Man I was so close this morning, I'd almost consider it a success. I was having a nightmare (really rare for me) that a killer was hiding out in my house, I woke up from it, did some quick RCs to make sure, then laid back down. When I was laying down I started just visualizing some stuff from the dream and then eventually I was back in it with a false awakening (didn't RC this time unfortunately ).

I got out of bed and went to my kitchen, I tried the light switch but it didn't work and I told myself the killer must have shut off the power. But somehow in the back of my mind I just knew it was a dream and was trying to bring that thought out fully but I was too scared of the killer to really think straight. I actually did do my mental RC at this point but because I just "woke up" they made sense, I checked location which was my kitchen, and then memory which was just waking up. I was still skeptical so I looked at my hands but it was too dark to really see them clearly. There was still a strong feeling that I was in a dream but it's like it kept going back and forth between lucid and not lucid. "There's a killer somewhere here", "Well it's a dream so he couldn't hurt me anyway", "But if it's not really a dream I could die" and just back and forth like that. I felt confused and eventually I woke up from it for real (did a nose plug RC this time to be sure haha), I wanted to go back but I had moved so it was difficult, then I needed to get up to get ready for work anyway.

Even though this is kind of a partial success, I think I had some new experiences that make me excited. For one, this is the first time I've consciously slipped back into a dream so easily before which was really neat. Also, because of my day practices of living in the moment and being mindful, when I was having that half-lucid moment everything felt so real and as if I was controlling my actions, not just watching myself on auto-pilot. So even though I wouldn't say I got fully lucid, I'd still consider this my best lucid dream yet just because of how I felt like I was actually there, super excited to get some more!