New To LD's, however I've done it many times without knowing anything about it. My intro :d

I'll start this off with an intro and then a recollection of an amazing lucid dream I had the other night which has prompted me to learn more. I've never read anything about lucid dreaming before. My one concern is sleep paralysis, I don't really want it. How likely is it that I will start getting it if I start trying to induce an LD?

My name is James I'm 18 and I live in sunny England. I've had quite a few lucid dreams in the past (probably hundreds, but not all fully lucid, mainly where I'm flying and stuff) and I'm always having intense, crazy dreams that I can often recall pretty well. I haven't had a proper nightmare for years, I do have scary dreams sometimes but for some reason I still enjoy them and they often mold back into a normal dream. For example, once my house was being attacked by zombies which was terrifying, but then I found a gun and it almost became like a computer game.. I was running round shooting zombies having loads of fun, that kind of thing.

Anyway here was my dream.. I will note that I'd had a few beers before bed.

I'll start off by saying that this was the most vivid dream I've ever had, it literally felt real. Time seemed to pass at a linear rate throughout the whole series of events. I was sitting in school, which at the time seemed pretty normal but in hindsight wasn't as I left school 2-3 years ago. I was laughing and joking with my friends when I suddenly had the feeling that this could be a dream. So I start asking my friends if it was and they dutifully tell me it's not. Angry at the suspicious sounding answers I said "if this was real then I would be able to feel pain", I then proceded to walk up to the wall near by and slap it with my hand. After feeling pain I started to get very scared. I ran out of the building and started running down the road when suddenly my head teacher pulls up next to me in a car and informs me that this is infact a dream.

So I wake up (little do I know I'm still dreaming), walk into my kitchen and start explaining the dream to my mom in full detail, everything that happened previously - as I often do this in the morning. She comments on what a weird dream it was and I get dressed and walk to the pub. When I get there it is Kate's birthday, so I join the party and in the dream I'm there for what seems like 30-40 minutes. I can remember the exact conversations that took place, what everyone chose to drink, EVERYTHING.

Eventually again I get suspicious, I'm not exactly sure what kept alerting me it was just a weird feeling. All the conversations that were being had were wholely realistic and honestly everything was just normal. This time after people tell me it's not a dream I elect to take the pain test again (lol). I punch through a pub window and wake up soon after (for real).

It seemed crazy to me but maybe this is pretty normal? Everything was so regular, the conversations, how time went, nothing is blank in my mind - I remember every bit. And I seemed to be fully controlling my actions, yet not controlling the dream itself. What do you think??

Anyway weird intro but I'm bashing this out on my laptop because I have to go somewhere soon. Have fun.

Wow. Welcome to the forums! Consider yourself very lucky for being a natural LDer. That is very cool. And that dream sounds very unusual, but the more I get involved in the dream world and the more stories I read on this forum, less things surprise me. The dream world is really just your own brain, and considering how vast and unknown the human brain is its no wonder we discover new things here every day. Anyway, I just thought I would let you know, you should do some more types of reality checks when you have those dreams in order to boost your lucidity. I'm sure you've heard of the different types of Reality Checks, but some of my faves are to plug your nose and try to breathe in. If you can't, then you are dreaming. The pain test is good, but as you said, sometimes you still feel pain in your dreams, so that's an iffy one. Read something, anything, that you see, look away, then read it again and make sure its the same. Think about everything you've done so far that day and see if it makes sense or is absurd at all. Turn a light switch on and off and make sure it works normally and all the shadows are cast in the proper direction. There's many more, but those are some of my faves. Again, Welcome to the forums, and good luck!