Hi all - noob here

[AlexanderZero]

Hey everyone, in the past few weeks or so I've become quite interested in lucid dreaming, and I still have about one month before classes start so I figure now is the best chance I'll get for a long time to practice attaining Lucidity. My current intention is to attempt one WILD per night (or more if I wake up multiple times) until I learn how to do it properly. I've only had one lucid dream that I can remember in my entire life so far, and it was when I was quite a bit younger than I am now. At one point in the dream I was being chased by bees and for some reason (not sure why). I realized I was dreaming, and let the bee sting me which didn't hurt. Then I was all proud of my accomplishment and woke up instantly afterwards. Anyways, I'm trying to get good at both WILDs and DILDs. As for DILDs I haven't yet identified a common thread in my dreams of something that I can always use to recognize I'm having one, but there are a few things such as certain people or certain locations that suggest a dream (though two nights ago I had a dream where I was with those people and it totally slipped my mind to do a reality check). One thing that does happen very often is I'll have dreams where I'm not lucid, but I am in control of the things that are happening in the dream. I'll have a dream where I'll consciously choose certain details of the dream, like what will happen to a certain character, or what I'll find behind a door or something, without actually realizing that I'm even dreaming. If I can recognize when that happens, I'll be able to have a lot of lucid dreams. As for WILDs, I've only had one attempt so far which was last night. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to attempt a WILD after getting a quick drink. I was laying for a while and my limbs felt somewhat heavy, but the position I was in started to cause some pain in my chest so I changed positions, and it was kinda hard to move (I felt like someone had just suddenly woken me up when I didnt have enough sleep). I figure that I got somewhat close to sleep paralysis but didn't make it all the way. Then I tried again in a more comfortable position and was laying in the same position for what felt like a really long time. Eventually I started having minor hallucinations and very illogical thoughts, but then I would feel my eyes move or some part of me twitch and they would go away for a few minutes, then come back again after a while. I'm not sure how many times that happened. I can't remember if I gave up or simply lost my train of thought and fell asleep anyways. The part about WILDs that is most confusing to me is the transition from having the hallucinations to going to sleep. A lot of people describe the moment of crossing into the dream-realm as hearing a loud noise or feeling like they are floating. Neither or those things occurred for me last night that I can remember. Well, anyways that's that. Hopefully I have more success in the coming nights. Also, here's a completely random question for any long-time lucid dreamers: Have you ever re-created the scene of a past nightmare while lucid? If so, what happened after that?

[Erii]

Welcome to Dreamviews~ I recommend you don't try to start with WILDs first, it is difficult at first. Try to get some DILDs under your belt first When I remember i remember becoming lucid in nightmares as well, that seems to be a thing that triggers awareness, but yeah the dreams end soon, your first few LDs will be like that just learn to stabilize it and things with LDing will get better in time. Try to figure out the dream signs like you said and start keeping a dream journal for your recall, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask ~

[AlexanderZero]

I do have a dream journal already, but it's just on my computer. I may start posting in the journal online but I'm not sure if anyone is really interested in reading about my random as hell dreams XD. Right now I'm still trying to develop a habit of seriously questioning whether or not I am dreaming. In fact the other day I could have very well missed the chance for a lucid dream because at that point I didn't know that light switches were ineffective in dreams. I was walking into my kitchen and it was very dark in my house since all the blinds were shut. I flipped the light switch in my kitchen and there was a momentary, but underwhelming flash and then the room was still completely dark. I remember being really confused by this to the point where it actually seemed impossible that it had just happened. However, one thing about my kitchen lights is that due to the type of bulb used, they sometimes take a couple minutes to warm up to full brightness, so I just assumed that they were really cold or something, even though they normally start out being at least a little bright, not totally dim like at that moment. It was only a day ago that I learned about light switches in dreams, so I'm still wondering if what happened was real or not.