Thread: A Few Questions About Lucid Dreams

Hey guys, this is my first post here so let me apologise in advance over the number of questions ill be asking, heh.

I had what i believe to be a lucid dream the other night, i was in the kitchen sorting through some magazines (they were in more detail than i could remember them irl) and then i kinda realised i was in a dream. Once i realised this, i tried to float, and after a couple of false starts it worked fine (was a cool feeling too). Then i heard a noise at the door, i looked and realised it was my mum, all of a sudden it felt like instinct kicked in and i started to defend myself for making noise/being up so late.

Then all of a sudden everything went dark, i sunk to the ground and was paralysed. This paralyzation kinda scared me, so to get the attention of my mum (the mum in my dream) i started breathing really heavily as it was the most noise i could make. I then kinda felt a minimal amount of "transition" to when i kinda felt like i was in bed, but still felt totally paralyzed. Until i tried to move, and realised i was fine. (Although i noticed i was also breathing heavily as if trying to grab the attention of my mum in real life.

1) Even though i originally knew it was a dream, when my mum walked in and i became paralyzed i started breathing heavily trying to get her attention that something is wrong - as if i thought it was my real mum. Does this suggest that it was not actually a lucid dream?

2) Out of the three lucid dreams ive had (recently, i had one many many years ago) the first two i woke up from i had a similar paralysis feeling, that carried through in to "real life" until i actually tried to move. I did some reading that would suggest that it could have been sleep paralysis that normally isnt felt because you are unconscious in your sleep, but since it was a lucid dream i could actually feel it. Does this happen to anyone else?

The other night i had another lucid dream, interestingly enough it happened at the beginning of the night though and lasted about 15 minutes or so. The thing about it was that i seemed to have trouble staying in it. This one was mostly based at University, and every now and then when i tried to "control" the dream it felt like it slipped away and i kinda woke up 95%. This cycle happened a couple of times, until the last one which lasted around 5 minutes (felt much longer when iw as in the dream ).

3) This lucid dream happened as soon as i went to sleep. Arent you only meant to dream during REM sleep, and shouldn't REM only happen around 1.5 hours into sleep?

4) Is it normal for people to have trouble "staying in" lucid dreams? Are there any techniques you can recommend to stop it from floating away?

Also, i generally do not remember my dreams (im not a very "lucid" person in general, and have a terribly memory irl as well) and this extends a bit to lucid dreams as well. Can you suggest any methods to help me have a better memory of dreams? Perhaps a dream journal is the way to go?

Thank you a lot for reading,
Rob.