lucid

5/30/14

I went to bed at 12am and told myself to wake up at 5:30am and woke up at that time. I fell back to sleep easily and woke up again at 7am when my husband said goodbye to me. My alarm went off at 8:30am and from there I kept pressing snooze. I wasn't remembering any dreams. I had lucid dreaming on my mind the whole time, but made sure not to get too excited about it so that I could fall asleep. Finally, I wake up at 10am with a dream.

10am MILD

It had started out as a non-lucid dream, I believe set in Japan. I was excited to be in Japan again. I had forgotten the non-lucid dream in its entirety when I woke up, but now as I'm typing am starting to remember it more. At one point in the dream I had gone back in time. I think that triggered lucidity, because I realized you can't go back in time in waking life.

I was in this room with many doors connected to corridors when I became lucid. There were quite a few dream characters in the room with me, one in particular who I remember the most. He had dark skin and really short, curly black hair. Once I realized I was lucid I flew up as a sign of my control. Then, I attempted to use telekinesis as one of my dream plan goals. Since there were no objects around, I used it on the dream character with dark skin and it worked. He floated into the air. However, there were bad guys trying to get me. I used my telekinesis to push them out of the way and through the doors. At one point I wanted to summon a sword but couldn't do it. I think the other dream characters who were good helped me in getting the bad guys out.

The guy with the dark skin had a love interest. I asked him if he would remember her in future dreams and if they could have children together and I think he said yes. I believe his love interest was Rachel from Boy Meets World. She was having an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction when she came in and he helped her out.

When people would come through the doors I would ask if they were good or bad before letting them in or pushing them away. At one point Ryan from The Office was at the door and I asked if he was a bad guy. Kelly was behind me, a good guy, and begged me to let him in. I was about to, but then I asked him again are you a bad guy and he sighed and nodded his head and left.

At one point we were watching the leader of evil on TV, who had long and very pale blond hair. I think he's a character from Lord of the Rings. There was also another evil character, a woman who's hair was dyed a very fake red. I think she told me a message about how I wouldn't be able to defeat evil. Her position seemed to be second to the guy with long pale blond hair.

Reflections:

• This is only the second time I've had a lucid dream that wasn't a false awakening. The first time was years ago back when I first heard about lucid dreaming. I was too scared to attempt it again until years later when I got back into lucid dreaming and joined DreamViews.
• Accomplished the task of the month just two days before the next month begins! First totm completed!
• Achieved one of my dream plans to use telekinesis while lucid. Little did I know that I would not only be using telekinesis, but I'd also be using it in a battle and with such skill! I thought it would take a while to work up to being able to move dream characters or battle with it, since flying took a long time to learn, but I got it on the first try.

#321 – DEILD – 3:22AM

I wake at 3am and focus on body awareness and energy movement in my feet. I lose awareness briefly and come in and out with some semi-lucid moments.

I wake and DEILD with body awareness. I see I am in my kitchen but there are cafeteria trays. Someone from work has one. I mistakenly see this as only HI as I take a tray. I decide that if I can fly and move my body I am dreaming. I start to hover on the tray as I walk forward. I nose plug and blow through.

I partially wake realizing my eyes are already open. I'm fairly certain it was not a false awakening and I see faces in the darkness. It's creepy but I take it as a good sign. Hypnagogia is still high. I close my eyes and quickly enter vibes.

I visualize movement and find myself in the living room. It's too dark but I see the cats running in a circle around me but it's really odd. Half of the circle is them jumping on the couch and running on the wall as they come around in front of me. I decide to play with them but they are too quick. On impulse, I grab a ceiling fan blade and hold on. There is pain in my hand but I quickly dispel the sensation. As I airplane around the room attached to the fan, I am able to stretch my body and swoop down at the cats but they are mostly hiding now. Against my will, I feel my face distort into something monstrous. I ignore that and try to feel as normal as I can, but the cats seem truly afraid now.

There is a light coming from my bedroom. I recall my goal of asking my subconscious a question and release the fan blade, gliding into the room. I see my wife and my double asleep in bed and find it very uncomfortable. I try my best to let that go. I land softly between the dream characters and pat my double on the stomach. He slowly wakes up looking very startled. He starts to run but I quickly make comforting gestures and sounds. He seems to recognize what is going on and quickly calms down.
I say, “You're me right?”
Me nods, “Yes.”
I have a hard time remembering the question and I don't get it quite right. “Oh... Hey. What is the most important [thing] to you.
Me quickly answers, “Imagination”
I feel disappointed with the response, but I accept that right now it would be. Regardless, I wait a second longer hoping for more.
Me seems to think harder, “Uh uh and... Nintendo.”
I scoff at me and roll my eyes as I wake up. I always think of lucid dreaming as a video game.

