Well hey guys, it feels good to be here, let me tell you a bit about my experience with LD.

About a year ago now I had my first real Lucid experience that I can remember. I had been researching lucid dreaming for a while, kept a dream journal when I was about 17 (I'm 21 now), and didn't really have much success, but I did get a reasonable amount of dream recall. Anyway last year I became reinterested and started doing reality checks quite often, I used the technique of trying to poke a hole through my hand probably about 10-15 times a day. I'm not sure how long I did that for, but it worked, and I didn't have to keep a dream journal.

Fast forward to the dream, and I was in what felt like a foreign market place, set in a narrow street with bright colours illuminating the place. I think it was quite busy with people, but I'm unsure. I do remember a man, looking at him momentarily possibly. Anyway I somehow just had a funny feeling, then I kinda thought it would be amusing to do the hand test......after this I forced myself to remember as much as possible upon awakening. As soon as I put my finger through my hand(it just dipped through) I felt this ridiculously intense rush, a moment of WOW this is really happening, and then ripples of intense colour started travelling up my arm. It was like dropping a pebble into my palm, my skin turned to water and it just kept vibrating up through my arm. All of a sudden I was just in darkness with my arm pulsating and glowing, I knew that my dream was collapsing, and I used my last moments to spin around a few times to try and stabilize things(I'm unsure if this turning in circles thing works for me). Then I woke up, shot up really, and tried to retain as much of it as possible.

Fast forward to now again. Since then i've probably had about half a dozen different dream phenomena including a false awakening(it was rather terrifying), what I thought was sleep paralysis but probably wasn't, and a few more lucid dreams that I had very weak recall on. I've always been very interested in LD, and love talking about the subject with anyone who is willing, so i'm very glad this place exists. I've been browsing the web looking at things like dream supplements that allow for more vivid dreams etc, and they have gotten me very curious. I think I may purchase the book by Thomas Yuschak on the matter. I feel i've reached a time in my life where I need to find a new source of inspiration, chemically reached high's are too fleeting, and shrouded in too much mystery, I can never figure anything out after a chemical journey even though I think they have helped me alot. I want something more permanent, and I think I need some lifestyle changes to go along with this transition aswell, can LD's help you with things like smoking cessation? I don't want to dive straight into supplements without a great awareness of the risks involved, but i'm determined to dedicate myself to lucid dreaming now. New Dream journal will be starting tonight.

Anyway a big question I wana ask, is has anyone had a similar experience with the finger through the palm trick, and what method did you use to stabilize the dream and stay lucid?