First LD ... brightness change and floating at will

Hi, my name is Hernán. I'm new here. I have read in the past a bit about lucid dreams and it affected this lucid dream a bit, which is the first one I ever had.

I'm at work in a supermarket and around 6pm (everything looks very similar to the real place), I realized that I have a university class at 6:30pm. It's weird that they would put me to work at a time I really can't work. So, I go to talk to my manager about the problem and halfway, I was realizing that what going on couldn't be possible. I said aloud something like "It can't be that I'm working when I have to go to class, but my class is really at 12:30pm, this is a dream". When I said "this is a dream", all the surroundings got brighter and more colorful. Since I realized I'm dreaming and I knew something about people controlling the dreams, I tried. I willed myself to levitate successfully, but when trying to pass through a closed window, I couldn't, and when trying to fly again, it wasn't working very well, everything was getting like blurry and I was slowly waking up. Not a sudden wakeup, just slowly.

It was a pretty interesting moment, especially the brightness change and levitating myself quite a few meters upwards. I know my dad often realizes he's dreaming and gets himself out of nightmares by saying "by saying this word XXXXX, I will wake up" and he does. When I told him my experience today, he was pretty surprised of the way I used my dream.

Isn't it irritating when dreams can get so unreal and odd, and you still never realize that you are even dreaming? I had my first realization, do you have any tips regarding how to find out you're dreaming. (I heard about the changing text in books/papers)

Hey Hernán, welcome to the forums! :)

Well if your looking to realise that you are dreaming more often within a dream i would strongly suggest the following steps.

1) Improve your dream recall, keep a dream journal and try and remember as many dreams from the previous night, then write them down in the morning. This will allow you to remember more of your dreams and even have a better level of conscious awareness in the dream, this is good because with more awareness you are more likely to be able to notice such obvious things that stand out and are not real. Dream recall can also help improve the vividness of the dream which is a great help because it makes things less of a mess when remembering, things will seem structured instead of a fuzzy mess and the dreams will seem more realistic themselves.

2) Another way is to find a dream sign, find a common thing, sign or ovject or even person who appears in your dreams alot. Then tell yourself in your waking life that you will recognise this sign in your dream and remember to do a reality check thus becoming lucid and being able to have control.

As for lack of control in your dream like you said, it can be difficult to take full control when your first starting, you will find that with practice you will improve and eventually build up your control over the dream world.

Good Luck and i hope you have many lucid dreams to come :)

I think the common thing for people to figure out they are dreaming is to be more analytical in real life. Question things if they don't make sense. If they do make sense, question why. For example, and I know it sounds stupid, but when you wake up in the morning and brush your teeth, or comb your hair, or do whatever is you do, think to yourself, why do I have to do this. Or why is the sun out today?...when I flip this light switch does it really change the light in this room? etc. those are rough examples but I think you get the point. :banana::banana::banana:

Oh god, if only I could recognise I was dreaming just from wrong class times, haha. Well done :)

Thanks for the welcome:)

Lucid Seeker:
1)My dream memory is decent, usually when I have some pretty vivid dreams/nightmares. (there are a couple unforgettable ones that maybe I'll post later). However, I didn't really consider the chance that remembering dreams would have much of an effect of it.
2) As for your #2 suggestion, while I never saw many common things/people/etc ... I often have academic-related dreams, even during vacation! And I don't even realize that it's completely impossible that I would be having a test on New Year's Eve! I'll make sure to tell myself to recognize this sign before I fall asleep.

And hopefully I can practice ... there's so much I could do besides having fun ... stuff that could maybe affect me positively in real life. The only b*tch is waking up, hence disturbing my sleep.

Sandform: I understand what you mean. To be honest, it kind of sounds ridiculous but I'm sure it really isn't.

Zotoaster: It's weird, isn't it? I can have a date where I'm with a female friend when later in the dream, it's not her ... it's a long-distance great friend/ ex-love interest ... and I don't even realize the switch of girls!! On the other hand, I realize I'm dreaming because I realize my class time is different from the one in the dream!

Welcome to dream views! :welcome: Just listin to Lucid Seeker, he can answer most of your questions

Hi there zitro.

Looks like all your questions have been addressed so the only thing left for me to say congrats on the lucidity and dream control. Also, welcome to Dream Views. Hang out and have a good time. See you around.

I have found that telling myself that I will dream about something or telling myself confidently that I'm going to lucid dream can work.

yesterday I was telling myself that I would dream about something work-related, and I did. It's a shame I didn't found that it was a dream.

for last night, I told myself to lucid dream and I actually found that I was dreaming and the same "brightness" effect happened and I was set to do what I planned to do in a lucid dream ... unfortunately, I woke up immediately and didn't accomplish what I wanted to do.