hello (",)/"

i made mt first post lastnight http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20148 ...feel free to read. anyway, just checking in here now to introduce myself. i'm a 28 year old male from the republic of ireland (btw, the flag is incorrect... should be green, white and orange vertical stripe), my name is derek, i'm a current university student doing a degree in toxicology, and if you've read my post you will have discovered why i joined in the first place.

lucid dreaming for me is one of the greatest tools i could imagine anybody can have for so many different real life eventualities. an example of what i'm saying... at college i had to get up in front of cf 200 people to deliver a presentation which i was required to do. the thought of doing it was kind of daunting because i was just worried about messing up, or losing my thread of thought, just general lack of confidence thing going on with the task in hand. my ability to direct my dreams is outstanding so what i decided to do was put myself in the position a few times through a lucid dream, and hey presto, loads of practice. i pulled off my presentation flawlessly as a result and my lecturers and colleagues were astounded with my ability to deliver... my lecturers even recommend i keep doing such things as public presentations like seminars and lecturing close to the forefront of my mind.

having read some more of the material on this site about LDing i can say that i totally agree with it. the queing for realising dreams (like when reality checking)... i have even developed some for myself. i used to work as a chef, late hours, and as such i would have slept later in the day than most would have. living in the family home, there was always something happening and something as simple as a door opening in the house or somebody talking, anything external to the dream that was going on when i was asleep was a que for me. however, over recent years, being at college, that source of ques is greatly reduced due to my more normal sleeping times/pattern. so i came up with new ways of alerting myself to the fact that i was dreaming. what i've found most effective for myself through experimentation and trial and error is simply the way i lay in bed when i'm going to sleep really. i usually clasp my hands over my chest whilst lying on my back in a comfortable and stable position, with my hands interlocked in exactly the same way as you would interlock them whilst holding a golf club. when i start to dream, the tiniest little movement of my hands occurs which makes me realise that they are clasped and that then makes me realise i'm dreaming, then i take over. whilst it doesn't work all the time it proves effective, but tbh, if it doesn't work another que for me, as strange as it might sound, is that i realise that i'm not in control of things around me in my dream, which then makes me say "why not" cos i'm so used to being lucid, and then i just become aware of that fact and my dream becomes lucid. or something like that happens anyway. sorry if its not very clear.