QUESTION: Am I a lucid dreamer??

First of all, excuse me for my english, I'm from holland. So I've had some scary dreams lately and decided to Google it. I was just being goofy with my mom when all of a sudden I read a story which described my dream perfectly and it was called lucid dreaming going wrong?? My dreams take place at the exact place I fell asleep at, so if I'm sleeping in my room, the dream is about my room and if I fall asleep on the couch it's in the living room. In my dreams I see a black creature bending over me beside my bed and it just keeps standing there, to my feelings, for hours and it touches me and I can feel it in my sleep. It's like the annoying feeling you get when your leg falls asleep, everywhere it touches me. So in my dream I can't move at all, while the creature touches me. I try to call for help, but I can't use my voice. If this isn't scary enough... the other day I was sleeping in my mom's bed and she was laying against me. All of a sudden the black creature appeared and stood besides me again and touched me. But this time he flew over me after a while and took over my mom's body. I then turned around and my mom had the scariest facial expression ever and started to choke me. I tried to move, but I was paralized and I tried to scream but I couldn't. I've been having these dreams very often and everytime I am very confused because when I wake up, I can't really tell if it really happened or not because it takes place in the exact same room, same sheets, I'm wearing the same pyjamas etc. So my question is if I am having lucid dreams, what that means and what I can do about it?

This might come as a shock to you, but you weren't dreaming. The state you were in is called sleep paralysis. Often, lucid dreamers try to induce this state in order to get to a lucid dream. In sleep paralysis, your mind is awake and your body is asleep, giving your the paralyzed feeling. Often in this state, people will see hallucinations called Hypnogogic imagery if they open their eyes. These hallucinations can be sometimes terrifying, but it is all based on expectation, like a lucid dream. Just know that in sleep paralysis nothing can harm you. They are simply visuals and sounds from inside your head. Actually, sleep paralysis is a good thing as it is the gateway to lucid dreaming. If you ever find yourself in this state, just tell yourself it isn't real, keep your eyes closed, and observe flashing lights and images behind your closed eyelids, also called hypnogogic imagery.As a final note, if you ever feel you want to leave sleep paralysis, just hold your breath and wiggle your toes. This will help your body wake up. But don't be scared of sleep paralysis, embrace it! Hope this helps :)

The Meta Forum is for questions/concerns regarding the website itself, please don't post lucid dreaming related content there~ (I moved this thread)

Lucid dreaming is being aware that you are dreaming, whilst in a dream. So I don't think this would technically be "lucid dreaming", unless you know it's a dream, which you might have implied? It sounds more like sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis occurs every time while you're asleep. Your body paralyzes itself so you don't act out dreams and what not. Sometimes, you can accidentally become aware in it and you have hallucinations (which might explain this black creature, and you being in the same settings) because SP isn't a dream completely, but your mind is in a dream type state. There are a ton of threads about SP here so I will provide with you some links :) A lot of people use SP to their advantage, as a sign that they can enter a dream from the state of being awake (this is called a WILD)

Sleep Paralysis Demystified - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Sleep paralysis: FAQ - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Sleep Stages

http://www.dreamviews.com/f79/mind-a...utorial-42271/

Some of those are info/techniques and what not. Here is the WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dream) subforum which contains a lot of topics regarding SP :)