dreaming that I'm dreaming

[wettDreamer]

last night I had my 3rd lucid experience. What happened was I woke up after having a dream that should have been easy to become lucid in from all the weird stuff but I overlooked all the dream signs. After I woke up I wrote down my dream and got pissed off at myself because all the stuff I should have recognized as being imposible. I ate some grub then laid back down in my bed and atmepted to do a WILD and like always the only thing that happened was I passed the hell out. This time something weird happened though. I went straight into a dream wer I was laying in a hospital bed and I was trying to do a WILD. So basically I fell asleep trying to wild only to have a dream wer I was attempting to WILD. The cool thing is that my dream WILD worked to make me lucid. as I was WILDing within my dream I laid in the dream bed with my eyes closed trying to picture my bedroom to have a solid place to start my ''dream''. The weird part is I was picturing and old house because that's were I thought I still lived. With my dream eyes closed I started seeing my bedroom form in a weird spinning tunnel way like going through worpspeed is portrayed in movies. Finnaly my bedroom was fully formed and I was laying in my bed and I started going over all the stuff I could do to maintain my lucidity. I got off my bed and as I did I dragged my hand across the bed and I could actually feel the textures of the matress. I looked around my room and there was nothing in there except a bare matress. I started walkin towards the door to go explore and as I did my vision started fading so I spun around. As I stopped spinning I stumbled around like I was dizzy. I finnaly gained control of my vision and noticed there were about three different doors now and in different spots. I walked up to one of the doors and tried to open it but it was locked and I could hear loud noises like saws and drills and hammering coming from behind it. What's funny is the first thing that popped in my head was ''hmm... A locked door with construction taking place behind it. I wounder what that's a metophore for''. After failing to open the door I was going to go through another one but my vision started to fade I tryed everything I could like rubbing my hands and I was shouting maintain lucidity but I still woke up. my first two times I woke up almost imediatly after becoming lucid. This time lasted the longest but I obviously don't have maintaining my lucidity on lockdown yet. what are some personal ways you use to maintaining lucidity because I know the basic ones. Also what do you experienced people focus on in your mind once becoming lucid because I feal I'm focusing too much on the fact that I'm actually dreaming and what around me is fake but seams real and I get fascinated by this and I beleiv that's what waking me up because I get too exited by this.

[innerspacecadet]

Oh yeah. I've had a couple lucid faux-WILD dreams-within-a-dream myself, and most of the true WILDs I had were spontaneous, resulting from my just happening to enter a REM cycle very quickly after I fell asleep. The main difference between a faux-WILD and a real WILD that I've noticed is that in a faux-WILD you enter the lucid dream instantly and with no odd sensations, whereas in a real WILD you tend to have those funny distorting sensations as you're falling into sleep paralysis first. I keep myself lucid either by (a) attempting to perform a specific task within the dream (I was big on stuff like Tasks of the Month when I first got here) or (b) repeating to myself some kind of "dream mantra" such as "see the dream" for as long as I can think to so I am continuously reminding myself I'm dreaming. On rare occasion, I do stuff like spinning. Once I become lucid (usually by either performing a reality check after seeing or sensing something suspicious, or just reasoning that the only way that whatever just happened could have realistically happened is that I'm dreaming), I focus on either whatever mantra I plan to say to keep myself lucid or whatever task I plan to do to keep myself lucid. After a long time of having lucid dreams, you don't get that excited anymore. When I had my very first moment of lucidity in a dream, I woke myself up due to the excitement; it wasn't until a year later that, via a spontaneous WILD, which was hard to wake up from 'cause if your body goes into REM right after you fall asleep then that tends to mean your body REALLY badly wants to be asleep, I was able to actually able to stay asleep while lucid and fly around and do stuff. Once I got more experience and read LaBerge's book another year or so later, staying asleep during lucid dreams wasn't too hard anymore, and staying lucid wasn't too hard either as long as I had a plan.

[Snowy Egypt]

Usually, I either stick my finger through my hand or rub my hands together. I find tactile stabilizers to work better than mental ones, though both work for me just fine. Also, what on earth is a faux-WILD? Never heard that terminology before... One more thing, your title. It's a bit...confusing, seeing as you said you became Lucid. Therefore, you weren't dreaming that you were dreaming. Could you elaborate as to why you think otherwise?

[innerspacecadet]

A faux-WILD is my term that I made up for when you dream (nonlucidly) that you're trying to have a WILD, and you end up entering a lucid dream-within-a-dream. You think you're WILDing until you wake up from the whole sequence of dreams. It's effectively an "accidental" MILD resulting from a failed WILD attempt: you go to bed with the intent of having a WILD, and you remember that intent, except that you don't start dreaming until a while after you fall asleep and remember your intention to WILD only after you start dreaming.

[wettDreamer]

Usually, I either stick my finger through my hand or rub my hands together. I find tactile stabilizers to work better than mental ones, though both work for me just fine. Also, what on earth is a faux-WILD? Never heard that terminology before... One more thing, your title. It's a bit...confusing, seeing as you said you became Lucid. Therefore, you weren't dreaming that you were dreaming. Could you elaborate as to why you think otherwise? I called it dreaming that im dreaming because in my dream I drempt the I was lying down trying to WILD which I ended up being successful with. Therfore I was already dreaming as I drempt I fell asleep into a dream. I thought I was awake still trying to WILD but i was actually already dreaming. I didn't actually become lucid until after I ''WILDed'' within my dream. I'm surprised that the title is what confused you and not what actually happened because the whole thing confused the hell out of me and I was there lol

[AjWasHere]

I usually try to avoid doing slow WILDs because I had a problem with night terrors and waking up before sleep paralysis passed when I was younger. I know it's a stupid thing, but I just can't stand the "distortions." I can do it during a nap or something like that with little difficulty, when induction is fast. I find that waking up, going out for an hour, and going back to bed is great way to do a WILD. In keeping with your original question, years ago, when I started this whole thing, I read some guide to lucid dreams one some geocities site. The only thing I remember was that it recommended splashing your hands in cold water while yelling "stabilize my lucidity now!" It stuck with me, and now I do that whenever my dreams start to fade. I find it more effective than the other techniques, and it works nearly 100% of the time. Oddly enough, i seldom have difficulty finding cold water, even in places like a city.

[Puffin]

Not uncommon. I had this wierd LD last night where I dreamed of my cat that we just gave away last week, and I was petting her and stuff. I swear she was purring, too. Anyways, in the next dream I was with my sister and I told her, 'I dreamed about my cat we gave away'. Then I woke up and I was like, 'what the hell?' Oh, I've had a crazy faux-WILD before, too. I was in my bedroom, laying in a circle along with seven or eight of my friends, and we were all tryin to WILD. Then I suddenly moved and I was in the middle of the circle, moving sharply every few seconds like the second-hand of a clock. It was strange. o.o I then entered a lucid dream, but still thought I actually WILDed.