Who started "Lucid Dreaming" & "Dream Control" on their own Naturally?

I'm looking for people like myself that discovered "Lucid Dreaming" and later "Dream Control" on their own naturally. I don't know when I started to "Lucid Dream" it was so long ago. Most likely when I was a kid before the age of 10. But I can remember having good success with "Dream Control" around 12 or 13 years old. I later found out as an older adult what I was doing was called. When I would mention about my dreams to other when I was younger and even now they would just look at me like I was nuts.

If you found out how to have LD & DC dreams on your own at a early age tell me your stories please.

Thanks

Well I didn't find out how to induce them, but I did have a couple when I was around Jr. High. I'd have these random flying dreams and realize that I was flying...then the only thing I would do is just try to fly better. I think control came much later in life vs. actually being aware that I was LDing.

I've been able to lucid dream from a very early age, before I knew what it was. (Though I did not have them as frequently as you.)

I remember my first lucid dream occurred when I was around 5. I had asked my mom in real life if it was possible to know that you were dreaming. She said that it wasn't. So a few nights later, I had a dream in which I realized I was dreaming. Then I immediately remembered what my mom had told me. "I must not be dreaming after all," I said to myself. But when I woke up, I realized that my mom had been wrong.

Since then, I often became lucid and could even exert a bit of control over my dreams. I would normally just use the opportunity to fly or to escape nightmares. I even remember creating a list of things that I should do the next time I knew I was dreaming.

I didn't discover the actual term for lucid dreaming until I was about 13 or 14 years old. By then, I was already fairly good at it.

I've always known when I have been having a nightmare and been able to just stop it. I dream in black and white, so maybe that's easier for me. However I've only had a handful of purposefully lucid/controlled dreams.

I am a semi natural. Full natural at control.

When I was like 13 I realized that if I spent too much time thinking about something then it would always be there when I close my eyes. And whatever was there when I closed my eyes would normally be what I dream. So I started incubating dreams. When I was 16 I decided to incubate dream control. I started out pretending that I had "the force" (I love star wars). I would imagine moving things with my mind and imagining it working over and over. After 2 weeks I started having dreams with the force in it. This stayed after my incubating ended. I then did this with pyrokinesis, rasengan, melchee's door. My dreams have been pretty freaking amazing without lucidity.

I had about 8 LDs before knowing what it was. When I was ages 5-8 I had 4 nightmares that I learned how to wake myself up from. At first I couldn't wake up, but I figured out how within the dream. From then to age 18 I had random dreams where I would realize I was dreaming. Most of the time it was when I would sleep after basketball practice in the morning.

This is my story. :)

Since I remember myself, I was having lucid dreams in the form of lucid nightmares, which means it's the same as a lucid dream and you have full control but whatever you do you cant escape from the nightmare.

I was having these every night for 7 years when they stopped when I had a lucid dream saying that these nightmares would stop.

So yea, I suppose I am natural.

After years I found this forum and with the second time I managed to have a WILD and from that day I can have WILD anytime I want with 100% success ratio. I also started having occasionally DILD and DEILD.
I have full control and I never needed a dream control tutorial.

If you need me just send me a pm!

Fellow Dreamers,

Thanks for those who have responded so far.

Sounds like more than a few of us have gained our lucid ability in part because of nightmares. I find it interesting that these traits show up in childhood. Perhaps all people naturally have an inclination towards lucid dreaming, but only those that choose to make something of it, continue to do so. It also seems that a person can regain their awareness of it at any time. I used to try to WILD without knowing it as a child, although I can't remember any successful tries. I would try to force myself to recognize the point in time that I began Dreaming, by trying to remain aware while I fell asleep. I became extremely interested in Dreams early on because it struck me as fascinating that they paralleled waking life in many ways, but yet they didn't seem to have any lasting effect. Then of course the déjà vu was always intriguing.

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Originally Posted by PlanesWalker

Sounds like more than a few of us have gained our lucid ability in part because of nightmares. I find it interesting that these traits show up in childhood. Perhaps all people naturally have an inclination towards lucid dreaming, but only those that choose to make something of it, continue to do so. It also seems that a person can regain their awareness of it at any time. I used to try to WILD without knowing it as a child, although I can't remember any successful tries. I would try to force myself to recognize the point in time that I began Dreaming, by trying to remain aware while I fell asleep. I became extremely interested in Dreams early on because it struck me as fascinating that they paralleled waking life in many ways, but yet they didn't seem to have any lasting effect. Then of course the déjà vu was always intriguing.

