First lucid dream (maybe?)

[txmmj]

I'm new. I've always been fascinated by dreams ever since I was young. Recently I started researching more on lucid dream more specifically, and here I am! In any case, the past couple of nights I had been trying to have a lucid dream. I wanted to try to do it via a WILD, but to be honest, I had been scared of the sleep paralysis thing. In any case, the first couple of nights I tried, it either kept me from sleeping period cause I was thinking about it too much, or when I woke up the next day, it didn't work/I didn't remember dreaming at all. However, I just took a nap and abruptly woke up from what seems to be a first lucid dream experience... maybe. I keep a dream blog online to help remember my dreams better and also to look back and laugh at myself later on. So I wrote on there what happened: I was in my bed and I started hearing all of these noises and I felt like I couldn’t move. I hear a bunch of music come from somewhere and voices and random noises from everywhere and I felt my body getting lifted up. I was sort of scared and started sweating a little bit. I tried my hardest my open my eyes, and my friend was sleeping on another bed in my room (that doesn’t exist). He jumped onto my bed and asked, “are you okay?” but I couldn’t respond. I started moving without my control to the floor. I slide gently onto the floor and I had a feeling something under my bed was trying to take me. I tried open my eyes a little bit and I saw a cross with beads next to my bed and a bug crawling across my curtain. I started getting dragged around the corner of my bed. I grabbed a post of some kind and ripped it off of something while getting dragged slowly. Despite this, I felt less scared than you would think. I thought how I knew I could stop this and how I just needed to get control of the situation. I eventually got myself up off the floor in what seemed like a storm in my room. My eyes were still closed but somehow I could see the room. It wasn’t my room. It looked like a disaster and I told myself that I knew I could change the room back if I wanted to. In my head, I told myself that my room would go back to normal. All of a sudden, it turned into a bigger version of my room. The only thing that was really different was that I has a huge comfy-looking bed and blue silk sheets on it. I started getting excited realizing that I can control what I was doing. I decided I wanted to fly, but then got side tracked and never actually did try it out. I think I did look at the window and try to get out that way, but for some reason it didn’t work and then I got distracted. I walked toward the one corner of my room and it was an opening to deck and stairs leading to a front lawn. It looked so beautiful. I was admiring the beauty of the scene when I realized I hadn’t done a reality check yet. I plugged my nose and tried to see if I could still breathe in, which I could. I got really excited and realized I knew for sure I was dreaming. I started feeling myself losing it, as if everything was going blurry, like you were about the pass out. I tried to calm myself, but then I woke up. So, what I'm wondering is, was this a lucid dream, a WILD more specifically? Or do you think it's maybe a dream about being in sleep paralysis? then turned in to a lucid dream via DILD? I'm not 100% sure! Also, I don't know if it's relevant, but I have been sick today, which is why I took a nap. I have been having really bad body aches, headache, and a stuffy nose. Maybe that's why I got so excited when I did the reality check: I could finally breathe!

[Burke]

First off, welcome to the forums! As far as your experience, it seems to me that this was definitely a lucid dream, (Congrats!) due to the fact that you preformed a reality check and it worked, and you knew that you were dreaming. As far as how you got lucid, it sounds to me it was a DILD. Normally, during a WILD, you start the dream in your bed or room, while yours started in someone else's house. During this dream however, you simply dreamt of going through sleep paralysis, a rather violent account which I've never heard of, but it was during the dream. One quick tip: When you get lucid or a reality check works, you have to train yourself to remain calm, much like how during competition you often have to take deep breaths so you can stay focused, the same applied to dreaming. This comes with practice but when you're first starting you have to keep this in mind much more than after you've gotten the hang of it.

[txmmj]

Thanks! And no, it started it my room. Or least it seemed like my room to me in the beginning of the dream. I remember my friend being to the left of my bed, and I think he was in a another bed, but then again my eyes were closed. When I started lifting myself up sort of during sleep, he came over to ask what was wrong. But I do remember when I got onto the floor, the area where my face was and when I looked over at the window/curtain did look in my room. It only didn't look like it when I was finally able to move and stand up and took a look at the room, which looked like it was destroyed by a tornado. Though, you're probably right because I actually was thinking about lucid dreaming before taking the nap. Maybe knowing that sleep paralysis is a part of doing it sometimes was in the back of my head, which is why my dream started out that way...? In any case, I'm glad I had my first one, whatever kind it was!