Thread: The First Lucid Dream I Can Remember

Hello! ShinyAeon here! Just found this forum through a random google, and it looks fascinating.

I've had spontaneous lucid dreams since I was in first or second grade, long before there was a name for them. I actually read LaBerge's Lucid Dreaming: The power of being aware and awake in your dreams when it first came out (I worked at Waldenbooks then--anyone remember them? ) and was glad to finally know there was a name for that kind of dream.

This is what I'm pretty sure was first LD I ever had; I remember being six years old when I had it, and I recall being astonished at the phenomenon of knowing you were dreaming while in the dream:

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I was in a museum on some kind of field trip, and the dinosaurs and cavemen had come to life; the dinosaurs were chasing me, the other children, and the cavemen around the museum in a scene of mass confusion.

I recall suddenly thinking, "Wait a minute--this is a dream! If I can wake up, I can get away!"

I hid behind a door and tried to "think" myself awake, but a dinosaur discovered me, and I had to run again.

More running, more dinosaurs, more cavemen—the cavemen, I recall, were the typical, cartoonish Neanderthals: thick-bodied, low-browed and hairy, with loincloths and clubs. They were a little less afraid of the dinosaurs than me and the other children in the museum, but they still ran from the beasts, and were neither hostile nor protective towards us kids.

(Point of interest: no one got "caught" or eaten during the dream, not even the cavemen, though everyone was in constant danger of it. It was like a "horror movie light," meant for kids, so without actual violence.)

I ran and ran, and dodged and tried to hide, but dinosaurs always found me. Finally I remember I was simply exhausted with the constant fear and frustration and just wanted it to end.

I clambered up on a big, oval dais with artificial rocks, on which some Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus) had recently stood. I stood at the top and shouted, waving my arms. "Alright, everybody STOP! I'm going to WAKE UP!"

They did stop, and the last image I recall is a circle of children, cavemen and dinosaurs all staring up at me before they faded out of view and I did, in fact, wake up.

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I yelled for my mother, but for once I was almost more excited than scared: "The dinosaurs were chasing me but I knew I was dreaming and tried to wake up but I couldn't the first time but then I told everybody I was going to wake up and I DID!"

I had a great sense of accomplishment, and thought I finally had the secret to beating any nightmare. I didn't, of course (had many non-lucid bad dreams afterwards) but the triumph (and absurdity) of that final moment have stayed with me ever since.

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EDIT: should I have posted this dream in the lucid dream forum instead (or also), or it is too generic/newbie to be of interest there?