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Yes, déjà vu or something else. When I free dream I sometimes see things that happen later on in life. Coincidence or something else? Interesting though.

When i was in 3rd grade i kept having the same nightmare. I found my self always waking up to it and being frightened so i kept telling myself it was a dream. Next i know im lucid dreaming and flying. I liked these dreams so much that i somehow kept my self on the verge of consciousness and dreaming and i did this amazing thing. My Dad came in to wake me up for school so i quickly drifted out of the dream and went to reality while somehow holding onto the dream told my dad i was up and went back dreaming. I did this several times but soon enough i stopped having that nightmare and stopped having lucid dreams. I only had a couple since than maybe 5 natural. I am trying to get back into it.

You probably wouldn't find too much early adopters here, these forums cater to a younger crowd. I delayed reading the literature when I started to induce OBEs in the late 90s to keep my expectations low, so I guess I'd fall somewhere inbetween. Looking forward to your posts.

I had 4-5 lucid dreams over the course of about 5 years and after that last one, i decided to research if others did it without knowing what it was called. i was pretty bad at control and had hardly any success at what i attempted to do in them and they were extremely short

I did :D But just like Oconnigan, my control and recall were lame. I only had about 1 amazing lucid a year and the rest was just attempts at sex miserably failed..

Thanks for more of you responding. Any others??

I had alot of nightmares as a kid and after a while I used them as a dream sign and realized I was dreaming. All I wanted to do back then was to get out of the dream, so I commited suicide by jumping and landing on my neck. It worked great. After a while I started turning those nightmares around and I found that I could be lucid without having a nightmare. I figured out how dream control worked and started learning how to fly, use telekinesis and summon stuff. I didn't get that much practice because most dreams ended after a few minutes at most. When I entered my teens I spent most lucids on summoning girls. After that I started losing my natural ability up until a few years ago when I picked up lucid dreaming as a hobby.

Similar to what Matt said, I used to have nightmares almost every night throughout childhood. So I learned lucid dreaming as a mechanism to leave my dreams. The better I got at it though, the more I wanted to stay in my dreams. Now it's definitely my most enjoyed hobby.

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Originally Posted by Nerq

Similar to what Matt said, I used to have nightmares almost every night throughout childhood. So I learned lucid dreaming as a mechanism to leave my dreams. The better I got at it though, the more I wanted to stay in my dreams. Now it's definitely my most enjoyed hobby.

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I think I might have used it the beginning when I was very young to protect myself during bad dreams. Now that can be fun. When I "Free Dream" sometimes I will dream of things I've seen during the day. Like watching the T.V. show "The Walking Dead". It is so much fun killing off Zombies in you dreams when you have all the power. LOL

I had my first lucid in high school, I want to say when I was 15, or maybe 16 (it was definitely right around my birthday, not sure if it was before or after), and I didn't know that it was possible at the time. I just realized that the dream I was in was too stupid to be real life, and then I became lucid. I also discovered dream control myself, as when that happened I used my wonderful imagination to change the color of the wall in front of me a couple times. Then I woke up. :roll: It didn't interest me enough to look into anymore until a few years later, and I didn't have any more until after that. I was mainly concerned with means of instant gratification at the time.

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Originally Posted by Eucid

I've always known when I have been having a nightmare and been able to just stop it. I dream in black and white, so maybe that's easier for me. However I've only had a handful of purposefully lucid/controlled dreams.

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I always thought this was the most interesting concept. Is it that literally all of your dreams are like this?

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Originally Posted by EricinLA

I'm looking for people like myself that discovered "Lucid Dreaming" and later "Dream Control" on their own naturally. I don't know when I started to "Lucid Dream" it was so long ago. Most likely when I was a kid before the age of 10. But I can remember having good success with "Dream Control" around 12 or 13 years old. I later found out as an older adult what I was doing was called. When I would mention about my dreams to other when I was younger and even now they would just look at me like I was nuts.

If you found out how to have LD & DC dreams on your own at a early age tell me your stories please.

Thanks

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I've had lucid dreams for as long as I can remember dreaming, and have had a little control over my dreams for awhile. I could go where I wanted, study, or listen to music. But I would loose control after 10 to 20 minutes. I've been practiced creating and controlling my thoughts and just recently its been getting a lot better. My record for complete control is two hours. I was able to look over my homework, completely erode city's and beaches (I try doing this because it takes time and I have to keep focus), and look around. I lose control and get confused when I try to look around, but lately I've been able to regain control. I found this site today looking for ideas. Maybe someone knows some tricks to make it last longer.

