Introductions and First LD (kinda)

[Captain Apollo]

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.

[drs17]

wow, way to go! i too almost had my first LD in a day's time...since i even knew what it was..so that was pretty exciting.

[Captain Apollo]

Thanks! I'm not sure it was fully lucid, but I definitely had a moment of "hey! this is a dream!" Too bad I lost it before I got to try anything interesting, but that seems pretty normal. I think I might have already learned a few mental 'dream tricks' before even discovering LD. About a year ago I had several really, really disturbing bouts of Sleep Paralysis, and so I read a lot about how to cope with it. One thing is to try to move just one little toe or pinky finger to 'break' the paralysis. Another good suggestion was to come to terms with the fact that, no you're not dying, you're just not physically awake just yet, and be OK with that. I continued to get the SP pretty frequently (dunno why I had so many during those few weeks), and managed to try both of these things with some success. Trying to RC last night felt kind of similar - just trying to remember what's going on. Anyway, thanks again, and cool that you were able to find lucidity so quickly! I'm glad I found this site!