First Time Lucid

Hi everyone, just thought I would join and let you all know about my first lucid experience that happened last night.

Bit of background: I have been unsuccessfuly trying to have a lucid dream off and on for around 18 months.

I first became aware of lucid dreaming through a close friend after a deep conversation one night. I started by keeping a dream diary and was recording 3-4 vivid dreams a night almost strait away, this lasted for a couple of weeks before I gave up on the diary. I continued to have vivid dreams on a regular basis "although notisably less then when I had been doing the diary".

Around 8 months ago my sleeping patterns changed drasticaly due to work and I have had a total drout of dream recolection untill I had one vivid nightmare last week.

Telling my close friend about this nightmare last night started another deep conversation about dreams and reality which we had over a couple of beers and a chinese take away, It lasted untill around 1:30am.

I was asleep shortly after this and slept well untill around 3:30-4am when I awoke needing a drink due to slight dehydration "due to the beer and chinese food, not unusual"

I was up for around 10-15 minits before going back to sleep. I slept through to around 5am when I started to exprience broken sleep, waking and dozing back off every 5 minits or so "this is very unusual for me as I normaly sleep through at this time".

On the 4th or 5th time of waking I took a bit more time to notice my surroundings and I noticed that something was strange, everything was as it should be apart from the fact that everything seemed to have a certain haze about it. I decided to do a reality check "holding my nose closed while trying to breeth through it" To my total amazement despite holding my nose tightly with my finger and thumb there was a gush of cool air! I was breathing despite the blockage. I was most certainly in a dream as this would not be possible otherwise.

I decided to get out of bed and have a look around, I felt resistence from the bed sheet and on the first couple of attempts I could not get up it was sort of holding me down. I now told myself "this is a dream a bed sheet cant hold you down" I tried again and somehow my body passed through the sheet.

I was now standing in the room looking around, everything still had that haze about it. I rememberd that my friend had told me that when his lucid dreams are cloudy he says out loud I want clarity while concentrating on something, so thats exactly what I did.

I looked at the door and started screaming at the top of my voice "I want clarity", everything became as clear as reality and I was amused at the thought that if I had got it wrong and I was not dreaming that my friend would surely have come running into the room to see what I was shouting about. I now decided to go and explore, I started to open the door however I decided that as this was a dream I could simply walk through the door "which I proceded to do". It felt strange and gave a sort of resistance.

On the other side of the door I was now on my friends landing and there was a cat walking around seemingly trying to get my attention "my friend has no pets". The cat walked into the bathroom and I had a very specific thought that it was important that I follow the cat.

On walking into the bathroom I awoke again in bed. Just for the hell of it I did the same reality check again and got the same result "I was still dreaming".
I tried to get out of bed again and the same thing happened with the sheets "dejavu?" However this thime as I was telling myself that I could just pass through the sheets I heard a voice from outside the door.

It was the voice of a young boy and it said "Meet me by the Railroad.... I will be by the Railroad" I lay there thinking that is very strange because "RAILROAD" is a term I would never use, I would have said train tracks or railway but never "RAILROAD". Upon completing this thought I woke up "for real this time"

I went back to sleep and slept through untill my alarm woke me at 9am.

So there you have it, sorry it was a bit long winded but I wanted to give you guys a thorough description.

I cant wait to have another! It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.