I am trying to log into a computer at work, but don't know the password. After a few attempts, I just try blank for both and it works! As soon as I log in, a young kid excitedly runs over with two boxes and tells his parents about these two pedals he found for his guitar. They ask him what their draw rating is. "I'm not sure" he tells them. "Well if you don't know that, you probably shouldn't be using any pedals at all" they say discouragingly. I think that was uncalled for.

I get up to leave, and find myself in a small lobby room, right next to a larger, nicer cafe area, both filled with friendly people. In this lobby, waiting to leave outside into a cold wintery night, the group of us are sharing what we liked most about the event we were all at. One woman says, "The most memorable thing for me was the levitation. I don't think I'll ever forget levitating like we did" I agree with her, levitation is amazing, and a lot of fun. I slightly change my state of mind, thinking that this is just like a dream, and everyone in the room levitates for a moment, but it takes a lot of energy and concentration to do this. I rest, knowing it is possible.

A monk is next to me, wheeling a pallet of mountain dew out the door. I load a few cases onto it. He has me stack them in a criss crossed pattern so they don't fall off as easy. (lol for energy?)

Look at me, haven't successfully had a lucid dream in a week and I started to worry about my ability. Today's dream showed me that I have nothing to worry about, and what the heck I was doing wrong all week: attempting WILDs when I wasn't fully relaxed. It also must have been the accidental WBTB, as I had been awake for 2 hours but dozed off.

There's a building where lots of stolen merchandise has been found on the roof with no explanation. Even more unusual is that the building is on a university campus. Dad and I go there for a political meeting. He keeps talking about corrupt politicians and holding them accountable. I'm just tagging along because he can't drive. In the elevator, we're given a brief glimpse of the stolen goods through the ceiling of the elevator(?). Then we go to the meeting, which is being held in a classroom. They're doing standardized testing in the same room. People mistake me for a student and hand me test papers and a pencil. I'm a bit surprised to see them opening a hidden panel in the wall to get to the pencil boxes. I start assembling a plastic storage container to hold more pencils, but then I realize it will be too bulky to take it with me, so I disassemble it. Now I notice that the pencils are being kept in pink kid's shoe boxes. Someone hands me a school newsletter. It's got to me one of the strangest ones I've ever seen because it has packages of candy and food attached to it. I unwrap one of the slices of cheese that comes with with newsletter and munch on it as I try to read it. I'm actually kind of pissed that the university hasn't spoken publicly to students about the stuff on the roof or how they should deal with the media attention. I go to say this to Dad, but when I look out the window, I see a plane flying upside down.

I watch with terror as the plane keeps climbing and falling, all while flying upside down. It's going to crash, right? Why am I the only one who has noticed, and why doesn't anyone else care! It's because I'm dreaming. I take a moment to revel in how realistic the dream is. Then I consider what I should do. I briefly remember the Jack and the Beanstalk task, but then I remember that I've been doing task after task for a while and I want something more personal, something romantic. The scene changes to a ballroom, with me wearing a fancy one-shouldered formal dress. I touch the edge of the shoulder strap and I'm surprised that it's metal, not fabric. It's more like some kind of necklace holding the dress up. Then Cute Guy showed up (and I realized I've been spending too much time on Tumblr). I think he's going to dance with me, but instead, we head outside and have an intimate little chat. He asks me what I want, and I ask him to take me to Romania, which makes him laugh. But we somehow end up in a Romanian castle. He takes me to this bedroom with a four-poster bed and whispers to me, "This is where we're going to conceive our first child."

