First lucid!

[BagO]

So last night I had my first lucid dream! I have been trying very hard for the past month or so with no success. Then I went on vacation for a week and didn't do anything with lucid dreaming, no reality checks and no dream journal. I was expecting to pick it up rite away again when I got back from vacation. The day I got back I just did my reality checks like usual and actually saw the movie Inception (which is about dreaming) and had my first lucid dream that night. It was a DILD and I think I became lucid by looking at my hand and counting 6 fingers. For some strange reason I wasn't jumping with joy that I knew I was dreaming and I think that if it was a higher level of lucidity I would have. I attempted to fly which didn't work at all, so I got on top of a moving car and jumped off of it when it came to a halting stop which soared me through the air. I landed on a balcony and there were some people there that I didn't know. I just disregarded them and went downstairs to the back yard. I attempted to make my self lighter since I couldn't fly and I was able to jump a little higher and fall slower. I also remember trying to explain to my mom that it was just a lucid dream and we will eventually wake up. I know I wouldn't have done that if I totally knew what was going on because I would have known it was just a DC. I also tried spawning one of my friends by turning around and wanting them to be there when I did but that didn't work ether. I also remember how weird it was because every time i looked at my hand It would look like a normal hand with five fingers, but when I counted it was always 6 or 7. I did this multiple times because I just couldn't figure it out. I woke up soon after and wrote down everything rite away but it was a little hard to recall and it seemed foggy. It wasn't the clearest of dreams but I know that I'm able to have them now and having this one boosted my confidence to have more! It was a very good experience.

[jasonresno]

Congratulations! I have a question for you, being a new member as well, at what point did you realize you could "look at your hands" to do a RC? If you do a reality check in a dream doesn't that pretty much certify the fact that you are lucid? When I dream (non lucid) I have no control over anything, it feels like.

[Molder]

Congratulations, dude. Sounds like you had a blast... and you were actually able to soar in your first LD? That's enviable. I take it that must've been due to your active, but low awareness. In my experience, you can do more "superhuman" things when you're not completely lucid, because otherwise you start to feel doubt, and that ruins your chances. Jason, when you're dreaming you'd usually do a reality check like that automatically, and then realize you're in a dream. Though there are instances for me when I just know I'm dreaming, out of the blue, and then go for a RC.

[jasonresno]

Thanks for the answer, Molder. After doing a little bit of in depth reading and coming back to this thread it makes sense to me. Essentially, and correct me if I'm wrong, the reason we RC during our "waking hours" is to develop a habit that transfers into our "dreaming hours". And that way as soon as we exercise that habit in a dream: we become lucid.

[exdreamer]

Jason, bear in mind that a reality check that fails (i.e. you count 6 fingers on a hand) wont necessarily make you lucid. I had a dream a few days after I started attempting to LD where I did a finger counting reality check but I didn't become lucid and instead the dream narrative that followed was of me asking a DC how to make my dream "real." Essentially a non-lucid dream about trying to lucid dream!

[rkenning]

ya Jason, you can read one of my recent posts where i was in a dream and i randomly did the nose pinch check mid-dream but i was too convinced that the dream was real so i didnt become lucid, it was so disappointing when i woke up

[StrangeDreamsGuy]

Haha, grats. I always told people that they were in a dream when I used to have lucids and didn't know what they were or how to do anything interesting. I still do it sometimes just because I find it so cool to talk to somebody so human and try to convince them that they don't exist xD

[BagO]

Yeah I think that I just did the reality check because it was a habitual thing I did during the day. I'm not really sure if I knew that I was dreaming before it or not tho.

[GabrielG]

I agree and i really want to have a LD