Hey Guys!

[Smoo]

Hey everyone, I started having lucid dreams but didn't know what they were until a friend told me. I stumbled across this forum on google so thought I would try and find out a bit more. I used to suffer from insomnia which was really annoying, lying in bed for over 2 hours unable to fall asleep. I read in the FT weekend magazine about meditation, basically focus on one thing very carefully, e.g. breathing and every aspect and detail of breathing like the temperature of the air etc. I thought it might help me clear my mind and fall asleep. I tried this one night to get asleep, and had my first lucid dream but woke up straight away when I realised. Since then I have had a few, sometimes by meditating (as mentioned above) sometimes just naturally. Once I had a really bad(or good, it was annoying at the time!) night where I had 3, each time I woke up. When I went back to sleep I would wake up a little while later (dunno how long) after realising I was in the dream. One weird thing that has been happening to me a lot lately is like a half lucid dream. When I go to bed especially if I'm not that tired I will be thinking about lots of stuff, like plans for the future, stuff I need to do, whatever - I'll be talking away to myself in my head. It seems as if I go to sleep / lose conciousness for a bit then regain conciousness while still talking to myself (in my head) about something random or that doesn't make sense. It's not really a dream, I just tend to realise and then wake myself up. They are also kind of annoying since I usually just want to get to sleep! Has anyone else come across something like this? I also had a inception moment 2 days ago, which was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. I was having a crazy dream, realised it was a dream and woke up into a dream that was my room. I didn't realise it was a dream until I woke up again. Feels like i'm going crazy with all this dreaming!

[Puffin]

Hi Smoo, welcome to Dreamviews! I too had a lucid dream without knowing exactly what it was, and if you could actually induce one. Well, I looked it up and found this site, and I've been glued to it for the past two years. When you had your first lucid dream, were you already in the dream and then became lucid, or were you conscious all the way through, from waking to dreaming? Depending on which one, you might've had either a DILD (becoming lucid when the dream's already started) or a WILD (staying conscious as you fall asleep and enter a dream). Meditation is definitely good for falling asleep; I also noticed that thinking illogical thoughts causes me to fall asleep rapidly. Sometimes there's that point, when you're close to falling asleep, that your thoughts sort of "run away" from you, and you realize that what you're thinking about makes no sense - all the thoughts are unrelated and don't blend. If you create these thoughts yourself, you can be out within minutes. Sometimes people become something called "semi-lucid", in which they realize they're dreaming but they're rather lethargic about it, and don't make a big effort to use lucid dream control or do anything substantial. In a semi-lucid dream, you aren't as conscious as a regular lucid. Anyone who's into lucid dreaming will probably experience them. If you're going from more-conscious lucids to less-conscious ones, perhaps you just need to work on your awareness. Since lucidity is caused by awareness (which can be achieved through meditation and observation of the world around you), it's important to be aware in waking life. The thing is, if you stop being aware, your lucid dreams can become less frequent, etc. And, what you're describing as an inception-style dream is called a false awakening - you're in a dream, then you wake up! Or, so you think - you've actually just woken up into another dream! They can be tricky to catch sometimes, because you usually wake up in your own bed and things can seem pretty normal. These FAs can happen in both regular, non-lucid dreams, and lucids. Sometimes if you become lucid and get too excited, you may enter one; some people have even chained four or five of them in a row! The bad thing about FAs is that they can be hard to catch unless you get into the habit of doing a reality check and being aware as soon as you wake up. But, the good thing is that they're often very stable, and the perfect grounds for starting a new lucid. If you have any questions about the forum or LDing in general, feel free to ask! I'll be on for the next few hours, as will many other members who can help.

[suichi]

Welcome smoo and consider yourself lucky, many people usually have to work very hard to obtain what you had automatically. Also i would go to dva and read puffins dild guide, it had good information in it.

[Smoo]

Thanks for the replies! In all of my lucid dreams I realised during the dream, DILD as you you put it Puffin. I will go and read the DILD guide as you suggested suichi, would be interesting to try one from waking (I assume the acronym WILD is wake induced lucid dream).