I "wake up" in a sunny bedroom in a house that is unfamiliar. I'm absolutely buzzing over the fact that I not only had a lucid dream, but that I had a lucid dream about a date with Cute Guy. I look at the clock and it seems later than I realized, and I remember that I have a meeting to get to. I'll have to write this up later for my dream journal since I'm running late. I start to look around for something to wear, remembering that the pajama top I wore last night was a bit sheer. Then I remember that I'm alone in this house and no one's going to care if I run around naked. I step out of the bedroom and head down a large spiral staircase. Light pours in from the floor to ceiling windows along the front of the house. I live here? This is awesome! I head outdoors (wait, wasn't I wearing the sheer pajama top?) and find myself rushing across a college campus with friends. My goal is the campus bookstore to pick up a tote bag to take to my meeting. My friends are grumbling about security not removing people trying to sign students up for credit cards. Almost as if on cue, several of them appear in our path, trying to push "free" beach towels on us. "You've got to admire one thing, though," says the girl next to me. "Think of how good their willpower is. This guy goes to all the college parties and he's not allowed to pick up any girls!" And then I wake up for real.

Non Dream
Dream
Lucid

After a dream, in my bed I did a random nose plug. I could breathe! I walked out of my bed and walked around for a bit through the dark. I decided to try to fly through the ceiling like I've done in the past. I flew up but didn't make it through the ceiling this time. I fell through the ground as if it were an illusion and found myself falling through a void. I saw something on the ground and couldn't make out what it was, but it was supplying a wee bit of light. I stopped falling and was suspended in mid air. Then, a huge dragon appeared! I could only see it's head, which was about twice the size of my body. As I was looking at with great interest, it smelled my feet and smiled. I was trying to figure out what was going on when it pulled out a gun and pointed it at me! I grabbed the gun and we fought over it for a couple of seconds before I woke up.

I thought about this dream when I woke up, trying to figure out what it meant. The dragon smelling my feet was a huge clue as my eczema on my feet has been acting up in the hot weather. I mused about how I wished I had talked to the dragon to try to figure out what it represented and went back to sleep.

Later on this morning, I was watching a cartoon in a building when I became lucid. Wanting a bit of space I jumped out the window to the sidewalk below. I fell through the sidewalk just like the first dream and back into the void. I looked down and sure enough, there was the dragon again. I could see his whole body this time which was pretty cool. Anyway, I was suspended in the air again right next to it's head.

"Ah, you again! What do you represent?" I said.
"What do YOU represent?" the dragon said, obviously trying to avoid the question.
"I represent myself. What do you represent?"
"A health patience!" it responded.
With this knowledge, I banged it on the head with my fist, apparently defeating it because I was freed back to my normal dream world. I woke up before I could do anything fun though.

I didn't have very good dream control today but at least I defeated the dragon!

I just remembered another lucid dream. It was actually the same night in Coyote Gulch, so I probably could have included it with the other LD from that night. But since I haven't posted here for a long time I think I will make this a whole new post so I can feel more active on DV.

LD:

Something (now forgotten) triggered lucidity. I flew around and then landed next to some people who had a plate piled up with cookies and cakes. I decided that this was my chance to be a total pig and eat it all. At first I felt slightly self conscious about the people next to me whose food I was now eating. But I reminded myself that they were not real--just as this food was not real, which was the reason for me eating it in the first place. I picked up huge cookies and pieces of cake and stuffed the whole things into my mouth cramming in as much as I could. It was all fairly soft. As is typical of this sort of dream for me, the food's flavor was less strong than in real life, but I could still taste the sweetness, but it just helped encourage me to stuff even more in, in hopes of tasting it more. I also remember eating chocolate covered pretzels as well.

I know I sound like a huge pig. And I know I do this fairly often in my LDs. But I guess, it is so much better to do this in the privacy of a dream than in real life.

Unfortunately the chocolate covered pretzels made me crave real ones and after we climbed out of the canyon and entered civilization again I bought a package of them. I had earned them, after all, by hiking with a 45 pounds pack for 6 days.

Lately I've been looking for a way to get rid of the "Imperium" and find a another way to get more dream control easily without relying on dream items. I decided to adopt naruto's Sage mode !
I don't know what imma do with the Imperium yet... maybe give it to a worthy DC ?
Anyways, it had been over a week since my last lucid dream, so it's nice to get an interesting lucid dream to start again.

