Thread: Experiencing physical sensations in lucid dreams...

I've had several lucid dreams lately that are unlike previous experiences I've had. I'm curious how many other people experience the same kind of 'physical' sensations as I have begun experiencing in my lucid dreams over the past several months. In the past the physical sensations have always felt 'muted' and 'unreal', but that seems to not always be the case for me currently....

In one 'dream' I found myself floating high above a city at night, rising quickly. I became aware I was dreaming and decided to try and figure out where I was. I forced myself to stop and move sideways to look around better. I became startled because I could feel the shock of cold rain on my face as I moved. The feeling was so startlingly real that it jerked me out of my dream. I woke up expecting to be in a rain shower, or for the pipes in my ceiling to have sprung a leak at the very least. My face felt normal and I was surprised it wasn't cold and wet.

In a second dream I was riding in a car with several people. I'd been aware that I was most likely dreaming but I kept trying to trigger things in my dream to make sure because everything felt so real. I had a hard time determining that it was in fact a dream. I decided I'd try pinching myself because I've heard many times that it won't hurt in a dream, and in the past I knew that sensations had always felt... muted for a lack of a better descriptor, but it did hurt. In fact it hurt a lot. Confused, because I was so sure I was dreaming I decided, after considering the issue, to bite my arm, just to be sure. I latched on and bit down and jerked away because it HURT! I was bewildered. So sure I had to be dreaming, but confused because the whole dream world felt even more real than I could imagine anything else feeling. Even when I woke up I couldn't tell you which experience was a dream and which was real life. Even looking back months later the dream still has that feel of a real memory, not just the memory of a dream.

So my question is... Do others experience lucid dreaming in such a real physical sense?