What was this?

[4cats]

Hi all, I'm totally new to this forum and topic. The strangest thing happened to me last night and the closest explanation I could find online (not perfectly close) was lucid dreaming. Here is what happened: I was dreaming about drawing a picture using white-board markers in a hallway. Suddenly I peeked into a nearby room and saw that the clock on the wall showed I was late for something. I went back out into the hall (still in a normal dream) to pack up the markers. When I went back into the room, the clock had a swash of purple paint over it. The walls of the room were now purple and all furnishings were gone. I walked into the room... Suddenly I was wide awake but still in the purple room. This was very scary to me. I had a moment of just trying to collect myself; calm down, get a grip on what was happening. Then I looked around. I saw a window that was open to a small (also empty) courtyard and rain was coming down outside. I could hear it, see it, smell it. My thinking was this: This is not the room I am in because it isn't raining there. But then I thought - well, maybe it is raining now because I can hear it. So I walked to the window. Walking felt difficult; it took a lot of effort to move my legs. Then when I got to the window I looked at the rain and thought: this is real rain. I am here in this place with real rain. This was also a scary idea so I decided to close the window. I lifted my arm (with some effort) and managed to close the window. The realness of this experience caused me anxiety and I freaked myself back into the room where I was sleeping. I can't say I "woke up" because I was already awake in the dream, if that makes sense. I simply moved from the purple room to my room at home. Anyway - I spent the next few hours trying not to sleep because I was afraid of being sucked back into the "dream world". Nothing was threatening there, but I didn't understand what was going on so I did not like it. Was this lucid dreaming? Was it something else? Could it be a sign of a medical problem? Just as past info - I'm over 40 and nothing like this has ever happened to me. I always have vivid, realistic dreams and often use a dream app on my ipad to look up the meaning of dream symbols, which I find helpful. I've now (today) read a bit more about dreams and can say that I have had a few experiences where I was partly awake and partly asleep and controlled my dream for entertainment purposes...but never have I been awake inside the dream like I was last night. A few times in stressful periods (many years ago) I have sleep walked and ended up some distance from my home. I am prone to nightmares and repetitive dreams. Any info is appreciated. It seems like it could be a good thing, but I am sure you can see from the above that it is more than a little worrying to me. Thank you!

[MasterMind]

Congratulations! Such a vivid experience is very valuable. Only you can determine if it was a lucid dream or not, did you know that you were not awake and what you was experiencing was not "real"? Then I would still say it's a lucid dream even though you might not viewed it as a dream at the time. (In a theory this is not a lucid dream) I will tell you later why. My first vivid and super aware dream was actually also around my house and in the rain, I was also a little freaked out by that experience, because it felt so real and at the time I was experiencing it, I didn't saw it as a dream, although I knew that I wasn't awake at the same time. (So if we know we are not awake, but don't see it as a dream. What is it then that we perviece it as? Think about that ) Being lucid means that you are aware that it is a dream while you are dreaming, so you can actually be as aware as you are right now awake, without realizing that it is a dream! So the term is a little misleading, because awareness like that is of more value than just knowing that is a dream, because you can know you are dreaming but at the same time not be very aware of the situation at all. So congratulations to your experience, and wether it was a lucid dream or is not important, what is important is that you were very aware. Don't worry if you think it's a little scary, explore step by step and the fear will fade away gradually. Sweet dreams And welcome to the forum!

[faceonmars]

That, my friend, was a lucid dream. When you have your first one it can be frightening as you might feel that some horrible event has happened to your real world self (i.e. you died) . The more lucids you have the easier they are to accept. Congrats!

[Rothgar]

I am guessing you were not trying to become lucid. When you are prepped for it and trying to do it, it is awesome how real it is! But if it just happens the first time I can see how it could freak you out. It is considered a relative of out-of-body experiences after all... Read a good book like Exploring the world of lucid dreaming, by laberge, and you will be thrilling at the experience.

[4cats]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I had such a weird weekend where I felt like my feet weren't really on the ground after this whole lucid dream thing. Time seemed off. It's still more than a little trippy to ponder where I was and what I was doing, and how. There was literally no difference between my experience of being in this purple room and my experience of typing this now. The idea that I could possibly control this type of experience and do real things in a different place is a pretty cool idea...but at the same time, I do remember that trying to get back in my room was a weird struggle - sort of like trying to quickly get out of someplace unfamiliar in the dark. I definitely do not know for sure how to get back again, should I want to go there (dream world, for lack of a better description) so I suppose the concern that this is not really an experience I could fully control and this is likely holding me back from trying again. Not to mention that I have no idea how I would try it! What made this happen is a total mystery. Nothing was unusual about the other night; nothing was unusual about the dream I was having. I told my teenage children about this and they were laughing that I must be the first person to think that closing a window while lucid dreaming was an accomplishment. Apparently people try to fly and so forth, where I was like: window closed...ta da! (and also funny to find out that my kids had heard of lucid dreaming before) Anyway, thanks again. I feel much better just having a name for it. For a bit I was thinking 'brain tumor' or something...isn't it a bit like a hallucination?

[4cats]

By the way - Faceonmars - I do think that was my main worry at the time: that I had died. I didn't think it through like that, but certainly that would have been at the root of my anxiety. And Mastermind - yes, I did not think it was a dream. Later, I remembered that the first part was a dream and connected the two, but at he time I wasn't at all focused on the fact that I had first awakened from a dream. I was much more concerned about where I was and how I got there. I wonder what the rain could mean? It was definitely a main focus, along with the color purple and the clock. My dream app was not super helpful.