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Originally Posted by moontaint

I've had lucid dreams for as long as I can remember dreaming, and have had a little control over my dreams for awhile. I could go where I wanted, study, or listen to music. But I would loose control after 10 to 20 minutes. I've been practiced creating and controlling my thoughts and just recently its been getting a lot better. My record for complete control is two hours. I was able to look over my homework, completely erode city's and beaches (I try doing this because it takes time and I have to keep focus), and look around. I lose control and get confused when I try to look around, but lately I've been able to regain control. I found this site today looking for ideas. Maybe someone knows some tricks to make it last longer.

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Here are some tips for control. Try to make the dream as vivid as you can. If you dream in black & white or everything seems kind of dark... In your dream use a bright flash light or other light that lights everything to make every clearer and in color. Eventually you won't have to use the image of the light.

Another thing I've learned that doubt in your mind is the one thing that will hold you back. The more you practice the better you will get. The better you get the more confidence and less doubt you will have in controlling your dream. So it will just keep getting better if you keep it up.

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Originally Posted by EricinLA

In your dream use a bright flash light or other light that lights everything to make every clearer and in color.

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Ooh that's a nice one :D Tomorrow I don't have to do my paper round so ld time, I'll try to get a flashlight in my dream somehow and then it's clear ld time :P

When I was 14 I drowned and when I should have died I could breath underwater.
It became clear : I was dreaming.

As soon as I realized it, it then seemed obvious that I could do All I want.
I flew, did dragon ball Z stuff, everything a kid would love.

It heppened several times and then went away.
Then I rediscovered it by stulbling upon a lucid dreaming article on the web, 10 years later.

Weirdly I'm struggling to take control of my LD but when I was a kid it came naturally.

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Originally Posted by frost458

Weirdly I'm struggling to take control of my LD but when I was a kid it came naturally.

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That actually seems to be pretty common. Given that dreams are built on expectations that your brain builds up from constantly inspecting and interacting with the world, it makes sense. When you're a kid you're much less "programmed" to understand things and you can much more easily give in to your imagination and just have fun. After ten years, your mind will built up so many more understandings of "X works like this", "Y works like that", "you can't do Z in this setting" that without constant lucid practice you'll have a lot more walls to overcome. It'll come back with experience though, no worries there.

Yes i learned all on my own, i learned my own self in dreams and how it works. It's a spiritual thing.

Okay, I'll play, even though I'm not quite sure where the OP wants to go with all this...

Because I started this practice decades before the internet made it popular, my first years of discovery and development passed in complete isolation from other LD'ers. My initial exposure to the fact that others have LD's -- that anyone else could do this -- didn't come until the early '90's, twenty years after I began my explorations, when I found Laberge's EWOLD in a bookstore.

I don't think "naturally" is quite the right word here, since LD'ing (and Dream Control, if I properly understand your separation of the two, EricinLA) is very much an unnatural event, as it stems from our consciousness defying nature by remaining self-aware in dreams. But I do think that those who cut their LD'ing teeth on their own, especially us old guys who did it before the age of internet forums, have had a clear advantage.

Why? Because we were able to find the best way to become lucid that worked for us, with the primary goal of getting back to a place we visited once or twice accidentally (and I firmly believe that most if not all people have been lucid at least once, especially in childhood, even if they don't remember -- it is an accident of sentience that simply cannot be avoided). We weren't constrained by the current multiple-rule-bound "techniques" so WILDly popular on the forums, we weren't misled by a barrage of misremembered, exaggerated, or just plain specious reports from other dreamers, we weren't lost in the ocean of misinformation clogging the internet, and, above all, we held getting to the dream as the priority, rather than all the unimportant noise, like "SP," (especially SP) that have reached rock star status on these pages.

No, we old farts had the supreme advantage of purity, sans rule or distraction. Only the dream mattered. Sure, if I had an understanding mentor I might have progressed a lot faster 35 years ago, but I think if I had the internet I would very likely have dismissed LD'ing as a waste of time -- I wasn't much of a follower, and techniques would have seemed like the questionable shortcut that, well, they are.

I don't know if that's what you were looking for in your OP, EricinLA, but that's what I got. I hope my words are seen less angry and cynical than cautionary: in other words, newbies ought to do what works for them, make their goals their own, and take what they read on these forums -- especially the grandiose claims, the viability of techniques, and the importance of background noise like HI and SP -- with a grain of salt.