I've been doing this for awhile... it's nice to find this forum.

Hi Gang,

Over the past six or so years, I've been inducing lucid dreams from a waking state without actually knowing the name for what I was doing. My username, eticket, is how I described my first lucid dream to my wife; "it's better than an E-Ticket ride at Disneyland". Over time, I've become better at inducing dreams from a waking state and can do so on a fairly consistent basis. I have yet to recognize a dream and then become lucid in it... I always begin my dreams from a lucid state.

A typical scenario goes something like this:

I wake up from my 5am alarm and on the 5 days a week that I don't actually need to get up at this time, I'll try to lucid dream.

I focus on trying to turn the random images that float across my closed eyes into something I can recognize. It usually takes anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes for me to reach the desired state.

I can feel myself begin to paralyze... the feeling is hard to describe, but it is exactly what you'd expect to feel if you were being turned to stone. I can tell the second or two before it happens and if I don't get too excited (very difficult early on... but pretty easy now) and I let the paralysis "wash" over me. I almost always hear random sounds when this happens. Sometimes... if the random sounds are too loud, they will startle me back awake.

Once paralysis washes over me, I face the opening scene. Sometimes it is related to the image I was trying to focus on when I was awake, sometimes it is random, and sometimes it is a "dark" image (something scary). If it is a dark image, I simply fly away from it and create a new scene to "land" on. For instance, if I see a scary creature when my dream first starts, I'll fly away from it and focus on something common like a mall... I'll then land at the mall.

Usually (and I hate to admit this) I immediately call up a sex scene with someone I'm interested in having sex with. Once the sex is done, then I'm off to do whatever I want to do.

Early on... I had trouble conjuring up specific faces, flying, walking through walls, etc... but over the years, I've learned that there isn't anything I can't do.... and while I still have difficulties getting specific faces and bodies to appear, these occasions are rare.

Some random thoughts:

My dreams seem to be "real time" and usually last around an hour.

I have actually managed to open my REAL eyes while lucid dreaming (on two occasions) and wound up with incredibly gummed up eyes. Interesting that on both occasions, I could see my fire alarm LED light in my dreams... always appearing as a bright green spot in my dream. When I woke myself up... I was staring at my fire alarm LED light in the ceiling. I'm not sure how I managed to get my eyes open and continue lucid dreaming... but I have.

It irritates the heck out of me when the sounds that occur as I'm becoming paralyzed actually startle me and wake me up.

Sometimes I can lucid dream at night as I'm first going to bed... but it is rare... as in maybe once or twice per month.

I lucid dream anywhere from a few times a month to fifteen or so times per month if I'm focusing on it. If I don't focus on lucid dreaming... then It will happen every other month or so on its own. I go in phases where I do it actively for awhile and then slow down.

All in all... I enjoy lucid dreaming. I'm happy to have found this group and I can't wait to do some reading. I just registered a few minutes ago and haven't had a chance to read anything yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how common my experiences are.

Oh... before I forget... I'm a third year doctoral student at Arizona State University in my real life.

Joe

Hi Joe, welcome! What you've just described relates really well to the collective experience here, I'm sure you'll enjoy reading around.

DUDE. you know how to use WILD. that's a technique that a lot of people (myself included) would love to know how to do.

Welcome! :breakitdown:

Thanks for the welcome. I've had a chance to review the acronyms and the WILD comment now makes sense. :)

I've told a few people about this and I can tell they think I'm nuts... And now I find a whole community of people just like me... How cool is that? After reading a few reports, it appears that my experience is fairly common. Funny... No one here would think I'm a nutcase for saying I can control my dreams... Lol.

I'll continue reading the forum. I'm getting some great dream ideas! Hopefully I can try some out in the next few days :)

Joe

Nice job :) welcome to DV!
this is a really great community, explore around and you'll find some great stuff here.

Welcome Joe~
Welcome to Dreamviews! Sounds like you've had alot of previous experience, that's awesome :D

welcome to Dreamviews Joe!
i found your post really interesting, never actually heard of someone who discovered (and got the hang of inducing) lucid dreams all by themselves. I knew there would be many out there but it's great to actually read about your experiences.
Sounds like you're going to like it here, enjoy this fine community :D

There was a great deal of trial and error on my part. After having read the posts on this forum, I can only imagine how much more quickly I would have learned if I wouldn't have been doing it alone. One of the most difficult things for me was learning to recognize the onset of paralysis and how to capitalize on it. Once I mastered how to detect the onset of SP, then it was just a matter of creating the right conditions. My odd morning schedule made this easier after I drew the link between waking up and the ease of entering SP while lucid. After figuring out how to lucid dream, I then had to get the hang of doing what I wanted in my dreams. I started with flying. I somehow managed to fly in my very first LD but subsequent dreams had me entirely frustrated. I'd flap my arms and barely get an inch off the ground. Finally, I resorted to throwing myself off of cliffs to get the hang of it... once I had thrown myself off of enough cliffs, I finally figured out in my head that I could fly and then it was easy. The same thing happened when I migrated to placing specific people in my dreams (mostly for the purpose of sex). I had problems getting the faces and the bodies to appear properly and upon command. Once again... over time, I figured out how to do it. I notice that both of these topics were addressed on this site... I could have saved myself countless frustration if I had only known :)

i'm sure now that you're here your LD count will skyrocket! you've already got a bunch though! :D

i'd really like to be at the stage of working on my dream control, but i still need to get more regular lucids happening.
i think i'll try getting up at 5 or 6 tomorrow morning and give WILD a go, it's been a while since i gave it a decent attempt.