Hello everyone. I'm just a regular guy. I barely even heard of conscious dreaming before today and I didn't really believe in it. Not until last night. I stumbled upon this whole thing by accident. It hit me out of nowhere. I had to look up this phenomenon to even find out what it was called. The experience was so incredible, I think I'm a little infatuated. I started a journal in case I can continue doing it. Here's my first entry (from last night - they are roughly in the order I remember them):

Feb 6, 2009 @ around 3am, I had my first lucid dream experience. Some of the things I can remember from the dreams (in the order I think they happened):

1. I was consciously looking around and noticing I had some kind of choice in what I was doing. I could go places I wanted, not just mindlessly following a storyline.

2. I made an old lady turn into a creature/monster.

3. I got on top of a dresser and kicked it over. The fall felt real, but it did not hurt.

4. I picked out a woman in a crowd, told her I wanted to kiss her. She said she didn't like me. I "made" her like me and give the kiss a chance and afterwards she said "I love you". A crowd giggled at the situation.

5. I was in a house that I was very familiar with. Supposedly one of my old houses (but not so in reality). I had lived there for many years and I went back in time to right before I purchased it (but other parts of the dream suggest right after I purchased it, like I had already pulled up the carpet, painted walls, moved some furniture in). I think this was from a previous dream (which I don't remember) in which I was excited about getting the new house and wanted to look around and the owner came and I got scared and ran off. Well, I was back in the same situation (the time travel deal) and I started to run again. But this time I stopped and listened to her. It turns out she wasn't mad at all. She was trying to ask me if I wanted I wanted her dog (she couldn't take him with her to her new place). I declined. The point of this one was long interaction talking to someone else. I don't remember what we talked about, but I think we stood outside and talked for about 3 minutes.

6. By this time, I fully realized I was in a dream. I performed a test. I had some papers laying on a nightstand next to my bed. I thought I was awake, but I was actually dreaming. I closed my eyes, went into the 'dream state' (which I was already in) and told myself to make the papers disappear. Opened eyes, they were gone. Closed them again, told myself to come out of the dream state (still dreaming...) and the papers re-appeared. With amazement, I did this a few more times. For the record, the way I figured out I was asleep the whole time is that I didn't ever have any papers on the nightstand. The papers were in the dream.

The first dream, I didn't realize I was in a dream. The dream was a lot more lifelike than a regular dream. It was almost just like reality. When I woke up, I thought that was cool, so I tried to go back to sleep to do it again. It was the second time that I realized that I was in a dream.
So from what I read today, I experienced WILD and false awakening. Plus, I did 3 reality tests (the old woman, kissing a women and making the paper disappear).

Those 6 things were from about 4 or 5 short dreams (about 30 minutes or less each). I know there was a lot more going on in the dreams, but I can't remember all of it. I just know it all felt so real and the changeover from one reality to another was quite an experience in itself.

Funny thing to note, my username for other forums is also sleepydvdr. I chose that years ago, way before I had much interest in dreams or sleeping. It came from frustration of signing up to a website and every username was already taken. So, I purposely picked two things that no one else ever would - 1: I was sleepy. 2: I had a pack of DVDRs sitting in front of me. Never had a problem signing up to websites ever since.

Just to note, this is my first post. I haven't read anything on the site yet. For some reason, I didn't want anything I might read influence what I write in my first post (don't really know why). Well, that's all for now. Now I'm off to begin reading what you guys/gals have to say. Later...