First Steps on my Path to Lucidity

This is my first post in the forums (I did some lurking yesterday) and I have to say this seems like a really welcoming and engaging community. Apologies to anyone who may be annoyed at how long this post will probably end up.

I've been aware of lucid dreaming as a phenomenum for some time, I've even had one or two as a young child (I'm sixteen now), the first with attempted but failed dream control, the second with tantalising, total control and realism; I was able to structure a narrative, invent and introduce characters, all while acting out the story myself, it was an amazing moment in my childhood (I think I must have been around six years old seeing as the dream was about The Land Before Time :roll:). I'd forgotten about this dream until Saturday night; I had one of the most vivid dreams ever, parts of it felt as real as the waking world (probably why I couldn't see to question it, even though as I will tell in a moment, parts of it were very odd/abstract). As briefly as I can I'll try to tell it: The first segment I was on stage playing with The Killers (one of my friends is a massive fan and we were talking about them on Friday) it was so realistic that I could see what notes I was playing on the bass guitar (the detail was such that I could recognise it was a fender jazz bass and when I woke upI tried what I had played in the dream on my guitar in reality). The next segment I was in a hotel with my girlfriend, looking for a room. Next thing we were in a Lovecraftian 'blasted heath' style wilderness with sterile black soil and dead/diseased petrified black trees and craters and pits in the earth. When we came to a secluded 'glade'... we inexplicably started having sex (why? I have no idea, it seemed like a good idea at the time).

After this dream I just thought 'wow', I had to try and achieve that kind of vividness and realism again. A quick google search brought me here and after reading some of the initiation techniques I resolved to keep a dream journal irl. I went to bed last night repeating the mantras 'I will remember my dreams' and 'I will have a lucid dream' alternately, I also attempted WILD (I'd attempted in the past without even knowing what it was) but as I approached sleep paralysis it became to intense and I lost concentration.

I remembered 2 dreams and 1 dream fragment (a massive improvement on my usual dream every couple of months) none were lucid. I 've concluded that I forget most of my dreams as they're so mundane that my short term memory can't be bothered holding them. This time though I held onto them and wrote them down.
First dream, I was playing COD (I hate the game now but went through a phase a year or so back), nothing out of the ordinary there, the graphics were more vibrant but I didn't see to question it. The second dream was longer and more interesting, with more of a narrative arc (it occurred after I had woken up at 6 o'clock in the morning) my parents had a DC over for a bbq that false memory told me was a family friend, we had a bbq and even though I didn't dream it, we had a water fight and were soaking wet. Now, the most interesting/important segment of my dreams last night; two large dogs ran into my garden. Now dogs have always represented threat/danger in my dreams, they often tried to eat me when I was little and they often succeeded. But this time I decided to confront the dogs, control them and return them to their owners down my street. My analysis of this would be that I have my A level AS exams approaching, the dogs representing the exams and me controlling them is me revising and dealing with the stress, hopefully to be successful.

Next, two girls from across the street entered and started stealing fruit from my garden, for the first time in a while I was able to remember dialogue with DC's, it went something like this:

Me: (quoting Good Morning Mr Magpie by Radiohead) You've got some nerve coming here. (end quote) just piss off, ok

Girl one: Why?

Girl two [aimed at girl one]: well we are breaking the law

I'm not sure what to make of this, but I'm finding this early development of my dream recall very exciting. As a psychology student I find dreaming inherently interesting and hopefully I can use it for enjoyment and solving my problems.

Thank you for reading and sorry that was so long, any tips of initiation, control or recall would be really welcome. :)

Welcome to the forums. Don't worry about your post length. I prefer huge walls of text to sad one line posts.

I liked reading your dream interpretations but personally I don't think dreams have a lot of meaning. To me they seem like emotions and events from waking life jumbled together into a random and crazy world.

For dream initiation I recommend DILD as a start. There are tons of great tutorials on the forums and in the wiki.

Control is easy. Just realize that you are fully in control of the world and have faith in yourself.

Dream journaling is very important for recall. Your recall will get better as you journal more. Sleeping longer also helps recall becuse you dream more.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing you around the forums!

Thanks for the positive reply. I'm excited about the possibilities of LD's because reading around the forum I seem to have made a lot of progress in just 2 nights of dreaming. I'm probably going to build up a backlog of dream journal entries over the next week, look for different recurring themes, characters scenes and look for dream signs, work on reality checking, and as you said attempt DILD.

As for interpretation, I always took your view, but you take from dreams what you will. Even if it wasn't intended, if your dreams help you then that can only be positive in my opinion.

If you want to keep a dream journal on here that's always fun.

You can also make a list of dream goals to keep yourself excited and focused.

Good luck lucid dreaming.