Just wondering. I could be wrong.

My names Chris and I'm new to the message board. (I'm 24 in case that matters for some reason.)

Anyway, I just heard about Lucid Dreaming a few months ago from my friend Josh, and the reason it came up is because we where talking about dropping acid vs eating shrooms. (Something we both did a few times during collage)

He said that the reason he did both was because he was trying to experience some kind of a L.D. and somebody told him that acid and shrooms would both help him to experience one.

Not knowing what a L.D. was I asked him and his explanation was that it was having a very real feeling dream, but knowing it was a dream and controlling it.

Not intending to be rude in anyway I kinda laughed at him because I thought that was something everybody just learned to do over time.

I only thought that because as a much younger child (around 7 or 8) I used to have some of the worst nightmares you could possible think of, and they would wake me up in the middle of the night. Some of them got so bad that I just wouldn't go back to sleep.

Then as I got older, and needed the sleep for school and such, I just kind of taught myself how to know when I was dreaming vs awake, so that I could control the bad dreams and not have to wake up.

Even since then I've always been able to fly in my dreams when I wanted to, or use some kind of magical mind power over monsters and such. (It sounds dumb, but in most of my dreams I'm showing off my abilities to my friends.)

My friend said that I was crazy and that lucid dreaming is something you have to know about and study in order to experience. He said that it's not something that you can just do by mistake, and that it takes years of practice so I must be experiencing something else.

I guess what I'm wondering is, could lucid dreaming be something that I've developed from necessity or is my friend right, am I experiencing something else?

(In one dream I remember pulling him out of thin air while I was standing next to a tall building and saying "See watch" then flying to the top of the building. Then I thought it was silly because I knew that when I woke my feat wouldn't have really mattered to him in real life.)

As long as you realize during the dream that you are dreaming, then you are lucid! :) It has nothing to do with control or lack thereof.

I disagree with your friend... lucid dreaming is something that can happen by mistake, and it does so very often with young kids! It doesn't take years of practice to achieve... but it can take a lot of practice to become really really good at it.

I'd recommend the book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge... it's extremely interesting as well as helpful.

:welcome: to DV!

Yeah, I'm not really good at it to the point where I can force a dream, but because of my childhood nightmares I can always take control of a dream as soon as I start having one.

Its kind of become a habit for me, kind of like the way somebody will say "Bless you" immediately after somebody sneezes.

Now that I know about it, I think I'll start one of those dream journals. If nothing else it'll help me with my writing, and maybe help somebody else have a L.D.?

Thanks for the help :)