Hi all / Dreams preventing reality checks?

First off, hi everyone, this is my first post! woot go me. Lucid Dreaming is amazing and this is the perfect site to look at before bed, you guys all make interesting posts that get my lucid wheels turning.

First question: What counts as a lucid dream? If it has to be long and things have to happen then I've had 1. But if the extremely short "OMG I'm lucid, crap now I'm awake!" ones count then I've had 4. :D

But, I was wondering if anyone ever sensed that a dream tried to prevent them from becoming lucid? Last night I had 1 long dream with a lot of scene changes, and before I feel asleep I told myself I would try lots of reality checks. So, two intriguing things happened: I wanted to turn on a light to show someone something in the dream, yet there was an odd lamp there with lots of knobs and switches. I tried doing a few of them to no avail. After a while I just decided it wasn't worth the effort and the dream continued.

Another possible RC-block happened when I was in a store. A random guy bumped into me as I was going to this big bookcase to look at some books, but I payed him no attention. Then right as I got a glance at the books and noticed that the covers were funny looking and in some made-up language, that same guy immediately started conversation with me and I forgot all about them.

I know that those would've been 2 possible lucid indicators but they were both stopped. C'mon brain!! :shock: What are your thoughts?

it takes practice, i too miss alot of dream signs, its tough to aknowledge how strange are dreams actually are, last night i saw blue buildings and it still didnt kick in that i was dreaming, i guess practice is key

Welcome to Dreamviews!

Technically a lucid dream is any dream where you realize you're dreaming. This can range from a 5-second "hey look I'm dreaming" dream, to a long, perfectly controlled dream. As long as you know that you're dreaming. :)

I've had the problem with DCs (dream characters) trying to prevent me from becoming lucid as well, and I've read about others with the same problem. DCs usually don't believe that they're only dream characters, if you talk to them, so they're probably trying to make sure that you don't start questioning the reality of the dream. If you question the reality of the dream, you're questioning their reality.

On the other hand, some people have talked about dream characters who try to get them lucid or even help them control the dream. I guess everyone's dream characters are different.