saw some family members. Again, I looked at my hand and tried my hardest to make some coal appear, but it didn't. I must've been at a low level of consciousness, because the dream wasn't behaving the way I expected it to. Regardless, I wasn't willing to quit, so I approached my grandma and held out my empty hand to her. She reacted as though I had a gift on my hand, and when she held it, something appeared on her hand. It was cube-shaped and wrapped in paper, so I assumed it was the coal lump. She unwrapped it and it did look like coal, but she opened it as if it was a box and took a necklace out of it. I was taken aback.

I was at our grandma's with my family. I was with my sister in the kitchen, but the wall was made of glass, which made it possible for us to see the entrance hall. All of a sudden, we started hearing some strange music coming from the street. I went close to the window and peeked out to see a large group of people (ten or so) dressed in a pretty weird way. I got scared right away and was terrified when I saw them entering the house. Many of them stayed in the hall, sitting on a couple of armchairs, and they were all texting with their phones. A couple of them saw us in the kitchen and came in to get us. I was freaking out so much at this point that I realised: "this can't be happening, this must be a nightmare". Once lucid but still paralised from the fear and not knowing what to do, I quickly asked to wake up. As I was saying it I knew I could take control of the dream, but it was too late.

Today, I had a strange lucid during one of the first REM periods of the night and I didn't record it well in my dream journal. I had done some MILD affirmations before falling asleep, so maybe this helped.

I was at a baker's, making cakes to sell. The feeling was strange. I had a spark of lucidity, I knew I was dreaming, but at the same time I felt like I was waking up. Without opening my eyes, I tried to hold on to the dream so I would get back in it again (kind of like a DEILD, but the thing is that I'm not even sure if I was awake or the spark of lucidity made me feel awake). The dream seemed pretty stable and I went on doing my thing, but I didn't take much control of it. Soon afterwards, it either transitioned into a non-lucid directly or I awoke for real, I don't really remember.

After a month-long dry spell, today I had a random lucid dream.

I woke up and it was dark. I held my hand out towards the nightstand and grabbed my phone. I always try and feel the LED light button to switch the screen on, but this time I felt two buttons, one at the top and one at the bottom of the phone. I became lucid right away and did a RC with my hands. At first they looked normal, but looking closely I realised I had more fingers than normal. I got up and asked for light, for it to be daytime. I walked down the corridor towards the dining room and the dream felt very realistic, but there didn't seem to be any sudden change in lighting. However, as I was getting near the dining room, I saw light coming from the outside, as if the sun had risen a short while before. I stood on the balcony for a few seconds, thinking of what to do. I decided to try and jump off the balcony, but I was a bit scared because I didn't want to hurt myself. I knew I didn't have to be scared because I was in a dream, but still, I decided to throw a table first. I held it with ease and threw it, and it fell slowly. Then I did a kind of parkour jump and my feet met the ground very gently. I got the table and shot it back up to the balcony, and then I got up there myself.

After this, I decided to go back to my bedroom and see if I could achieve any change in lighting. I have read in some occasions that drastic changes in light are rare in dreams, but I thought I'd try with my nightstand lamp. As I was reaching for the switch, I asked for light outloud, and the bedroom got lit up a bit before I touched the switch. Proud of my work, I lied down on my bed and asked for some fine guys to walk in the bedroom, but then the dream finished.

This morning, my alarm was set at 4.45 am because I had to go to work early. I had naturally awoken at 3 am and thought I still had another REM cycle to sleep.

I "awoke", looked at the clock and it was 4.37 am. I thought I'd just lay there until the alarm went off. Next thing I know, I look at the clock again and it's 5.20, so I had ten minutes to get up, get dressed, ready and have breakfast, and head out. I guessed I had overslept and hadn't heard the alarm, but it was weird because that had never happened to me before. I got up, went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Before bed, I had tied my hair up in a bun, like I sometimes do, but in the image I was seeing in the mirror, my hair was down. "I swear to God, my hair was tied up in a bun. I must be dreaming". I looked at my hands and they looked normal. "Well that's weird, to be dreaming and see a realistic replica of myself in the mirror and have normal-looking hands. It's unlikely, but maybe the hair tie has slipped from my hair". However, I had it around my wrist and it was close to impossible that it had got there on its own. I couldn't believe that, even being conscious, my mind was still trying to trick me into thinking that was real. I knew that just couldn't be, but just in case, I started putting my make up on. Soon afterwards, the alarm went off for real.

