What inspired you to try lucid dreams?

[DreamLord1]

Why did you want to lucid dream? For me, personally, it was the opportunity to do things, see things, feel things that were not possible in the real world. I have seen sunsets more beautiful than anything you could ever see on earth. I've seen landscapes that don't exist, whose beauty id beyond imagination. The sort of beauty you can't create, only find. I've created entire universes, filled with people with consciousness, creativity, and free will. I have witnessed the endless creativity of my own subconscious. I have made things, seen things, that are impossible in the real world. Tell me, have you ever walked up a set of penrose steps?(it's frustrating) I've lived so many fantasies i can't even count them. I've flown through the calmest skies and the most ferocious of storms, swam in the deepest depths and the most wondrous reefs. I've created incredible things. I have so many memories from only 2 years of lding, each and every one more beautiful than the last. I've gotten therapy from my own subconscious, conquered numerous fears, and was finally able to let go of my deceased father. What inspired me to lucid dream was having god-like powers over an effectively endless dreamworld in which anything was possible. So i ask you, why did you want to lucid dream in the first place, and have you reached that goal?

[cooleymd]

[B]Why did you want to lucid dream? Long ago I was forsaken by my best friend, and abandoned, after many many years I wrote to her. Her response was to disown me. Being an inward looking person, I felt that perhaps the only place my friend still lived was in my mind. For me the path was obvious turn inward to that place where she still lives. One day I hope to face (all at once) the many versions of her that live in my mind. I shall be sure not to invoke invulnerability, surely I shall be slaughtered, yet even as I die my friendship shall live on in my mind and in my heart. (Ironically she is as skilled a cardio-vivisectionist as a marksman let each version of her take aim where she will)

[Baron Samedi]

wanting to end vivid nightmares following a divorce

[Sageous]

So i ask you, why did you want to lucid dream in the first place, and have you reached that goal? I never initially intended to LD; I guess the state sort of found me. In my teens I was very interested in dreaming, and spent many days, nights, and 12+ hour sleep sessions directly studying them. In time I found myself returning to dreams in the morning after waking, this time with my self-awareness in place... doing DEILD's without knowing it (hell, I was still years away from considering my self-awareness, fo that matter!). But I perhaps don't count, because I was doing all this many years before LD'ing became a known term (LaBerge was still struggling through college at the time), so I never had a chance to one day decide, "Hey, I want to try this lucid dreaming thing!" Have I reached the goals laid down when I started LD'ing? Not all of them -- some of them were fairly lofty, if not impossible... but I'm still working at it, almost 4 decades later!

[Redrivertears]

Hey there, I stumbled upon lucid dreaming rather by accident, following links on the internet I was actually reading on astral projection at the time, merely out of a general interest, and came upon a link to the lucidity institute. As I read about lucid dreams, I recognized them from my childhood. As a child, I had a lot of nightmares and taught myself to wake up when things got too scary. Years later, I read what I had been doing in the texts about lucidity, except that they were using dream control for much more interesting things then waking oneself up. I've been hooked ever since! -Redrivertears-

[TravisE]

On rare occasions in childhood, I would have occasional dreams in which I somehow realized during the dream that I was dreaming. I always assumed it was a normal fluke that happened to everyone every once in a blue moon and never thought too much of it. I never knew it was considered something “special” or even that it had a name. Eventually I found a book in a library about lucid dreaming and had a short-term interest in it, but I don't remember much about what happened. One thing I never realized until more recently was that it is actually possible to control the dreams. Since I never had much luck with dream control in my early LDs (which was before I knew anything about control in the first place), I simply assumed it wasn't really possible. I discovered this forum around 2005 and saw evidence to the contrary, in addition to other things I either never considered or simply assumed weren't possible, and that caused me to start thinking. That began a long, interesting and exciting journey that I'm still on and don't intend to ever leave.

[dolphin]

I've liked dreaming ever since I could remember! I had my first lds catching a recurring nightmare and waking myself up. I had other lucid dreams occasionally where I enjoyed flying, maybe a few a year. I then learned that I could lucid dream if I set the intention to do so before going to sleep. Eventually, I wanted to summon ladies but didn't know how so I looked it up and found this site.

[ProudasaPeacock]

As a kid I was always quite fascinated with dreams, especially with the idea of being able to control them and do whatever I want in them. Over time I lost my interest in dreaming, until I had a lucid dream randomly one night two years ago. This reminded me of my childhood desire to control my dreams, so I decided to look up ways I could do it again. I found DreamViews, and since then I've had a few short lucids, though nothing longer than a minute so far, as I'm often too busy with school to focus on lucid dreams. However, the desire is still there to start having them, and I still record my dreams when I have the time and do RCs when I remember. I'm hoping I'll be able to properly commit to lucid dreaming soon and finally have the full control of my dreams I've always wanted!

[inheritedlaughs]

As you say, DreamLord, to experience things that I could never experience otherwise. And as a writer, I'm also interested in exploring lucid dreaming as a medium for creativity and imagination.

[Sensei]

I have had a lot of dreams since I was a kid (a little less than once a night), and even got good at incubation while I was a teenager. When I heard about LDing I had to try it!

[FreddieB]

I didn't intend on LDin until I had my very first experience, I changed the weather from stormy, thunder and lightning to a clearless blue sky and I was in a video game of some sort, maybe mario. I was fascinated by what I had just experienced and started researching "dreams" straight away and stumbled upon LD.

[Synapse]

I've suffered heavy bouts of sadness ever since I entered college (I'm now in my third year). One day, I accidentally came across the concept of lucid dreaming on the Internet; actually, I've heard about it before but it never really captured my interest since my dreams aren't that fun anyway. But my Google searches led me to Rebecca Turner's website, and the way they presented lucid dreaming struck something inside me. The possibilities for entertainment, honing skills, creative inspiration, etc. were all great incentives, but what really got me interested was the proposition of being able to perform self-healing by directly communicating with my subconscious. So, I guess you could say I'm pursuing lucid dreaming as a way of coping with life and as a spiritual/therapeutic journey. So far I've had a handful of lucids, and though they're all rather 'blurry' and far from the profound experiences I keep reading about, they still always leave me with amazement.