Thread: Consistency when I don't want it (and frustratingly poor control)...

This is my first post on this forum.

I've just begun (lastnight) getting back into LD. I did it as a child without knowing the term or that it was a known phenomenon. Now that I am interested in personal and spiritual growth (age 33), I decided to pursue it seriously!

So last night I read a little PDF from the net for about half an hour before bed, then as I drifted off told myself I would have a lucid dream tonight, and lo and behold I did achieve some degree of lucidity later in the night... after handing baby over to her Mum at 4am then lying back in bed alone and observing my thoughts and being generally aware yet relaxedly letting things flow over me all the while keeping in mind that I would soon be having a lucid dream.

It began with the sensation of leaving my sleeping body in bed and walking out the house, then flying over the hill to my hometown region (50km away), and hopefully childhood home to visit my Father (passed away some years ago) to ask him about my relationship with him, and how I can find peace with him and so on.

Well I flew to the top of the hill, and then the valley on the other side was nothing like how it should've been with factories just over the ridge and the sea too close to the hill and so on. Then when I tried to get past the industrial zone before the Bay where I lived, big boats sprung up everywhere and it became a bustling 'boat town' half way between a big flat boat and a town with people everywhere and buildings blocking me from getting anywhere (by now I probably lost some lucidity as I forgot I could fly or stopped trying for all the buildings in my way).

I tried a consistency test, with the hope of changing my surroundings (as I had read last night that in dreams things always change (supposedly) when you turn your back on them). So I looked at a particular pattern of brick and wooden beams on a wall, memorized the pattern, turned 180 degrees and waited for a few seconds then looked back... But much to my displeasure the pattern and shape of the wall was identical! (despite my imagining that it would change).

Then I tried to 'will' into existence or find a road that would take me to the Bay I once lived, and I asked people of the existence of such a road and got generally given the run around (or people actively tried to drag me away from my objective and I had to struggle to be free of them).

Finally I found a road (but no car) and the road was so bloody narrow and twisty to be of no use...

So I awoke in a panicky and frustrated state with the sense of having to 'fight' my way through a thoroughly oppressive dream.

Even when I reminded myself in the dream 'this is my dream and I can make anything happen or not happen', people who were jostling me or holding me back steadfastly refused to evaporate, and my surroundings refused to change...

So all in all, not a particularly pleasant return to Lucid Dreaming (I guess the first one I've had in at least six months and certainly one of the first that I ever 'willed' to happen by intentional efforts).

So has anyone here struggled with similar difficulties? Does anyone have any tips for gaining control, or other strategies?

My thoughts are (for tonights upcoming dream) that I will concentrate simply on increasing my conscious awareness rather than try to control the dream. So no matter where I am, I will concentrate on the colours, look up at the sky or trees or buildings or at my hands or reflection and generally just marvel at the awareness that my mind has created all this (maybe also notice if I can smell or hear things). And perhaps I could try and talk with the people and ask them who they are (hopefully they won't be trying to grab or hold me)...

Any tips on keeping safe (from dream-characters) would also be most appreciated!