Lucid dreams are awesome, I wish my brain agreed

Hey everyone!

I'm not entirely new at lucid dreaming, I've just always been more of a lurker, reading some information but never actually trying to become a lucid dreamer myself.

Lately I've been having a few lucid moments, if you can call them 'lucid'. For example, some time ago I dreamt I was with a friend when she suggested I should get lucid. I remembered something about touching and smelling your surroundings to become more lucid so I tried that, but when I smelled the odour of my scarf I concluded it was because I was wearing the scarf earlier in my dream which was supposed to be 'real life'. I then tried to take in some of my surroundings, but my 'lucidity' quickly faded to a normal dream state.

Point is, I begin to have some moments in which I think of becoming lucid, but in these moments my thinking is still very irrational and dreamlike and I can't seem to grasp the true difference of being awake and being asleep. At that moment I'm convinced of being lucid, but when I wake up I facepalm myself for all the stuff I did not do.

I'd really like to get the hang of it, since I find lucid dreams to be practically the most interesting thing ever... the ability to consciously have a conversation with the unconscious, I can't think of anything more fascinating :D

Welcome to Dreamviews :).

It's ok if you can't fully tell the difference between real life and a dream, because it takes time to get the 'feel' of a dream. And it's not bad if you can't maintain your lucidity for very long yet. In three out of my four lucid dreams, I've only been lucid for about five seconds.

ShockWave.

Welcome to DV Lurker. :P

Almost every time I become lucid, I have a little bit of awareness that I am dreaming, but I use dream logic most of them time. Like if I killed a DC in my dream, walked away, and become lucid, I might say something like, "Oh I guess I should go back and apologize then." I still manage to have a great time in my dreams, lucid or not. I know how you feel when you facepalm by the way. I always want to do something like look for my dream guide, go to space, or go on a big adventure. Half of the time I just do weird dream logic based things. The other half of the time, I just jump right into it and overdo the dream control until I wake up 20 seconds later. I'm confident that I will soon be able to find a balance, and you will too. :)

P.S. Felt like talking in purple. :D

Alarmclock, once you get these moments where you feel like you are dreaming, perform some reality checks (RCs). They are primarily used to help confirm lucidity. Have several different ones in mind and perform them multiple times if necessary. They will help implant the thought that you are dreaming and allow you to keep hold of your lucidity. I recommend the nose pinch RC. It is my favorite and my most reliable RC.

^thanks, that's a good one. In the past I've tried putting my finger through the palm of my hand, but I would always end up with a very realistic feeling of my nails poking my palm and deciding it wasn't a dream anyway. :P

Yeah, its always a good idea to perform multiple types of RCs because they can fail from time to time. If you don't know already, the nose pinch RC is where you close of the air passage to your nose by pinching it closed. You then attempt to breath through your nose anyway. In a dream, you can still breath even though it should be impossible. You could also try to levitate off the ground, move something with your mind, read text...look away...look back and read it again to see if it changes, look at your hands and see if they are normal, etc.