Somewhat maybe a Lucid Dream, not sure about it.

[YummyPillows]

Allow me to explain what I recall from one of the dreams I had last night that seemed to be at least partly lucid, or interesting at the least. I know that I was wandering my high school for an unknown reason. At some point I came across a row of vending machines. I stared intently at the drinks inside of the vending machines and thought to myself "I know my mind is just making up these drinks, I just stare closely at them to see what words my mind is putting on the labels and what not." So I was staring at these bottles that weren't recognizable, and thinking about how my subconscious mind was making these up and I think I might have known I was dreaming then but i'm not sure. At some point while I was wandering around I came across one of my friends from high school. Around when that happened I got one of the bottles from the vending machine and wrote "this is a dream" on it or something to remind me that it was a dream but I ended up leaving it behind. Then all I can remember next was a scene on a street where I remember telling my friend that we need to do reality checks to make sure we were in a dream. I started to look at my hands and they looked normal. I think I started to panic because it seemed like I could sense my physical body like I was awake or about to wake up, so I started to rub my hands together. After that I told my friend to clench his nose and see if he could breathe and I proceeded to do it myself and I was able to breathe through my nose while I had it clenched. I got excited and I think I told my friend that we were conscious in a dream together, but then after that moment the rest of the dream went on by itself and I kind of forgot that I was in a dream. None of the dream was very vivid at all, even the parts that may have been lucid. What do you guys think about this?

[NyxCC]

Sounds like a lucid, congratulations! Sometimes even if we know it's a dream, we can still feel very confused. It's like our awareness isn't at its best. The very confusion itself can actually be taken as a sign that we are dreaming. I mean, if you RC in real life you can tell with certainly that you are not dreaming. But if you RC in the dream and are unsure...that sounds suspicious...so chances are you might be dreaming. At any rate, it looks like whatever practices you are doing, they are paying off! Surely more lds are on their way, keep up those RCs!

[YummyPillows]

It's kind of disappointing to think of what I had to be a lucid dream. What I have been expecting is for the dream to feel as real as life. To see and feel and hear everything like I do in real life. For instance, when I think back to the things I did yesterday I can only visualize it, and it's nothing like the reality of actually experience it. I feel like I've never experienced a dream, and they all feel like visualizations.

[NyxCC]

Dreams including lucid dreams vary in intensity, vividness, level of awareness, self-control and dream control. That is pretty normal. Moreover, you may actually have a very profound dreaming experience, but when you think about it, you may remember only brief flashes. That in no way means the dream was of a lesser quality, just our memory of dreams tends to fade much easier than real life memories. I know my best lds were super vivid and interesting, but when I think about a great dream I had a month ago, I only remember the highlights because I made the effort to tell myself the story after waking up. I can still feel some of the euphoria, but I don't get the exact visuals. That actually doesn't matter, as long as you have put down all the relevant details in your journal. All these memories are stored somewhere, but they are much harder to access compared to real life memories in general. Yet, you have to ask yourself how much detail you can recall from everything you've done the day before. Unless there are intense emotions involved, we tend to dismiss a lot of what's going on around us. Some final thoughts: Be positive and patient about your experiences and see how other lds you have compare. Try boosting ld vividness by fully engaging in the dream, use all your senses. Practice ADA (All day awareness) during the day. ADA Tutorial. Do mini-visualization sessions (10-15min) every day or every other day. Good luck!

[YummyPillows]

Thanks for the info! That is definitely encouraging. Not more than a few minutes ago something incredible happened! Last night I went to bed at 2 am and set my alarm for 8 am and then stayed up until 8:30 am and went back to bed. I woke up again at 11 am naturally then decided to go back to bed and set my alarm for 11:40 so I could get to class. I was surprised at how quickly I started dreaming from going back to sleep here. I was back at my high school and there was some bald guy sitting down in a hallway telling me that I could hit him if I wanted to but that his bodyguard standing next to him would protect him. He kept saying it and it was bugging me so I went downstairs. I headed down one of the hallways that lead out of the building but the bodyguard was standing down the hallway. I kept walking and once I got to him he started following me. It was at this point that all of a sudden I said to myself "this is a dream," and boom everything became more clear and I focused on my feet and was able to control my walking. It felt very very real but it was hard to control myself, as if my muscles didn't work properly (I know that when I try to sprint in my dreams I ended up not being capable of doing it) I managed to make myself look up at the bodyguard and as soon as I did the whole dream started to fade away very quickly and I lose lucidity and the dream. I woke myself up and immediately wrote this down to remember the progress of this lucid dream. Is it really possible to induce lucid dream after being asleep for only a 10-20 minutes? I know that waking up and going back to sleep helps, but that is incredible!

[NyxCC]

That's awesome! Congrats on having yet another ld! :bravo: I was surprised at how quickly I started dreaming from going back to sleep here.... I woke myself up and immediately wrote this down to remember the progress of this lucid dream. Is it really possible to induce lucid dream after being asleep for only a 10-20 minutes? I know that waking up and going back to sleep helps, but that is incredible! I suppose you mean after having slept a few hours before that. Yeah, you can induce an ld at any time after you fall asleep (after having a couple of hours of sleep and in rare cases when you go straight to bed at night, although the latter is more controversial and much harder). The explanation for this comes from your sleep cycles. In the early hours of sleep, you tend to go into deeper sleep and have fewer REM cycles where lds usually occur. After couple of hours of sleep your REM cycles are much closer to each other and they also last longer. So, when you go back to sleep you may directly hit a lucid, or it may take a while until REM starts and you become lucid. That will depend on your own sleep cycles at the moment. And of course the key ingredient that is needed in any case is awareness. WBTBs help with increasing awareness by waking your sleepying brain. At the end of each REM our awareness is also increased, so many people get lds at this moment. With some practice, and using techs like hands rubbing, going for tasks, etc. one can learn to prolong dreams.