Telekinesis in the woods

Lucidity: 8/10
Control: at least 6/10 (didn't get to experience much)
Vivacity: 8/10

I'm walking in the woods with a bunch of people, one of them is a girl at my school, I don't recognize the others. We're in a coniferous forest with lots of leaves on the ground; I can't feel the temperature but it looks like a rather hot area.
I notice a pound in front of us; there are big, smooth rocks around and in it. I become lucid with a hand RC and suddenly remember both my goals: meet my dream guide and master Sage mode.
...meh, I'l just do that later
There's water here, and I haven't waterbent a lot of times... why not tonight ?
I walk up to the pound with the intention to make huge water dragons and stuff like that and I try it out for a second... for some reason I'm not pushing it, I don't feel like focusing too much. Instead, I just get on my knees and lift up less than a cup of water by telekinesis. I can see the distorted trees' reflections in the small ball of water that I've made. The ball is no bigger than a small tangerine.
I let the water fall and ripple all around in the pound, and then try again. I'm sorta frustrated from earlier (the water dragon failure) but I'm still not really trying, maybe because I want to try and enter Sage mode and I know my control will be much greater then... it's almost pretentious of me, like "oh I won't spend my time on water bending, I can do much more impressive!".
I quickly get up on my feet and take a few steps backwards. I sit down in the leaves, and "meditate". I wasn't planning on closing my eyes, but after a second, I feel confident enough do do so. I close my eyes, and slowly start to count. I'm having an internal battle with the dream, trying to stabilize it without moving.
Five
I open my eyes. I am not seeing my face, but I can feel that I do have the orange "stuff" around my eyes.



I stand up, and make a rock levitate in between my hands.
Meh
I walk up to a trees, and notice that lots of rocks are scattered around it. I nod to the girl from before, and go "watch."
I lift my hands up and all these rocks lift with them. As usual, I can feel the weight of the rocks when I lift them up, but it seems lighter than usual.
I let my arms fall back down, and so do the rocks. A (blond?) guy turns around and asks me do do it again. I do it again and hold the rocks in the air for a few seconds, then back down. He says that it's cool that I can do this with such ease.
"I can do much more," I say.
I feel like showing off a bit more.
I walk to a big rock, about one and a half time as tall as than me. I concentrate on it for two seconds and lift my arms again, still without really trying, and the rock lifts up in the air. I move it backwards, and then turn around and let it fall. I'm looking at the guy waiting for his reaction, when I have a false awakening and loose my lucidity.

I just realized how long it has been since I have written down any dreams. What a shame since I have had some decent ones in the last few months. My lucids have been few. But I have had enough to know that I'm still a "lucid Dreamer". If I put more thought into it I could increase my numbers significantly.

My last LD was a few weeks ago while I was on my backpacking trip in Coyote Gulch. I always like to have LDs when I am in cool places. It makes the experience more memorable.

So I will share it now.

Lucid Dream:

The start is fuzzy. I do remember something occurring that made me question reality and I started to fly. I was pretty happy because it had been a while since I had had an LD. I remember just trying to get the most of my flying by trying to feel the wind and movement. I remember the dream starting to fade so I rubbed my arms with my hands and then hugged and rubbed my body with my arms.

I remember seeing this guy and wanting to make out with him. I remember sitting on a couch with him. I know he knew I wanted to make out, but he was looking back and forth between me and his girlfriend that was sitting next to him on the other side like he was trying to decide what to do. I told him, "If it makes you feel better, I'm not real." And then I added, "For that matter she isn't real either." But as is typical of most of my dreams, I thought he was real. I told him when he woke up and his "girlfriend" and I were gone, he would be glad he made out with me in this dream.

I don't remember much about what happened after that. I think we ended up kissing a little. But nothing too memorable.

Then I was flying again. I seemed to be inside this large old building, like a cathedral. I was near the top. I saw this pane of glass. As I got closer I was that this window had two panes. I suddenly had the desire to attempt to fly through them. In every LD I try to do something that I either haven't done before or something that is a little difficult for me. This way I feel like I am growing in my lucid dreaming skills. I have had trouble in the past flying through solid objects.

So I flew at the window and started pushing myself through. I went slowly and there was some resistance, but I was going through--which made me feel successful and happy.

Unfortunately that is that last thing I remember doing. At some point I woke up.

After I woke up in the morning I went back to sleep and started lucid dreaming. I'm getting experienced in this, At first I tried to do a few things in the lucid states but I woke up a few times. I just went back to sleep in the lucid state then! I believed "I am lucid dreaming" Prior to falling to sleep and then I did it, All while believing "I Am Lucid Dreaming" instead of finding a way to be lucid after falling asleep.

I thought I should remain doing things I can do in a lucid dream, And at first I wanted to turn myself female but that didn't work at the time as I kept getting too close to my physical body? I then found I just imagine it instead of physically moving. Then, I flew since flying is something I can do in a lucid dream that keeps me aware of dreaming. This is a whole world of itself, You can let your imagination run wild in it - Want to see life as the other gender in a lucid dream? You can!