I was in my bedroom, lying on my bed, and a friend of mine was lying on my sister's bed. We were in a zombie apocalypse. There was one sitting down and leaning on the wall, but it didn't see us, so I told my friend we should rest, because we had found a safe spot. She was pointing a gun at its head and I tried to convince her not to shoot it, because the sound would only draw more zombies. She listened and we tried to rest.

During a few moments of peace I had, I thought of how frustrating it was to be in the apocalypse, because there was no way of escaping. Then, it hit me all of a sudden: "wait, but I can escape this, because this is a dream. There is no zombie apocalypse in waking life. This is just a series of recurring dreams I'm having about zombies and I can end it now". Then, I looked at my hands to do a RC. I thought I had to see more than five fingers in each hand. At first sight, I could only see five, but when I checked again I saw six or seven in my left hand and about eleven in the right hand. I got up of the bed and saw Michelle Knight (I don't know why it was her) standing there. She wasn't exactly a zombie, but looked scary. I knew I had to talk to her, she was like the embodiment of the bad feelings of the dream. As calmly as I could, I said to her: "why do we hurt each other? Why can't we just get along?" Her complexion changed at once. Suddenly, she looked calm, her skin was soft and she looked at me intently with big bright beautiful blue eyes. At the same time, all feelings of fear and frustration vanished. I walked around the room, admiring the vividness. I would say this is the most real dream I've ever had.

Then, I got out of the bedroom. There was no apocalypse anymore. I went down some escalators and, as I did, I imagined the neuronal pathways involved in lucid dreaming getting stronger the longer the dream lasted (sorry, I know this is weird ). But also, I thought (and it was a big mistake) that if the dream lasted for too long, I would forget about the details, but I didn't want to wake up yet.

Eventually, I made it to a playground. I sat down on a thin mattress to think of what to do next. I thought it'd be a good idea to make some affirmations to myself. I made two: the first one I can't remember and in the second one I asked to become lucid more often. We'll see if this last one has an effect.

Finally, someone called my attention from inside a car and the dream finished.

It all started with a false awakening. My bedroom looked weird and I became suspicious at once. I had a look at the corridor and I knew something wasn't right, that had to be a dream. I went back to my bedroom and closed the door behind me. I did a nose-pinch RC, but I couldn't breathe through my nose. "This can't be possible, I'll try something else". The room was quite dark, so I put my left hand up towards the only source of light (the window) and I counted my fingers. Six in total. Okay, I'm dreaming. As I was heading for the door to leave the room, a fat man with a yellow T-shirt opened the door and jumped on me. My bed is quite close to the door, so he easily pinned me down to the bed, holding my wrists by my head. I quickly reacted and said "you are just a dream". My voice sounded very weird and it didn't make any effect on him, so I shouted "clarity now" twice (this seems to be the magic sentence for me to bring vividness and awareness to my dreams). I then closed my eyes to calm myself and decide how to deal with the situation. I am reading one of LaBerge's books and the chapter I'm in right now is about how to treat violent DCs. Since his advice is to approach them friendly knowing they can't hurt you instead of trying to flee from them or make them disappear, I did just that. I opened my eyes and told him: "this is a dream, so you can't hurt me". He looked surprised and let go of my wrists. Ideally, I would've tried to engage in some kind of conversation, but the dream transitioned into another one.

I then found myself walking into a very nice living room or dining room, sort of. Many things in it were made of wood, including a table at which three people were sitting in silence. It looked like a fairytale house, and the whole setting was brigther than the first dream. Still lucid, I went near one of the round windows and looked outside, to see other fairytale-looking houses surrounded with flowers, trees and grass. The colours were extremely vivid. I then went to the table and sat down with those people. I was curious as to what level of lucidity I might be experiencing, so I asked the DCs to see how they reacted: "I'm very curious, were you guys already here before I entered the dream or did we all appear at the same time?". A girl answered me: "since this is your dream, you created it all at the same time, the fact that we were already sitting here is because you appeared outside the room and then came in". Nice, high level of awareness, I thought. I then sensed the dream was about to change again, despite there weren't any vibrations or anything. I wanted to keep lucid, so I focused on this.

