Mini LDs

Hello, I'm new by the way, this is my first own thread. :)

I've had LDs before even knowing what they were called, not very often though, think I've had three or four "big ones", and about one of them was out of this world, I was able to manipulate the surrounding and everything, QUITE spectacular.

Anyway, I'm now working on learning to remember my dreams (remembered three in two nights now), and both of the last two were quite interesting, and I'm not sure if they were lucid or not.

Here's the deal, when remembering them, I remember the "character" I was taking place in controlling small parts of the dream, but I don't remember actully being active in these changes. Were I just dreaming that I had a lucid dream, or was it a real lucid dream?

If it was real, how do I take more control of it?

Welcome Trojan! Your experience sounds somewhat like mine. I had several spontaneous LDs before I knew anything about them, over the period of many years.

However, remember that controlling your dream does not make it a lucid dream. A lucid dream is when you realize that you are in fact dreaming while the dream is taking place -- whether you are able to control your dream or not is another issue entirely.

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Originally posted by TygrHawk
Welcome Trojan! Your experience sounds somewhat like mine. I had several spontaneous LDs before I knew anything about them, over the period of many years.

However, remember that controlling your dream does not make it a lucid dream. A lucid dream is when you realize that you are in fact dreaming while the dream is taking place -- whether you are able to control your dream or not is another issue entirely.

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Aren't those two connected? I mean, if you can control your enviroment, then you must be dreaming, right?

Yes, but it doesn't necessarily follow that you know that you are dreaming. You'd think it would be obvious, but then you'd also think you would realize it's a dream when a giant six legged mechanical machine comes walking down the street -- and yet I didn't. ;)

Quote:

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Originally posted by TygrHawk
Yes, but it doesn't necessarily follow that you know that you are dreaming. You'd think it would be obvious, but then you'd also think you would realize it's a dream when a giant six legged mechanical machine comes walking down the street -- and yet I didn't. ;)

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Oh, that's right... I don't know how I managed to miss that obvious fact. :P
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I were aware that it was a dream. One would think that I'd done something about that maniac/creature ( not sure what it was, it's a little shady) that was chasing me if I didn't :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by TygrHawk
However, remember that controlling your dream does not make it a lucid dream. A lucid dream is when you realize that you are in fact dreaming while the dream is taking place -- whether you are able to control your dream or not is another issue entirely.

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So how can you tell a lucid dream from just a regular dream? What if you dream that you realize that you're dreaming (but you're not really conscious, rather its just another part of the ongoing dream) and you start taking control, but you're not really taking control cause its just you in your dream taking control? I dont know if that makes sense. :P

For instance, I had dream, in which I'm going around talking to people normally. But i get this bugged out feeling like something is wrong, and I ask somebody for a watch cause I remember that's a reality check in "waking Life" and I had read about it in some places, so I do as a way to figure out if I'm dreaming or not. So they show me a watch, but its not digital. Finally I find a digital watch and at first the numbers look normal and then I look again and the time has change and well it sort of looks like what goes on in the movie "waking life" and how its been described in some places. Then in my dream I realize I'm dreaming, and that's when I start doing crazy things.

How do I know I'm not just having a dream based on the movie or things I read. How do i tell it apart?

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Originally posted by griselle
Then in my dream I realize I'm dreaming,

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Sounds to me like at that point you were definitely lucid, although you could probably say that you became at least partly lucid at the point where you started to question reality, and wanted to do a reality check.

I've seen several people ask this question before, "How do I know if I'm just dreaming about being lucid", and I must say that I really don't understand the question. Either you are aware that you are in a dream, or you are not aware that it's a dream and your mind accepts it as reality. One is lucid, the other isn't. I don't understand where the confusion lies. Maybe someone can explain it more clearly?

Yeah I dont even understand it myself. It's just something that goes through my mind. Perhaps because for someone who is new to all this, the dream realm is so bizzare and complex and well maybe I'm just too anxious to figure it all out. :roll:

You know when you have a dream where elements of what you saw or read during the course of the day manifest themselves in the dream in some way or another. For instance, I saw "A dog day afternoon", then I dreamed about me being a bank robber with al pacino, whose acting career had gone sour. Well, my confusion is somehow related to that. Sometimes, we dream of things that interest us or that have some impact in our lives. And well, for me lucid dreams is something I've had on my mind alot. So, my confusion has something to do with those ideas. How exactly? I'm not sure. I dont really know how to explain it. At least it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one who's been troubled by and has asked the question. :-P

Well, it's certainly possible to dream about the subject of lucid dreaming without realizing that you are in a dream -- a good number of members have posted about that type of experience, such as a dream where they attended a seminar about lucid dreaming. Then they were unhappy after they woke up because they didn't recognize that as a dream sign, or at least think to do a reality check, and never became lucid during the dream.