What makes you burn? My first LD in eleven years.

[Ironarm]

I dont know if the community has a term for this, but when I was a child I was what you could call a "chronic LDr" in that I would have an LD every month or so. I never had control of the dreams, but I always realized very quickly that I was dreaming. Usually they were nightmares and I would seek the quickest way out of the dream - killing myself. In addition, sleep paralysis was also very common for me. This all stopped once I hit puberty. Once puberty hit, the LD's stopped almost completely and I dreamed "normally". I no longer was conscious that I was dreaming, and most of the dreams Ive had were blurry and inconsistent, and rather bland. Until now. Today I decided to take a nap to relieve my hangover. When I napped, I almost immediately began dreaming. The dreaming was like I suggested before - irrational, blurry, inconsistent. I dreamed I was travelling, meeting people, talking. I cant remember anything else, it wasnt specific or anything. But, eventually I found myself atop a balcony in a large hall, overseeing a party of sorts. I was overlooking a hall filled with people - mingling with each other, talking. I watched them, and eventually looked over to see someone standing next to me. It was at this point I realized, for some reason, I was dreaming. The words "Holy crap! I'm dreaming!" crossed my mind. I dont know why, but I realized I was dreaming. "So I'm dreaming, huh? How about this time I try to control it?" I thought to myself. But unfortunately at the moment i tried to control it, the entire dream began to dematerialize around me. I began to beg the dream to stop, to continue but it went on anyway. The vision blurred and objects etc were torn apart. I was very distraught. I felt as if something else was controlling my dream. I was not controlling it, and whatever it was wanted the show to go on. At this point I wanted out. I tried waking myself up, and I thought I did - because the vision went pitch black. But I found myself still oddly dreaming. (I think there is a term for this idk though) In fact I swear I felt like I was under some sort of external control, and let the dream continue. Highly intricate, complicated geometric-shaped squares, rotating and spinning in a methodical manner, aligned themselves forming a screen in front of me. They first appeared as if in a close up, and then slowly drifted back into the vision, getting smaller. This continued until these geometric squares formed a perfectly large pinkish screen. This screen gradually grew brighter, until the head of a Caucasian man, bald, appeared in front of me, and looked into me, and asked the question: "What makes you burn?" At this point I was completely shocked, excited and terrified at the same time, and the dream ended and I woke up with a little bit of sweat on my forehead. This was an extremely intense dream. I havent had anything like this in a long time. I didnt sense anything malicious about the dream itself, I was more terrified of the vividness of the dream and the loss of control. I could sense myself this time in the dream, which I usually could not do. I did however found the experience quite fufilling, oddly, and I'd like to try to bring the LD's back. My friend who is practicing LD's said that I may have a natural ability to LD and I suppressed it when I was younger because I was so scared of the dreams. I think this time I will face my fears and ride the dreams out. I have a feeling I was so scared that I ended this dream, and I wonder what would have happened it I didnt end it. An interesting fact is that my dreams tend to be very intense when I nap for short periods of time. Any thoughts, advice etc would be appreciated (thanks for reading this far!)

[frederom]

Welcome to dreamviews and nice dream btw you had a false awakening (you wake up after a dream but in fact it's still a dream). When we have big emotion in dreams we are likely to wake up so it's important to remain calm when you realize you are in a dream. As for the intense dream when you take a nap i don't think it's pure hazard... Maybe you have a better dream recall with nap because you always wake up right after the dream. By experience I can tell that my dream are always very vivid... but when i just finish a dream and wake up it feels more real. anyway if you want to be a good lucid dreamer you should read everything that is on the home page and also the Lucid Dream Induction Techniques ... in fact you should read pretty mutch everything that is on the forum in the lucid dreaming section (practice + motivation + confidence= lucid dream) good luck and have fun

[nina]

Well...welcome (back) to the world of lucid dreaming. I hope that this time around, seeing as you have grown and are more mature, hopefully you will find the lucid experience much more exciting and fulfilling than you did when you were younger. Napping during the day used to be my favorite way of lucid dreaming.