The Mind is Power; My Dream Journal

I realized I did this in the wrong forum so I'm reposting it here. The other thread is in "Lucid Dreaming Discussion" I believe. It can be deleted.

So I've been trying since I joined this forum to attain my first LD. I stuck to the regiment most people put on here for learning how to DILD. I bought LaBerges book and read it and did everything by the book. I kept a DJ as religiously as I do anything.

And I gave up and for the last four months I've spared little to no thoughts for LDing. I kind of pushed it out of my head. Until this morning.

I was dreaming I was walking down a hallway in school with a friend of mine that had passed away. I must have realized that's impossible and I yelled out, volunteerily (I remember thinking to say it), "I'm dreaming!" and immediately I did a nose pinch reality check. It was the weirdest feeling I've ever had. I could breathe through my pinched nose and closed mouth. That feeling alone, something impossible to replicate in waking life, was worth all of the work and desire.

But I wanted more and I knew I was getting ridiculously excited. There was this weird duality where I could feel my real life hands and body and I felt that it was numb but I was literally shaking in my dream body with excitement. I decided that I needed to stabilize the dream so I tried to rub my hands (And I'm amazed I even remembered to to do this) but everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion. So I gave up on that and tried to fly and that too felt like I was swimming against the current and under water. Everything was so slow. And then I must have fallen back into the dream because that's all I remember.

And the craziest thing of this all? I didn't even REMEMBER I had a lucid dream until I was halfway to school. I almost swerved on the road with the sudden complete vivid memory and it totally changed my mood and my day. I feel better than I have in a long time.

It's unreal. It really is. I used to always ask questions on this forum like: "How does it feel? Do you remember it in real time?" And that's really hard to answer because I now know how it feels. It's just an otherworldly ethereal feeling.

So I'm really excited. I'm hoping this opens the floodgates and makes it easy for me. But the only thing I'm worried about is that this was a random DILD. I did no exercises for it. I haven't even been doing reality checks. Should I get back on a regiment?