Thread: blowing up cows - my introduction to lucid dreaming

hi there all. I'm new to the forum and site and just wanted to drop in to talk about my recent lucid dreaming experiences, and also to say thanks for the advice and tutorials on this site!

I've always been interested in lucid dreams, no more so then when I watched 'Waking Life' which is a remarkable film that you should watch if you get the chance. That encouraged me to think more about the possibility of lucid dreams and I think as a result of my constant thought on the subject I've become more able to enter the required state for lucid dreaming.

After I found Dreamviews I read through the tutorials and advice to help enter a lucid state and in just a few days it has made a great difference already. I've had 3 lucid dreams in the past five days as a result. The first one was only semi-lucid as when I tried to take control of my body I felt myself fading out, I started spinning and that helped, but when I tried to stop spinning I could feel my body resisting and then I woke up.

The second and third experience were on the same night and I realized I was lucid in both instances by doing a reality check and finding that I was somewhere that I no longer live anywhere near and also because it's a recurring location in my dreams. In my second lucid dream I managed to fly, however I again seemed to lose control of myself or my surroundings as when I tried to land I felt the same kind of resistance as in my first experience, except in this instance it was the ground repelling me, the best description I could give was that it felt like two magnets repelling each other. That feeling woke me up.

The third experience was the same evening and in this dream there was a cow on the front lawn of a place I used to live. When I realized I was dreaming I started rubbing my hands together as I have read this helps to keep you dreaming, and after reading about actively adding sensations to your dreams I thought it would be interesting to do. It certainly felt different from real life. It felt, as best I can describe like being on certain illegal substances. As I rubbed my hands the cow began to sprout more heads so I thought it might be interesting to blow it up by making a fireball come out of my hand. I pointed my hand at it and started to think about actualizing it. I think it was the shock of it almost working that woke me up. Black viscous smoke and black sparks started pouring out of my hand and I could feel it warming up, although not unpleasently. Unfortunately like I said, it was then that I woke up. The sensation of my hand heating up was remarkable and I still remember it now.

It seems to me in my experiences that although I'm at the beginning of attaining lucidity in my dreams I am making progress. I would be interested to know further ways to prolong my dreams and excert more control over myself and my environment. Also I do have problems recalling the dreams afterwards. However on that front I do have to say that compared to six months/a year ago my dream recollection is becoming much, much better.

Thanks for reading my whole post, sorry for it being this long but I guess I'm just a long winded person and I do enjoy writing! Hope it has been interesting for you all to read and I hope to hear comments from some of you!

Oh yes, one last thing that I think you all might find pretty amusing, my real name is Nemo. Now most people of course know nemo the fish, or even know Captain Nemo from Jules Verns book '20,000 leagues under the sea', but very few have heard of 'Little Nemo in Slumberland', which is what I am named after. It was a comic at the beginning of the 20th century about a little boy called Nemo; In each strip Nemo used to eat something like cheese before bed and have strange dreams. They were pretty strange and amazing as you can see here. At the end of each comic strip Nemo used to wake up after having fallen out of bed or getting tangled in his bed sheets. It was also the first comic to be ever done in the modern block form that we have come to know and love. I guess my name is kind of appropriate for this forum and site then!