Thread: doesn't evryone lucid dream?

I am glad to find this forum...and I guess I would just like to share and get others opinions. My BF and I have been talking some about my dreams recently and it has led me to believe that I am and always have been a little unusual I guess in my dreaming. I cannot remember a time that I could NOT control my dreams....and I can remember back as far as 2 years of age. I did not have a lot of nightmares like so many have described. I only remember one that I had about age 5 that involved skeletons coming to kidnap me...and I could not stand the thoughts of their bones touching me so I made them put socks on their hands and then I was fine! <giggles> But I have always KNOWN that I was in a dream. If the dream is not going the way I like, then I change it. Or if I REALLY liked a part...then I can rewind the dream and go over that part over and over again. Or if I cannot get the dream to change...then I just stop it...and allow another one to start...or wake up. Sometimes if I am in a dream that I like, and I get woke up by a phone call..etc...then I will lay back down and tell myself to start that dream again...and I will. Many times, if it is a dream that has some real life components in it...say a situation in real life that I am trying to work out, then I will go over that part in my dream over and over again trying different solutions to see if I can find one that will work.

I have not ever really used it to have FUN in my dreams. I have never flown or walked under water, but it sounds like FUN! I would like to do that and perhaps will try that in the future. It seems that most of my dreams are used to "work". My BF laughs at me. He says sleep is fun...I tell him it is used to work and that I do my best work then. I often use sleep to "problem solve" and will figure the problem out in my sleep, wake up and go fix it in my real life.

I used to have really WONDERFUL vivid dreams...almost like long epic movies, but as time has gone on...and the worries and cares of real life have set in (I just ended a 30 year abusive relationship) I have not had the really wonderful dreams that i used to have and have mostly "working" dreams.

I have never had sleep paralysis that I know of, but I do have odd types of sleep that I find really annoying. For example, if I have the TV on...say a news channel when I fall asleep, I can go to sleep and listen to the TV at the same time. I AM asleep, but am fully aware of what is going on and being said on the TV...it is almost as though the 2 worlds are battling for dominion and I always wake up feeling like I have not slept well. I call it being asleep but not asleep. Does anyone else do that? I am new to all this...and maybe what I do and have always done is not lucid dreaming at all???...since I am not really sure what it is and/or is not...perhaps someone can steer me in the right direction and let me know if any of this sound familiar or "normal" to anyone else?