My lucid experiences so far

Hey everyone,

I just joined and wanted to share my experiences with lucid dreaming so far.

I've had a few lucid dreams in my life. Almost all of them involved flying. In these dreams I was either already able to fly or figured I'd give it a go and it worked. Usually (but not always) I became aware I was dreaming during flight, and sometimes I was able to sort of take control of my movements. I never figured that since I knew I was dreaming and could control my movement I could try and control the entire dream. This started happening a few years ago and stopped after a year or two.

Then a few months ago out of nowhere I had a lucid dream where I decided to take full control and it worked. I was in some sort of surreal city that I could explore at will. I flew, it felt exactly as my other dream but with a much bigger sense of freedom. I had no problems staying in this dream and it felt like it took a good twenty minutes before I woke up. It was an amazing experience.

A few weeks later I was talking about this experience with a friend, and he mentioned that some people try and train themselves to become better at awareness and dream control. I thought that was funny but didn't give it a lot of thought.

Then this week I came across the term lucid dreaming and realized that if I enjoyed that single experience that much, I might as well try and train to have more of those experiences. If I'm able to have this experience without trying or training, I should be able to pull it off more often, right?

So I'm going to give this a go, starting out with All Day Awareness (paying more attention to all of my senses was something I enjoyed doing anyway) and dream journaling.

I've always enjoyed dreaming a lot and have always been good at recalling them. I used to have the weirdest dreams but never bothered to write them down. Lately it's been a bit bland and boring for me dreamwise so hopefully that'll get better when I practice remembering dreams.

Just wanted to share my background with you. Also I'm wondering, given that I've been able to pull this off without even knowing that it was possible, but also given that I have no idea what triggered this (aside from my earlier flying dreams which I don't have anymore), is there anything that I can take from this story that points me towards certain methods that might work better for me?

I figure I should just focus on DILD since that's what has worked for me in the past, and aside from that I don't have much to go by but maybe someone here can share some insights.

Awesome background! I found out about lucid dreaming about four days ago and I've devoted myself ever since. I never knew it before but I actually had a lucid dream that lead to sleep paralysis briefly. Scary shit. But glad to have you on board. Us newbies have to stick together! I'll send you a friend request soon :) Good luck and let me know how it goes!

Welcome!

I like your avatar, reminds me the game that I played for long, even though I sucked at it xD Saturn console right?

I also love flying, and spent loads of lucids merely floating and flying around, it's sooo fun! Regarding techniques, why don't you take a look at this excellent thread made by Mancon? Choose what goes with you the most, and make sure you make reality checks when you see a plane or a bird: those associations can happen in a dream and get you lucid :)

Welcome! This sounds like a great start. While I agree with you that since DiLD has worked for you before and most people think DILD is easier, I would not dismiss WILD all together if I were you - might be worth a try. I used to have only DILDs a couple decades ago, and so when I came back to the hobby I at first dismissed the idea of trying WILD, but then when I did try it: my only successful LD in the past two months of attempts has been a WILD, although I do feel like I have come very close to DILD a few times. My point is: do not dismiss WILD, check it out as well just in case it works for you - you may be surprised.

Thanks for the replies!

I have to say I'm amazed by the fact that the two nights that passed since I wrote this, I've had two lucid & in control dreams. I haven't even started a dream journal yet but I guess I've been giving it so much attention during the day that I've been able to turn lucid for two nights in a row now.

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I like your avatar, reminds me the game that I played for long, even though I sucked at it xD Saturn console right?

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Yep, Nights into dreams, biggest cliché to use that here but I love that game, and aside from the dreamworld theme the way you fly in this game reminds me a bit of how it works in my own dreams. I think it just came out in the online stores for PS3 and Xbox, but I play it on my old Saturn system. Recomend it to any dream loving gamers out here.

About WILD vs. DILD. I'd love to do WILD, but I feel that it will be hard for me because it really takes me forever and it's grandma to fall asleep. However, since I seem to be able to do DILD without too much effort (let's hope it stays that way!) I'll look into it more.

About my two dreams, I'll get into that later and in a new thread because I want to share them with you, and have a few questions and things I'd like to discuss. So you'll hear about them soon.

M.