Hi everyone...let me start by saying that this site is wonderful! It contains the most comprehensive information about dreaming that I've seen in a long time, and I just wanted to let the creators know that they've done a really nice job.

Now then, about me.
My name's AnnMarie and I'm 16 years old (yes, a young one...bear with me). I've been reading and studying dreaming, mostly the lucid aspect, on and off for about 3 years now. I still don't know that much, but I hope that will change very soon. I've been poking around this site for a few months now, and I finally decided to join after recently having my first lucid dream in about 7 years (yes, I still remember that one vividly...tv screens in mazes, little boy crushes running around my school...but we won't get into that right now).

The lucid dream I had yesterday, however, was a bit different. I had slept in another room that night, because I decided that I liked the matress more (comfort is a top prority with me) I woke up, and for some reason felt like I needed to do a reality check, even though I was almost sure I was awake. It's also surprising that I did this because I have failed miserably in training myself to do reality checks in waking life.

I pinched my nose and tried breathing in, which I could easily do. Just to make sure, I looked over at my clock and saw the numbers racing, going from 8:13 to 8:42 in just seconds. Now I was sure that I was dreaming. The first thing I tried to do was the simple task of getting out of bed. I tried to move my body but I felt paralyzed, like there was a dead weight on my chest. That feeling is just terrible, when you're finally in a lucid dream and then you can't move for the life of you. Frustrating, really. I even tried closing my eyes and controlling my dream through mind power, thinking intensely "I want to stand up, and I'm going to stand up," but it didn't seem to work.

I woke up soonafter and the frustration left me. I felt calm, relieved and actually very happy. I'd really like to work on controlling and mainting my lucid experiences, and hopefully these boards will be of some kind of assistance.

That's enough. Now that I'm done with my introduction/rant, I can explore the other parts of the boards and hopefully find something helpful!

Thanks,
AnnMarie