The following are snipped out of my journal just as I was discovering what LD really is. My thoughts have not changed. If you want to cut to the chase, the final paragraph sums it up:

...

Which brings me to a few observations and ponderings. I've done some looking into what I now know as Lucid Dreaming. Many people experience it spontaneously, while many others practice techniques to induce lucid dreams. As one might expect, lucid dreams have a lot of connections to occultic and New Age traditions, including Astral Travel and Out of Body Experiences (OBE). Dreams, however, are dreams. We all have them. Some of us recall them vividly, others don't remember them at all... but research demonstrates that it is a natural function of our brains. Dreams can be powerful, vivid and emotionally charged.

(snip)

Perhaps this is all hypnosis really is? Many of the techniques to induce lucid dreams are very like self hypnosis and auto suggestion. After my martini glass experience last week, I recognize that in-between twilight as a place that hypnosis would quite naturally lead.

What many refer to as "trance states" are as common to us humans as watching a movie or driving a car. We drift into and out of different levels of consciousness all the time. The potential danger comes, I believe, in using our natural capacities to open ourselves to spiritual influence. We are spiritual beings, living in a physical world with other spiritual beings. I know from experience that there is vast, powerful evil here, and that we are capable both of deliberately and inadvertantly becoming beholden to those influences. I also know that God reigns supreme, and that those spiritual influences have no authority over His children.

And I am His child. So... is what I am experiencing bad or dangerous? So far, I really don't think so. Could it be? Sure, but so can music and art and worship and a million other things. These dreams seem to be no more than what we all have been designed to do anyway - with the sole difference of the impression of awareness... the reality of which I'm wondering about anyway. (I have since changed my mind about the reality of awareness in LD, by the way. I'm absolutely convinced it is genuine.)