Newbie who's aware but has no control - questions
I tried to make the best title and I'm posting in here since this seems the most appropriate. This may turn out to be a long and agonizing post, for which I apologize in advance, but I'm finally doing some real research and came across this forum.
Ever since I can remember, I've been able to tell when I'm dreaming. Majority of the time I had night terrors and would wake with the same fear that I experienced in my dreams and I would have to take time to calm myself down or have my family calm me down. Now I'm 19 years old, have developed insomnia, and I've started to really look into my dreams and dreaming stages. Please note that I have never once attempted to "lucid dream" or have gone through the preparations or training of lucid dreaming. I was actually researching dream meanings and other characteristics but I found that lucid dreaming sort of fit my description more than anything else I found.
In 90% of my dreams, I'm able to realize that I am indeed dreaming. I could be any place or doing anything and it'll dawn on me that something is off, from what I've researched so far, this is the "common sense" stage? Where you look at details and realize that things aren't making sense and it's not the real world. Well, I can get passed that stage. I decided awhile back that I might use that as an advantage against my night terrors. My next chance went something like this: I remember I was in a really long, cave-like corridor, which instantly told me that I was dreaming. The nightmare began with the typical dead-loved-ones chasing me, blaming me and trying to kill me (I say typical because that's how a lot of my night terrors go). I remember stopping and repeatingly telling myself it was a dream. Knowing that, I had tried to change things, to stop certains things, change my surroundings, change my feelings but it never works. In the end, it consumes me and I wake.
I find this odd because I've tried to control what happened in my dreams several times, it seems the only time I'm able to do that is when I dream I'm underwater. Whenever there's water, I jump right in because I know it's a dream and that I can breathe.
Another instance that doesn't involve a nightmare is I remember once, I was in a public setting and I was bragging that I could fly (only because I knew it was a dream). Well, the dream-people had called me on it and asked me to prove it. I tried to lift myself off the ground but couldn't. I would stand there and concentrate on flying but was never successful.
Is this some form of lucid dreaming? Or would this classify as something else?
