Quote Originally Posted by Zthread View Post
So from the start you knew you were dreaming?
I knew I was in a dream when I realized that I had a hammer in my hand. I chuckled and looked around to see what was going on

In LDs of this type, do you usually feel like you just know what to do next? Or do you have to mull things over a bit to decide what to do next?
Good question...and helpful. In these types of dreams I seem to always just start to interact with DCs as I would in the waking world once lucidity blooms. I don't tend to mull things over....I usually just get right in the game.

In other words, you were trying to wake yourself up?
It's more as if I know I need to wake up. I have been getting up at 4:00 AM for years....I never use an alarm. Dreams like this one almost always come at the end of the night. My subconscious mind seems to know when I need to wake up from them. I call these my "4:00 Special". This time I looked over at the clock at 3:45 and set an intention for one more dream with lucidity. I rolled over and went back to sleep......woke up out of this just after 4:00 and went in to write it down immediately.

What kind(s) of change(s) in the above LD would you like to have the ability to make? Or just in general in any LD?
An even better question.....and even more helpful to me as I learn from all this! The dream yoga perspective would say that I am liberating karmic traces from dreams like this by just interacting with them in a non-dualistic manner. That perspective also might say that by taking a more aggressive role I could be creating more karmic traces that would then need to be worked out. I feel, though, that I would like to have more real control in general in my dreams. I want to go back to some places that I have been to meditate and reflect while in the dream. In this dream, in retrospect, it would have been nice to do that at the end so the ability to go to another venue after a dream sequence is something I wish to develop.

Those skills will come in time. I will continue to train. One thing I have learned in life is that much can be accomplished through persistent practice.