Hi everyone - just stumbled on this site yesterday.

I had been researching Sleep Paralysis which I first experienced a couple years ago, and now get every few weeks. It was pretty frightening at first until I learned what it was.

I'd like to say thanks to Dreamviews for creating a site about Lucid Dreaming that presents the topic with a minimum of mysticism and new-agey-ness (it's just not my thing).

I've read several of the Dream Journals and the tutorials, and last night I tried to fall asleep thinking about doing RC's and trying to remember to spin if necessary. I really, really didn't expect to have success. I rarely remember my dreams, and certainly have not made RC's a habit.

Well, thanks to Mark's DJ in which he talks a lot about looking at his hands to RC, I think I had a tiny success! I woke up in the middle of the night (which I often do spontaneously) and was just drifting off when I remembered what I had been thinking about as I went to bed. I thought I was still just dozing, but thought "heck, let's check the hands" - I was able to raise my left hand and damn if I didn't have just two big blurry webbed fingers.

I got pretty excited but then I'm not sure what happened - I thought I felt myself falling more deeply asleep, so I tried to spin around to clear things up (is there a technique to spinning? I feel like I was doing it wrong somehow.). Here's where it got weird.

I woke up with a start in my bed turned around so my feet were up on the wall by the pillow (a rather compromising position ). "Ah crap," I thought, "this spinning might not be such a good idea-good thing I didn't fall out of bed!" So I turned myself back around, and my partner next to me in bed said something. I said "what?" and he indicated I had been making strange noises and kinda thrashing about.

It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I realized I had had a false awakening. Remembering the false awakening, I had been in my parents' bed, not my own, and my partner hadn't been speaking English at all - more like complete gibberish.

I had several other dreams last night (wow, this 'active trying' to remember your dreams thing really works!), and I think I had one other instance of near lucidity. I clearly remember thinking "why would there be a soda machine in my bedroom" but like the first time, I was aware that I was in bed (this time with my eyes closed) when I thought it. Not sure that counts.

And then I had a rather long dream about searching for a coffee table that somehow lead to giant tropical fish swimming around in what I thought was something I was marinating to cook. Definitely NOT lucid! LOL

So, that's my overly-long first post. Even if I don't get lucid dreams right away, it's at least interesting remembering my dreams - haven't bothered to try for years and years.