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

[eticket]

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

[J.D.]

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

[Wristblade56]

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!

[eticket]

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

[Erii]

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

[fOrceez]

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

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

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

[eticket]

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

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

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