Thread: I had a LD before knowing what is was, need some advice :)

Hi all,

I only found this site (and about LD's) about 3 hours ago, and this is my first post so I'd like to firstly say hi to everyone on the forum

I'll be honest here, if I found this site yesterday, I'd probably have thought it was very interesting but that's all, however my experience last night has changed that, and also my views on a lot of things.

Basically, I had a nightmare last night. I have them now and again, I think I can probably remember about 10 in the last few years, all ending with me screaming in the dream and at that time I scream in real life and my wife wakes me up. My wife tells me that I do this a few times a week, but I can only remember about 10 times in total. She also says that it started soon after the death of my father some 5 years ago, however this doesn't play on my mind, as far as I am aware. Normally after I have one of these nightmares I wake up (thank's to my wife waking me), I calm down and go back to sleep as normal. However, last night was very different.

In my dream last night, I remember waking up, but in my mother-in-laws bed (I was still dreaming but unaware at the time) and this didn't appear "odd" to me. I remember talking to my wife and then all of a sudden, she and the bed vanished. For some reason, at this point I figured out I was dreaming and became fully aware, as if it were the real word. I remember it now as if it were 100% real. This really freaked me out, thinking that I was really lying in bed but totally awake in a dream. Fear kicked in, thinking I would never wake up so I told myself to wake up, but I didn't. At this point I was still "aware" but my dream changed to very emotionally horrid things, such as my 3 year daughter not knowing me etc. I this point I wanted out, I had never heard of anything like LD's before and it was very distressing. In the dream I was banging my head on a wall to cause pain, thinking this would wake me up, which it didn't. I trying to pinch myself and this didn't work. I then started shouting, thinking that I may also be shouting in the real world and my wife would wake me up, but she didn't. I then basically freaked out and I must have screamed or something as my wife woke me up then.

After catching my breath and calming down a little, it occurred to me what has just happened, i.e., being totally aware in a dream. This is what caused to me to search for this on google, where I found this great site.

My question is really this, I can see all the wonderful benefits of getting into LD's, being able to control a new and exciting world, however my fear is that I only reach a point where I am aware and not controlling my dreams. If my wife is correct, and if I do have these nightmares a few times every week, if I am aware during all of them, this would be horrible. However, I would love to have control in my dreams and do all the wonderful things real life can't offer, such as flying etc.

I am also puzzled as to why I suddenly became aware during this dream, and only this dream. I do not remember a "sign" that it was a dream, just a feeling, a feeling that was 100%, I didn't seem the need to question it was a dream, it was if I knew. Also, until finding this site, I had never even heard that anything like this was possible. In a way, I am very pleased that I found this site, as I did occur to me that maybe I was going mad, as I have also found myself trying to check that whilst in the realworld today, was I still dreaming.

Any comments on the above would be very very useful. As you can probably imagine, the experience has been one of vast excitement together with fear of the unknown and myself questioning "what has happened to me".

Many thanks in advance,

Scott