The transition was neat. I was at a street walking with my boyfriend. I wanted to know if I was still in a high level of awareness (for some reason, I seemed obsessed with this, maybe because I had never experienced transitions like these before). I thought of how to approach him properly and I finally said "hey, do you know this is a dream?". He looked around surprised and said "I didn't know... but it could be, I guess". Before I could word anything else, he proceeded: "and you, have you ever thought that in waking life you could be part of a big dream and unaware of it?". "Yes, I have", I told him. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of the so-called 'collective consciousness' for a while, so he basically voiced my thoughts. I wish this conversation would've gone on for a bit longer, but I transitioned into another dream and finally lost lucidity.

It was a pretty interesting experience. Specially because these last two weeks my dream recall has fluctuated quite a lot and I haven't once come close to lucidity. Yesterday night, I did a WBTB along with SSILD without results. Today, I involuntarily woke up at the same time the alarm had gone off the day before (very like me). It was the early hours of the morning and I had a hard time falling back asleep, so I just watched my breating to have something to focus on (this helps me with my insomnia sometimes). So, Breating Induced Lucid Dream, maybe? (Does that even exist?)

Well, regardless, I'm very happy to have been able to have such an experience. Looking forward to the next.

I've had a brief, yet curious lucid tonight. I had set an alarm 4.5h into sleep to do a WBTB+SSILD. I got up and read a few pages of one of LaBerge's books, which I started reading a few days ago. Then I went back to sleep and did the SSILD normally. I managed to be more focused than other times, so I was quite sure I would succeed. Some hours afterwards I was woken up by my mum, who was trying to get my sister out of bed. The awakening was quite confusing and I lost details of the dream as a result. But anyway, I think I remember the important part.

In the dream I was having a drink outdoors with someone, I think it was my brother. I even remember the position I was sitting in. It hit me right away... "I am dreaming". Unlike other lucids, I didn't do any RC. Instead, I thought to myself: "if this is a dream, then it means my body is fast asleep in my bed, which means I can do anything I want". I felt I had a high level of awareness and the dream was quite vivid and stable. The sky was a bright blue and I remember clearly the moment of the realisation. Then I recalled what I first wanted to do in a lucid, following LaBerge's advice to have a clear goal, and I went shooting up the sky, flying vertically and gaining height quickly. Unfortunately, that's all I remember. I assume at that point the dream transitioned into a non-lucid, because none of the other dreams I recalled after this were lucid. But it's the first time I was aware of the actual state of my real body at the time of dreaming, so I find this satisfying enough.

Two days ago, I was reading about SSILD and I thought I'd give it a go as soon as I could, and this time was today. This morning I woke up after exactly five hours of sleep, so it was the perfect time. I did a WBTB and read about SSILD during this time. Then, I went back to bed and put the technique into practice until I fell asleep.

In the first dream, I was flying. It was a game, like I was playing in a fake reality, so to speak. In said game I was a heroine and I had to solve whatever issue I came across. So well, I was flying around when I heard an explosion quite far away from where I was. I decided to go towards the explosion, flying over the road, and I could see at least 20 police cars, with their blue lights on. The dream was more detailed than that, but I spent more time writing what comes next.

Then, I opened my eyes and I was in my room. I thought "quite an interesting dream I've just had". I got up to pick something up from my desk (I can't quite recall what) and I noticed I couldn't open my eyes properly. I thought I may still just be half asleep. I made a noise and I heard my sister, we share a room. I couldn't make out what she said. Then, I went to bed again and at that moment I realised "why can't I open my eyes? Could this be a false awakening after the SSILD?". I pinched my nose and, sure enough, I could breathe through it. I didn't do this first RC properly, I must say, I just did it very quickly after the realisation. I got out of bed and thought a couple of times: "clarity now!", to see if my eyes would open. The reason why I just thought of it and not say it out loud is because somehow I feared my sister would hear me and think I'm weird. I mean, I was aware, but I couldn't believe I was in a dream. Anyway. I then ran out of the bedroom and up some stairs, thinking maybe the running would open my eyes. While I was running up the stairs I thought I'd be a good idea to do another proper RC, just to be sure. I looked at my left hand and it had six fingers, and my palm was larger than normal. For some reason this scared me and I let out a scream, but I stopped myself from getting too excited. Then, I did the nose pinch again with the same results, so I was entirely sure I was in a dream.

