It happened to me, too! My 1st Lucid Dream!

[roninxyz]

It happened about an hour ago... Background: I had been trying to lucid dream inconsistantly since February, but have not done *anything* in the last two months due to several reasons. I have the Bwgen binaural beat entrainment software and NovaDreamer but have not used them for several weeks. I went to sleep at 02:00 AM and just assumed that I would be out like a light all night as usual when I fall asleep so late. Four hours later, at 06:00 I had the following dream... ...Then, in this fine and cool evening, I am observing the nighttime sky when several airliner-sized jet airplanes fly overhead in an almost silent procession, following one another very closely – too closely, in fact. I don’t see any paint markings indicating which airlines own them. As they are so low to the ground, I wonder where they are going to land. Then following the planes I see flying overhead a series of images of satellites, other space objects, and even ‘smart bombs’, all flying in the same direction as a kind of flat dimensional image that lacked any realism. I remember idly wondering if this might all be a dream. At the moment I have that thought a change occurs in my experience. A strange sensation is perceived and my dreamworld seems to break down. It takes a couple of moments for me to realize that I am indeed in a dream. That idle question has finally been answered in the affirmative! The realization that I am dreaming dawns on me in a few moments, almost as though consciousness is being created and requires a certain amount of time to ‘load the software’. When my consciousness is fully aware of my unique state, I seem to be in a poor simulacrum of the only house I called home as a child, but it instantly looses any characteristics. The world becomes a featureless, bright, whitewashed landscape. No matter. I hop up and float about for a moment singing “It’s wonderful to be lucid”. Then a flash of negativity or fear crosses my consciousness, and the world starts to become dark. My very next thought however is that I do not wish to engage in a nightmare and choose to think of the sun. I also recall the spinning technique to prolong the experience (but forgot to look at my hands – the technique I had decided on way back when I was actually trying very hard to lucid dream). At this point the novelty of this great experience, a feeling of the dreamworld breaking down, and my waking consciousness was breaching reality from the dreamworld and I meandered out of my dream. There was a split moment when I had it back and I must say that I was surprised by the naturalness of it all. As I was leaving the dream it felt so natural, that it would be an easy state to enter into. I awoke and didn’t have a Eureka moment at all. I felt very calm, centered, and grateful for my experience. Well, that's what happened to me. Now I have a question... when can I have another lucid dream? What's a reasonable expectation for another? Is it the kind of thing where the first time is always the hardest? I've been waiting for this to happen to me for so long... I want them to start pouring out every night! What's your advice?

[Aphius]

Welcome to the forum Roninxyz! Well, No one can predict when your next one will be, you have to practice by writing in a dream journal, and trying techniques to try and induce lucidity again.

[roninxyz]

Thanks for your welcome, Aphius. Nice to feel welcome into your wonderful community. Hopefully I will have more to contribute besides a newbie experience in the near future, but even so I'm so grateful for this first glimpse!

[koko]

haha, i had my first lucid the other day this week! it feels so gooooooood! hope i'll have one soon enough!

[Truthbearer]

WELCOME RONINXYZ!!!! Your next LD could just as easily be tonight as it can be in 3 weeks. Depends on how much you want it and the effort you make to get it. I have a question though: If you have the novadreamer, how come you don't use it? Is it any good? How effective would you say it is? You are a great storyteller by the way, I liked how you described it

[roninxyz]

Thanks for your welcome, Truthbearer! I have to say that I feel very optimistic about my chances for having another lucid night. I can't help but feel that now it has happened once, a kind of switch has gone off somewhere that will make it more likely to happen again in future. Also, my interest and dedication to the subject has been renewed. Re: the NovaDreamer - I bought one off eBay a couple of months ago and started to use it. At first I had some promising results, but my sleep schedule became very negatively affected. They suggest taking a break periodically, so I set it aside for a time. Around that time some personal matters took me away from my lucidity efforts, and I just had not got back into the swing of it. Now that I've had a lucid dream, I am going to go back to it. At this point I haven't had enough experience with it to be a good judge of its results. I can say for sure that it has helped with dream recall. I'm also sure that I have receieved lucidity cues from it but have not had the awareness to take advantage of them. What I find often happens to me is that I awake from a dream *before* the lights start to flash. So I have a dream, wake up before the 5 minutes that the NovaDreamer waits before starting to flash, and then have the lights go off while I am awake. It's some kind of compensation mechanism, I think. Perhaps I need to adjust the lights to make them not as bright so that my unconscious doesn't force me into waking early. I'm not really sure and since I haven't used it for long, I could just be going through a typical adjustment period. Overall, I'm pleased with the device; it accurately detects eye movements. I performed some tests to make certain and I'm convinced. I used to think that I was such a neophyte (and naturally indisposed) at lucid dreaming that I could never hope to have a lucid dream without a NovaDreamer. I had one for a while ten years back. But now I realize that it's just another tool, something to focus one's mind and heart toward lucidity but not indispensible for the attainment of lucid dreams. Whatever helps, I suppose... You know, when I told a friend about my lucid dream she told me that she had those dreams all the time as a kid. She learned lucidity to deal with her nightmares as a child, and she still had the occasional moment of lucidity as an adult. I asked her why she didn't pursue this ability she developed as a child and she responded that she never really thought about it very much. Now this is a woman who is engaged every day as a therapist for troubled teens. I was floored. I wanted to tell her all the great possibilities lucidity has for herself, her work with her kids, and all the rest! I'm just amazed at how ignorant people are about this topic and the great possibilities it has for the future, especially when these are people who have so much more ability for lucid dreaming than I do!! Here I am, trying for 10 years (off and on) to have a lucid dream and my friend just doesn't bother to awaken her innate ability. Well, I'm determined to go forward and give this thing my all. I feel so strongly that it holds all kinds of possibilities for all of us. In a world where the human spirit is constantly being reduced to chemicals and behaviorism, we need some tools to regain our connection with authentic numinous experience. I want to be a part of that. Thanks for your compliment, too, regarding my storytelling. Hopefully I'll have some deeper and longer stories to relate in the near future!

[roninxyz]

... And congratulations, Koko, on your first lucid dream!! I feel like we're both freshmen in this new school of lucidity. Let me know when you get another one! Do you want to race to see who gets their next one? Good luck with your efforts; I can't wait to hear all about it

[Goliath]

Congrats on the LD! Hope you have many more to share with us in the future!