Thread: LD - not even an earthquake let me realise I'm dreaming

Yesterday I finally received my copy of LaBerge's EtWoLD. Naturally, I began to read it intensively and it was far more detailed than any internet-thread would be. See, it's not a criticism of the forum but a commendation/praise of LaBerge's masterpiece.

However, I decided to refresh my dreamsign-list because LaBerge's explanation were easier to understand than those I had in my mind. Then I went to sleep and had that strange dream about me in a circus band...
I have been in the mall a few kilometers from my home and I was playing something like a timbal which has been fixed on an elephant's head (?).
A bit later I asked my cousin Michael if we could switch instruments. He agrees but he's playing the drums that I play even worse [in IRL I've played the drums for half a year then stopped] so I need to find someone else to switch the drums with an instrument I'm able to play.
--> dream scenery changes: I'm in a barnyard about 200 metres from my home and I help 3 guys tidy up the things after the concert of the circus band [although it is on a completely different place].

Then I woke up. It was about 8 am and I decided to FILD because I went to sleep at about 2 am.

I failed and fell asleep into a non-LD.
I am on holidays with my parents and we enter a hotel. There is a reception in front of us, two elevators on the right of it and some escalators and stairs on the left. For some reason my brother and I can't catch the same elevator as our parents and we decide to take our luggage and run up the stairs to the first floor to catch the elevator with our parents. We make it but the elevators drives past without stopping. So we take the other elevator.
My brother, Lukas btw, pushes a button when I realise that this elevator goes just the 6th floor and we need to get to the 8th. So we leave it and run down the stairs and escalators to the ground floor where the reception is.
Arrived, we catch the other elevator which is about to close. My brother steps in easily but I have to jump headlong which doesn't really work well . Inside I realise that I could have pushed the open-button because there are other people coming inside after me. When everyone is inside I push the close-button and suddenly the whole elevator begins to tremble//it has grown btw to the size of a underground parking and really looks like one// now, there are huge pieces of the ceiling or the elevator unit/equipment falling down and one of them, my neighbor, is almost falling into the threshold. However, she had luck: if she had torn out her arm a second later it would have been cut off. At the same time, I push the stop-button of the elevator-panel and the trembling lessens bit by bit. Then she walks towards me and is holding her bleeding indexfinger. I just say: "you should be glad your arm is still where it's supposed to be". But she's just smiling not completely realising what I've said.
After a moment of confusion, I decide to eventually push the alarm-button on the panel which is all I can do for now.
I turn around and I see that the backside of the elevator is now open. There is a slanted [hope it's an appropriate word] platform leading up to a street, a park and some shrubbery. I look now at the other people been frightened by the tremble and they begin to unpack/unwrap their luggage and mount some things that remind me of military transmission devices like antennas, parabolic mirrors and the like. I ask me wtf?! is this really the first thing people do after such an experience? But then I place my left hand on a stone bench and with the right hand I plug my nose...
WOOHOOOO! I breathe through it. I'm lucid. I try to gather myself and to calm my euphoria a bit. I remember concentrating on dreamworld details makes dreams both more vivid and stable. So I focus on the bench I'm still touching and see it's sandy grey and rough surface and something that reminds me of wax for sliding benches on a skateboard. Disrupting my concentration, a dog walks out of the shrubbery, it looks like a foxhound [I don't know any dog races, I've just looked for on wikipedia and compared pictures with the one in my mind], normally I'm a bit afraid of dogs because at my home-village dogs are really aggressive, but this time I scream at it: "go away". However it seems to pay no attention to me or my threat and walks past me. Then I feel urged to open my eyes although they already open but I do it anyways and open my real eyes...

This was my first LD. And although it was a very short one (5 to 10 seconds) and I hadn't a lot of control it was one and that's what counts YAY!
In addition, I'm so relieved that it finally worked. I thought it would take maybe years until I get my first "on purpose"...

stuetzl