I also had a dream that had to do with Pirates of the Carribean on this morning and it involved the scene (Or a re-creation of it) where Elizabeth's hand was cut.

EDIT: What was I, drunk with ignorance when I wrote this? Who has insight about what's going on (and what isn't going on) here? I'd like some aid, please.

I started with an amusing dream about a time trial downhill skiing / cross country rollerblading competition which started off quite believable but slowly changed into a mad dash down stairs and escalators in a strange shopping centre slash airport type location. After a while of whizzing through this odd location I reached a sort of semi lucidity in which I has a sense of the unreality and flexibility of the situation but wasn't lucid enough to call it a dream. There were bunches of dream signs but I didn't recognise them as such at the time:

* old place of work/workmates
* feeling of familiarity without knowing where from
* feeling in an unspecified rush
* repeating sections of activity (going down the same slope multiple times)
* more that I can't remember off the top of my head

I had a very brief awakening, during which I realised that the preceding was a dream and I now had a chance of a DEILD. I think I actually had some non-lucid dream to start with, but I have no memory of the content. When I gained lucidity I was in a sunny location with stone terraces and balconies. I remembered the TOTM and immediately spotted a large block of sandstone which I decided to try to levitate by The Force. I doubted myself for a moment because I knew it would be heavy and I didn't want to jump in at the deep end too much. Fearing I might just get frustrated by negative expectations, I briefly considered finding something smaller to levitate, but then realised that I could just make the rock lighter, which worked beautifully!

After that I thought I'd move on to to the cinco de mayo task. I was about to go off in search of a bar but realised that there was one conveniently just behind me! I sat at the bar and asked the barman to share some slammers with me. I've only had tequila slammers once before (not much of a fan of tequila, really) so I got a bit confused about the process and ended up chugging a whole glass full of lime segments rather than just biting one, but I reckon that was close enough!

I lost lucidity a little after that and drifted into a strange dream about being late for work, then woke up to realise I *was*!

I am lying in my bed and I am in my old house that I recently moved out of. I get up out of bed and I sit down in my chair and something feels "off". I looked all around me and I then gained lucidity. I then started wandering through my old house. Everything looked much different. As soon as I was going to decide what I should do I started to wake up. I was loosing lucidity and I forgot all about dream stabilization. I then awoke in my bed and performed a reality check. I was back in reality and I decided to get up.

5/25/14 DEILD, WILD, DILD between clear awakenings ~4am 7am 8:30am

5/27/14 2 Nap DILDs between awakenings and NLDs- day off wake from each around 10am & 11am; shutters in odd place, good waking awareness

I think the return of multiple LDs in a night is due to the self-hypnosis script that StephL posted and so far I have used only once but I think it was more effective for me due to the over 1 year of background work on self-awareness and other lucid dreaming fundamentals...I guess we'll see.

I hope to fill in the details later but Girl Friday was there a lot.

I'm scared that I may start to nap too much. I never had much success with naps and to have 2 DILDs in one 2 hour nap session this morning could draw me in to more naps.

I couldn't sleep last night and ended up falling asleep at 6am. But I got lucid as soon as i entered the dream. I was on my bed and decided to go outside because the house was empty and the quiet surrounding was kind of creeping me out. I got outside the house and saw the world was filled with trees and the ground was covered in bright grass and orange colored leaves. It was really pretty so i went out to explore it. But suddenly a anime guy with a gun appeared and tried to shoot me. I ran calling for help and he cornered me in a house. Eye came out and stopped the guy from killing me but he disappeared quickly. I decided to leave that place and found my dad in the street. We were walking to a party but he pointed to a sign that showed the people changed it from 12 to 1 to 3pm. But out of no where I lost my clothes and covered myself with a curtain i found. There were other girls too. They were naked and one was kissing this guy in a bathroom stall. I thought she was kissing someone i knew so i told them to stop. But when I opened the stall they disappeared. My nephew than appeared and i told him this was a dream. He was just playing around but i told him to follow me cause we were going to go on a lucid dream adventure. We ran,appeared on the stairs of my house and kept running to the door entrance but when i opened it my nephew disappeared and there was a fat girl with a white mask, small blue lights around her and in the corner of both my eyes i could see creepy black creatures smiling. The girl looked like a spirit. She started to speak to me but i couldn't hear anything she was saying. It was so low so I told her to speak up but she just kept talking and talking about something. I than got a little scared so i told her I believe in Jehovah. I think she said "oh you believe in" than kept on talking. It was annoying but i woke up after a little bit.

