Hi, newbie here.

Basic stats on me? 22-year-old physics major, female, single and planning to stay that way (no offense to any cool guys on here, friendships are good too). Religion-wise, born-again Christian; ethnically, German.

Had my first lucid dream before I can remember... Didn't know that it wasn't common to know that you were dreaming while asleep until a few years ago. Happens for me at least once a week if I'm not too tired to become lucid (is this true for the rest of you--being over-tired prevents lucidity?).

At any rate, lately I've been more aware of this strange phenomenon, and been experimenting with various things while dreaming--moving objects, changing scenes, transporting myself to a different location in the same world, and lately things like creating objects.

An interesting experience I had was last year when I dreamed of talking to my younger sister. She lives 900 miles away and hadn't contacted me in months. I told her to contact me when we both woke up (so this was technically semi-lucid since I probably didn't realize at the time that generally other people in your dream are of your own construction). Lo and behold, I got an e-mail from her the next morning. Probably a coincidence, since she didn't have any dreams the past night (or remember them, anyway). Still, rather an interesting thing to think about.

At any rate... let's see. Typical lucid dream last night just consisted of my exploring my college dorm. Generally this is an interesting thing to do because I'm still working on being able to walk through walls (this consists of my imagining the wall is not solid, and half the time that becomes reality) and it's neat to see what's in my version of my dorm-mate's rooms!

In addition to lucid dreams I often experience what I call "nightmares" in which I'm often aware that I'm dreaming, though not always. Generally they involve violence and mayhem of all sorts, especially war. I've gotten used to these, though; and the fear involved is generally only an adrenaline rush now. Being able to take control of a nightmare is one of the more interesting things I've done; because it allows for truly amazing "plots". More than one of my bits of writing (I like short stories and am getting into novels) has been based on such a dream.

Hello to all!