New Guy

Hey people, just discovered this site through the lucid for life podcast. Thought I'd introduce myself, pretty new to lucid dreaming, had my first after a week of reality checking last night, it soon faded away but wow, what a feeling..

Looking to hone my skills, which is why I'm here!

Nice, getting one within a week is really good.

Hey :) im new also, theres alot of great info here and seems like a great community. Im jealous you've already been lucid, im still trying has been about a week or two. Any particular method you've been using or just reality checks/awareness?

For me the important thing is to have something to focus on, and pay attention to. Imagine an object, or even a small surrounding (last night I imagined being inside a small cabin) and keep trying to interact with that object, or keep studying it. If you can get to the point that you are actually seeing/feeling the object, or actually seeing your surroundings, you are there.
Pay attention to what is happening just as you are starting to fall asleep. Start seeing if you can prevent yourself from actually falling all the way. If you have an entire morning to waste, I have found that I had amazing progress while simply sleeping in real late, going back to sleep after waking up, but doing so in a way that initiates lucidity. I usually get in a comfortable but unusual position for this. I never sleep on my back, so during these times I lay on my back so that my mind knows that something is different.
By sleeping late in the morning your family may call you lazy, and I admit that it feels like a huge waste at first, but I promise that the few times I did this when I was a teenager set me up for over twenty years of amazing experiences. Sometimes I have lucid dreams that last for eight to ten hours. In the morning I'm always well rested, but I was aware and active the entire time. It's like going on vacation INSTEAD of going to bed. So, in a way, one can actually utilize time that could be considered to be wasted otherwise. Yes, you are sleeping, but you ARE doing things. I've even utilized this time to solve problems at work. I came home stumped by an issue with a server that was acting up, worked on the server in a dream, and using clues I had obtained during the day, was able to diagnose the problem. I had the solution to the issue by the time I came into work the next morning. One time I used it to pass the time while I waited for my plane at the airport (risky, I know, but I could hear the announcements in my dream and when they called for my flight I ended the dream with no problem).

Just be patient and persistent. The more you explore that semi-conscious state right in-between asleep and awake, the more you'll become accustomed to it, and the more you'll be able to recognize it.

As sloth already said, the most essential thing is to just be really patient in general. I've found that trying to force a lucid dream by overly intensive practice is more harmful than beneficial in most cases. Dedication and persistence are important in trying to learn anything of course, but from my experience even more so in lucid dreaming.
As for myself, I've been interested in LD'ing for the good part of 3 years now, and still I've only had 6 lucid dreams. I'm quite sure this is because I never really tried for longer than a month continuously.

sloth: May I ask how you managed to dream for 10 hours? Was that just a really long night of sleep or are you able to dilate time? If your answer is going to be really long and you don't want to stray off-topic too much here, feel free to PM.

I'm also curious on how they are so long.

Imo the biggest thing is consistency if you're consistent you'll see progress.

I have never been able to intentionally dilate time.
The only reason I know it was ten hours is from the actual clock in my room. I entered a lucid dream state as soon as I went to sleep, had a lucid dream that seemed like it went on forever, and then finally woke up on accident and noticed that ten hours had gone by. I noted that there had never been a break in the lucid dream, and that I was still in the same position that I was when I went to bed, and I was pretty uncomfortable and stiff from not moving all night. lol
A lucid dream lasting the entire night has only happened to me four times ever. They have actually all been in the last few years, though. They have always left me feeling amazed, and it causes me to feel like I had one long 48 hour day in which I didn't need to sleep.
I know that I have had dreams that seemed like they lasted for hours, only to wake up a few minutes later. I also know that some psychoactive drugs can cause you to experience entire lifetimes, long enough to forget your previous life, all in a span of about twenty minutes. I only mention that in order to point out that time dilation does seem to be possible in the brain, but I wouldn't begin to know how to make it happen intentionally.

Thanks for answering! That's pretty amazing. I hope to have such dreams in the future :D
I wondered mostly because there has been some discussion here lately about time dilation and the controversy surrounding it, so that was the reason for my curiosity.