---

In my second dream I appeared in a random place in front of a entrance to a huge basement. There was a dark skinned lady who i met in my other dream about the ointment in the basement. She seemed really nice and welcoming as she was preparing for a party in the basement. I had a feeling she was going to tell me something about someone I knew though. I asked her is this about [insert name here]. She said yes. I than asked her if he was evil and she said yes. She told me to come down because she wanted to show me something. I was scared I was going to get bad news. I walked into a room with her that took us into a hospital. I told her I was scared but she reassured me it was going to be okay. We walked into a room and there were fat people being checked by a female doctor. The lady guide told me to sit down so i did. She said If I kept talking to this guy my skin will get paler, I'll gain more weight and stress in my life.Like the people who were old and fat in the room. She even showed me a patients arm there who was really light. I told her ok and saw she had a chicken in a black plastic case. I was like Ooo~ chicken~ Than took it and bit it. But it was really nasty cause the meat was like a squishy ball of fat, so i spit it out. Than we left the room together. I saw the cookie monster a few other people there. I was going to get some chips but i decided to wash my hands first. I started to wash my hands but i woke up.

I initially didn't intend on posting this because it wasn't that exciting, but I figure since I started this journal to keep track of my experiences I should include the small accomplishments too. This dream happened yesterday morning after going back to sleep around 8 or 9.

Normal Lucid

I'm on campus in some building, I don't recall what I was actually doing. I'm on the second floor looking outside a large window down at the people below and I see my girlfriend, E, exiting from another building across from me. I think about how it's rare to see her on campus and that I should go meet up with her, so I start going down some stairs nearby. I end up outside on the wrong side of the building and somehow get on a bike (I don't own a bike, but sometimes use my roommate's). I think about which way to go to more easily get to her, looking left I realize that the buildings are blocked off so it would be hard to go that way, so I head to my right. I'm biking around the side of the building, dodging some people, and end up riding through a muddy patch, a bit worried about splatter on my clothes but not thinking about it too much. I see E up ahead standing in a group of people and start biking quickly towards her. As I get close, close enough to almost hit her with the bike, she looks up at me with a startled expression and I realize that it's not her.
Somehow this immediately makes me realize it's a dream. I just know it is and don't need to reality check but I want to practice it anyway. I quickly go over my mental check and realize I don't recognize my location and remember falling asleep recently so I know it's a dream. My vision starts fading (possibly from thinking too much? may need to work on that) and I'm afraid that I'm waking up, but remember to just stay calm and focus on my surroundings. I touch the handlebars on my bike and start looking at my hands, then quickly my vision returns (this was really cool for me because it's the first time that's happened and I'm glad I could stay calm and present in the dream ). I start to observe my surroundings, I see my bike is blue and the handlebar grips are black with a ridged rubber texture. The large building in front of me is made of brick, some people standing around in front of it and trees nearby. To my left is a big open patch of really lush green grass and I see an old man sitting cross-legged and meditating in the grass, which seems really enjoyable. I'm amazed at how real it all feels, like I'm really there, and almost in disbelief that it's actually a dream. I don't have an intended goal set up yet because for the first few dreams I just want to practice getting used to the dream scene and exploring, and there just seemed like there was so much to take in I didn't know what to do. I stood in awe for about 30 seconds and then woke up.


This was a really amazing experience even though it's so short because it showed me how real the dream can feel, and how in the moment I can be in it. I felt like I had had lucid dreams before but looking back after this experience I feel like what I had were mostly false lucid moments, like dreaming that I'm lucid dreaming and waking up with the memory rather than actually being present and experiencing it. I really think the way I'm going about practicing now is a huge improvement over the last times I got into trying to lucid dream. My meditation and present moment self-awareness exercises are making my dreams (and waking life) feel more in control and not as much on auto-pilot. I am able to stop and think before I act a lot more and actually pay attention to what is going on in my mind and body rather than just letting my thoughts control my actions. I think this is having a major impact on my dream quality as well since I can step back and observe my thought process and see what is going on.

Also as a side note, looking back over my journal since starting LDing again in February, I had about 1 lucid moment a month, but after this dream I had 2 lucid moments for May. Slowly but surely improving!

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.