Just had my first lucid dream!
I watched Inception for the second time on Christmas Day and went on to do some wikipedia-ing about the movie, which inevitably lead to the topic of lucid dreaming, something I had thought about attempting before. I started keeping a mental dream journal, (a written one seemed like too much effort) whereby, after waking from a dream I would recite what happened in my dream (I have roomates, so reciting in my head) in present tense, while staying in the same position I woke up in.
About a week ago I had the first nightmare I've had in years, which interestingly I'm pretty sure was because I had chewed some nicorette too soon before bed which apparently can give you night terrors. I woke up from the nightmare, and tried to turn on my bedside lamp which didn't work, so I tried the too other light switches in my room, no dice, and then because I was worried and still shaken up from my nightmare, I went into the bathroom and the switch did nothing. At this point I remebered reading something about lights not working in lucid dreams and concluded I was dreaming, however, I didn't want to chill in my appartment in total darkness as a lucid dream and I was still quite scared so I woke up for real
Last night my girlfriend told me "lets be friends" so I downed 40 ounces of malt liquor. After watching platoon with some friends I went to bed, woke up at 5am, couldn't sleep (thinking the girl), took a sleeping pill (which ever ones are OTC, they're pretty good I find and all contain the same chemical, not sure which one) and went to sleep.
I woke up super tired but I had a 11:30am class to go to, sat through it almost falling asleep, bussed home and went to bed.
My dream was intially weird, I was driving a firetruck with my friend and my mother towards a storm. I didn't find this weird until I saw a plane fly extremely close to the storm and was not affected by it. I concluded I was dreaming and and told my mum. I woke up in my house in my hometown and pretty instantly new I was dreaming because I went to sleep in my bed at my appartment.
I don't really want to go into too many of the details of my dream past then because its personal and probably boring unless your me.
I made a point to check the time on clocks; everytime I looked away the time was different and I could not tell the time, only realize i was looking at a clock.
My impression of lucid dreaming is it is more like reality then I every imagined, I am in control of myself, somewhat the environment, and I can make characters appear, however, the characters are individual actors who are outside of my control, and the environment was only partially under my control.
The length of the dream was amazing, it was my decision to wake up (I have a class at 6pm and was pretty sure I slept right through it), and my sense of touch was definitely the same as in waking life.
