I found this site to be the most useful sort of information since I sort of "stumbled" onto the topic of Lucid Dreams.

My dreams have always fascinated me and the idea of making them more real and me more aware of them is very intriguing. I have had many of the typical DILD type dreams where I am in a dream and then realize "This is a dream!" and then either wake up or take more control of the situation. Then I have also had dreams that are very vivid, but I am always doing something mundane, like driving to work, only to wake up again. So the idea of being able to one, Realize I am in these dreams, and two self induce them through a WILD is very fascinating.

I have been reading through these forums for the past few days so I feel these questions are justified, and if I simply haven't read enough and someone would like to link me to a thread that can help that is perfectly fine as well. I am very aware of "newbie" status on a board and know enough to read some before I ask questions.

So here goes. The main thing that is getting me from reading techniques such as RT is: How real are lucid dreams? Especially when you self induce them. Once I get it down will they be so real that I will be confused to if I am actually awake or not? Or it will it be like the dreams I have before where I realize it is a dream, yet it is still very abstract and dream-like (hard to remember when I wake up). This is just out of curiosity, because if I am just going to go into a LD just to have it be nothing more than just a "really good dream" then I don't see the point in waking up at five in the morning to do this. But if the experience is truly as awesome as it sounds I am all in. I am fairly good at recalling dreams and I have had the ability to wake myself out of dreams so I will be practicing the WILD technique. I have tried it a little bit the last few nights but got distracted or woken up. I got to the point of feeling very heavy and seeing flashes of color and light, but that is as far as I got. So what I can really expect from "staying awake" until I dream (as far as how real it is)?

My second question would be: Will it be extremely difficult? I know everyone is different but my dreams tend to lean very much towards the realm of abstraction and a separation of reality. Such as most of my dreams are in places I have never been with people I have never met. Sometimes my dreams are only colors and sounds, or very strong emotions. So will that make it harder for me to have a lucid dream? Because most of my dreams are so bizarre than I wouldn't even think to reality test. This question I may not have an answer for, maybe if some people could just share their first experiences then I would know what to expect.

Thank you