First lucid! and a brief question about hypnagogia

Hey guys, first lucid last night, am mostly curious about what I experienced earlier in the night though as I initially tried to sleep, please let me know what you think!

Got into bed at around 12:30am... was not so sleepy, but relaxed my entire body by focusing on each part.. Already, the visuals started coming to me which is unusual for me... As I relaxed each body part, I could faintly imagine that part in my mind, wrapped in a blue-ish energy.. by the time I get to my neck, a visual scene has formed, and I can see two other people, as well as several blue energy beings with bright yellow eyes.. they appear to be approaching my 'comrades', and pulling them into a void, a portal of sorts... It is my turn, I focus on relaxing my neck and head, the spirit pulls me backward, and my whole body is covered in a numb energy.. at this point, i've come to realize that i've just entered a hypnagogic state. My visual field becomes covered in dancing shapes and patterns, mostly yellowish brown, and this continues all the way through to my peripherals.. I kindof went blank, not sure If i should try to imagine something or just watch, and eventually my eyes got super dry, and felt the hypnagogia fade.. eventually I gave up since it didn't seem to be going anywhere (can anyone comment on this experience?). I change positions and fall asleep.

Later in the night, I am dreaming about camping.. I wake up, realize the opportunity, and lay still to perform a WBTB. within seconds, I feel numbness creeping up my body, a static sound in my ears, and in my visual field it looks like i being teleported through a staticky portal. I submit to the growing sounds and distorted visuals, and I am thrust into a dream...

Everything is wobbling, but takes a few seconds to stabilize.. I quickly realize I am in the same dream as before! I look down at my hands, and... success! two of my fingers are missing and things just don't look right. I remained entirely calm, so as not to wake up form excitement, but still, I was taken by surprise by having gone lucid so I wasn't sure what to do.. I just wandered around the dream scene, performing a bunch of reality checks just to see how it would feel.. Pinched by nose, jumped up, checked my watch, everything confirmed that I was dreaming. I explored a little more before deciding to try to fly. I made my way outside, trying to stay calm, rubbing my hands together to try to keep the dream going. I guess I either got excited, or my dream time was simply up, but I awoke after what felt like 4-5 minutes of lucid dreaming.

I went back to bed, and had a long, vivid non-lucid to follow.

Pretty typical of a first lucid dream many would agree. The hypnagogic imagery is caused by a hallucinogen that is released into your brain upon entering sleep. Its kinda like LSD, when taking LSD it releases a ton of hallucinogens and thats why a person who takes it always has hallucinations that seem like they are so real. Same thing for when falling asleep, except with sleeping hypnagogic imagery comes naturally not artificially. Btw one way to try to stay calm which has always worked for me was that when I became lucid I told myself, "Im Lucid, Well hell its about time." A little depressing it may sound but it totally takes your mind off of the excitedness so you can focus on doing whatever you want. Also, if you really wanna have more lucid dreams frequently now that youve had one you know you can do it, so now apply that firm focus that you can have it any time and your likeliness on having one is extremly increased. Thats what I do, I just know that I can have one, and I have one. I still do my daily reality checks though, you always gotta make those thorough. In MANY of my dreams I would do a reality check but i would lose my focus and wouldnt become Lucid. So always be thorough and stay focused when doing Reality Checks, because that increases your likeliness of having a lucid dream by a ton too.

Congrats on your first lucid!

The hypnogogic imagery is so cool. I love watching it as I fall asleep, but I can't usually get lucid that way, unless I just woke up and am going straight back to sleep. Last night, I saw a family of weird creatures, they were like animals but were sentient in a way similar to humans. They were quite big and had long fur, with black faces. I also saw many other things, but I rarely remember my hypnogogic imagery.

OneUpBoy, I didn't know that the brain released a hallucinogen, I'll have to look into that!