The stairs led me to the roof of the house. Just as I stepped outside, my eyes opened and I could see the surroundings with detail. The view was the same as the one we get from our real roof. I could see the neighbours' gardens and the church tower. It was cloudy and the sky was a faint yellow. At that point it struck me (I don't really know why) that I could not control the dream. Say, if I wanted to change the sky and clear it of clouds, I wouldn't be able to. But I didn't care. I was too busy admiring the detail of the view. Then, I felt a really strong curiosity to know what the chalk wall would look like close-up. So, I went very near a wall and looked at it closely. I stared at it for some seconds and I was overwhelmed by the vividness of the dream. I had read that some dreams could feel very real, but I didn't know it could look that real. At that point I thought from now on I'll see ADA, RCs and all that in a different way. Finally, I reached out my hand to touch the wall, I wanted to know if it was so real at the touch as well, and at the moment I touched it, I opened my eyes and I was on my bed again. My body felt heavy and somehow I knew I was awake for real, but I pinched my nose again just to make sure. Then I got my phone and started writing.

After having had a shitty night due to a nasty cold, this morning I was feeling very sleepy. As I didn't have to go to the uni, I thought I would sleep more. It was 10 am when I last checked the clock in waking world.

I was lying on my bed and my mind was wandering, having random thoughts. My bed was on my boyfriend's corridor, the stairs of his house were at my left. Then I realised... that's not my bedroom, I must be in a dream. I felt somewhat strange, like I still wasn't entirely in the dream, because somehow I could still feel my waking body, it's hard to explain. It was like I had slept through the whole process of a WILD and I had awoken seconds away from entering the dream. Well, anyway. At this point I started hearing footsteps coming from the stairs at my left. I assumed that had to be an audible hallucination, but it still freaked me out. I thought I would test myself to see if I was in the dream for good or not yet. I tried turning my head towards the footsteps (my head was turned to the right) and if I could move it with ease, it meant I was already in the dream. When I did it, I felt I was completely paralysed. This scared me even more, I don't know why. Stupid as I am, instead of waiting a bit longer, I kept forcing my neck, I needed to turn it no matter what because the relentless footsteps were getting the better of me. I had never experienced paralysis or hallucinations this vivid ever before. At some point during this process, I didn't feel in the dream anymore, I felt my physical body so paralysed that even my eyelids were glued shut. And still, the footsteps were vivid. Ultimately, I managed to move my neck and when I did, I snapped out of the whole thing and the footsteps stopped. It was then when I cleared my mind and realised I had lost a golden opportunity. But anyway, I'm glad I finally experienced sleep paralysis and hallucinations with such vividness.

I haven't been paying much attention to my dreams lately because I've been busy, but tonight I've had a nightmare which has randomly turned into a lucid dream.

I was walking down a street when I found this guy staring at me and started harassing me. I got scared and turned to the left, into a very dark street. I couldn't see a thing, but I could hear his motorbike chasing after me. I tried to run, but my body felt very heavy and I was unable to. I have to say I tend to have dreams where someone is chasing after me and trying to hurt me, and every time I find that my body feels too heavy for me to run.

Thing is, I got into a building to hide from him, and while I was waiting, I thought it was strange that I couldn't run and that I had to be dreaming. Once aware, I decided I could turn the situation around to my advantage, that I had to do something to prevent the dream from fading away. When he got into the building, I stood before him and told him to stop chasing after me and trying to hurt me. All of a sudden, he didn't look dangerous anymore. I stopped for a second to think what to do next and I did what first came to my mind I could do with a guy in a lucid dream. I made him sit on a couch, sat on him and got it on with him.

This is the second lucid experience I've had since I got started with all this. I have to admit that this last month and a half I haven't quite done any reality checks or practised anything like ADA, so I wasn't expecting to have a lucid experience again yet. Hopefully, I'll get back to it now.