my 5th lucid dream ever. 30 - 40 minutes?

Okay i Just woke up from my best most controlled lucid dream yet, and it was awesome before my lucid dreams would be very short (like 1-2 minutes of struggling trying to control it after a false awwakening) but last night i had a dild where i was at my workplace and i started doing lots of reality checks like counting my fingers (which i had 7 of) and then just examining my surroundings and eventually became lucid but the quality of the dream was UNBELIEAVEABLE i didnt have to stabilize or anything and it must have lasted like 30 - 40 minutes, i did so much i flew to outer space, (took me like 20 trys of flying before i got it) i kept jumping into the air getting a certasin height and dropping back down. i ate a big mac wow did it taste real, i talked to dc's, i stuck around my work and explored a bit before leaving, and i went to mars. it was awesome. im just wondering if this is normal because it seems like its not normal to be lucid this long. and this was maybe my 5th lucid dream in my life. (all my other ones were false awakenings this is my first dild) But it was awesome and i cant wait for my next one!!

Congratulations, Strafe! You must have experienced something really amazing. And yes, since your dream was vivid, I think it's normal to be lucid for that long.

Most of my dreams are either less than 30 seconds, or more than 10 minutes
the difference is if I stare at my hands to stabilize, by doing your hand thing you probably stabilized the dream at the outset
my first lucid dream was like that I looked at my hand a long time and it lasted 3 minutes

in your 1-2 minute dreams did you do any stabilizing?
when I forget to do, I lose the dreams fast, but sometimes I still recover by rubbing my hands together in the void until a new dreamscape appears
but then I stabilize, sometimes I stabilize even while I am flying along, right there in the air :)

That's really great, Strafe. I have found the 30-40 minute dreams are not necessarily the norm, but if you've experienced one this early in your practice, then you can probably look forward to more of them :) Good luck.

EDIT: Becoming lucid from a FA is also a DILD :)

It's interesting about the length of a lucid dream. I've read that the "real" time of your dream is probably much shorter than the "perceived" time. Like you feel it is 30-40 minutes, but it's probably only a few.

Congrats either way. Perceived time is what counts in my book!

realtime and dreamtime are the same but it often feels like you dream a lot longer.
a guy from youtube once said when he entered a dream he already knew everything like where he was how he got there with who he was there and that is why it might look longer. i think that is very plausible