New to forum but not to LD!

Hey guys! Just wanted to introduce myself to everyone seeing as this seems like an awesome place full of awesome people. And I apologize for the slightly long intro post :P

I have been interested in LD for a few years now. I'm pretty knowledgeable about the topic but I didn't really take the initiative to keep up a dream journal or do reality checks; I would just jump right in to trying WILDs. Of course, it is near impossible to just jump into that technique when you've never had a LD before.

For the past few months, I've been taking baby steps towards lucidity. Still didn't write in a journal, but I started to have better recall by trying to interpret my dreams. Then, about 2 months ago, I had a dream that I thought was very weird and irrational. It was at the point where I knew I was dreaming and "woke-up" into another dream. After that dream, I started to have a few dreams where I would become lucid at the very tail-end of the dream; I wouldn't be lucid for more than 30 seconds. After these, I would get into WILDing once more (since I wanted instant results) but of course, to no avail.

But as time and practice will tell, you will eventually reach your goal and that stays true to just an hour ago when I did my first WILD! It was nothing short of amazing and it lasted for quite some time. I think there were 4-5 different dreams where I was lucid for the changes in just that hour of REM.

Now I do have a question though. While in the dream, I would become lucid. Whenever I tried to change the out-come or close my eyes to be in a different place, I would "wake up" in my bed. When that happened, I knew that I was lucid in the previous dream so I took my knowledge and re-entered the dream. It was always in a different place but once I became lucid every time, I would remember the last dream like it just happened. I even had the same clothes and items. But every single time I would close my eyes in the dream scene, I would "wake-up". It happened several times before I actually woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. Were these false awakenings possibly?

Anyway, just wanted to say I look forward to sharing my love of this amazing hobby with everyone else here and hope to learn even more! :D

Welcome to DV!

It's nice that you've had some experience with it before, that'll make it alot easier for you. What you experienced is very normal and happens to almost everyone. You should never close your eyes in a dream unless you intend to change the scene or induce a FA or wake up. It's very likely that you had a few FA's, might have been real awakenings though. That's why you should always perform an RC when you wake up.

Now stop being a slacker and start writing down your dreams! *Whips you over the back*. I am a slacker too actually, I used to have incredible recall and could recall more than 10 dreams in a single night if I slept long enough. My recall went away after I stopped writing my dreams down and it's only slowly beginning to get better. I am still not writing them down but I try to remember what I've dreamt every time I wake up, that's how you improve your memory. Writing all the details down and taking notes is only to "activate" the memory so your brain can focus on it, thus improving the ability to remember stuff in the future.

Not writing things down works but trust me, your recall will become insane if you just start writing down your dreams every day for a few months.

If you've got any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Welcome to Dreamviews!