Coming to terms with my first lucid dream.

I've sought out this forum because I had an experience the night before last that I can't shake. I had a lucid dream for the first time, and I just needed to run it past someone else and ask a question or two. In the past, I have had dreams in which I suddenly realize I am dreaming, but this realization always brought me out of the dream almost instantly. I never had a chance to experience true lucid dreaming. The night before last, though, was different. I was extremely exhausted that night, having just flown back to the US from London. I had been awake for 24 hours. I slept for 7 or 8 hours, woke up and went back to bed, and it was then that I had the dream.

The dream itself was initially nothing spectacular. In the dream, I was in the livingroom with my wife and suddenly noticed that I had two more daughters than I have in real life. I mentioned to my wife (in the dream) that it seemed only yesterday that we had two daughters and I couldn't shake the feeling that it was strange that we now had four. I didn't feel as if I even knew these other two girls. I stood up to walk out of the room, and it just hit me: "Wait a minute. This isn't real. This must be a dream. I don't have four daughters" I turned and walked back into the room and told my wife what I had just realized, and explained that she wasn't real (at least the dream version of her wasn't.) She didn't believe me but I assured her it was true.

I had absolute control of my faculties at this point and knew what was happening. I had read about lucid dreaming years ago but had never experienced it. I actually said to myself in the dream "I'm having my first lucid dream!" I was very aware of the fact that I might wake up at any moment and didn't want to. I understood that I could theoretically do anything I wanted, but I was eager to explore and test things out in the room before I was pulled away. I looked around the room and was struck by how incredibly detailed it was. It wasn't even a room that I recognized, but it was so convincingly real that I still get chills thinking about it. I wanted to look more closely at the details of the room to test the limits of this alternate reality, so I went over to the fireplace and looked at the mantel above it. I was shocked and a bit disturbed at the level of detail I was seeing. The grain on the wood was SO detailed, and it was fixed; it wasn't transitory or shifting. It was solid. There was dust on the mantel. There was a piece of fabric in a frame and I could see every stitch of the cloth. The drywall was intricately and imperfectly textured, just as in real life. Everywhere I looked was as detailed as anything in reality, and it stood up to whatever scrutiny I gave it. I kept trying to push it into being dreamlike, and it wouldn't budge. It was so solidly rooted in reality and so focused. I was amazed at this. I knew I was inside of a dream, but it just didn't seem right somehow that it should be this detailed and realistic. There was nothing surreal or impossible about any of it. It seemed too real to be a dream. It seemed hard to believe that my brain was rendering this much detail in real-time. Why did it bother?

In the past it seems that if I dreamt of, say, a tree, I might only have experienced an impression of a tree. It might not even BE a tree, but for the purpose of the dream I accepted it as one and related to it as one. But this WAS a fireplace. This was real wood. There was nothing impressionistic about any of it. It felt like a REAL place. I began to feel strange about being there. I knew I had come to a place I had never been. This was a new life experience. But I began to feel a malevolent presence, and got the feeling that I shouldn't be there. It was almost as if I had discovered a loophole I was never meant to discover.

Then a weird thing happened. Some indistinct form fell from the ceiling. It was about the size of a football. I can't say exactly what it looked like. If I had to put it in physical terms I would say it was something like a skull, but that is not quite right. Anyway it was telling me (without actually speaking) that I should not be doing what I was doing. The implication was that I wasn't supposed to be there (in dreamland, wherever that is) with "open eyes". I was violating some kind of rule. I was seeing "behind the curtain" so to speak, and I wasn't supposed to. I tried to ignore it so I could look around some more, but it followed me. And then it said that if I wouldn't listen to it, then perhaps I might listen to this -- and then it "played" a message in my own voice, imploring me in a terrified whisper to "Please, please get out of there. You're not supposed to be doing this. It's not allowed. You have to leave. Please please listen to me. Stop doing this now. Wake up! Wake up!" My voice sounded as if I were in severe pain or severely frightened. Anyway, that was enough to do it. Hearing my own disembodied voice warning me against something did the trick. I became terrified but didn't know how to wake up. I just started running and everything went black. Then I began seeing indistinct shapes and a sense of looming reality, but everything was tilted on its side, even though I was running upright. It was very disorienting. After a great struggle, I finally managed to break through and wake up. My heart was pounding.

But the experience didn't seem dreamlike at all. I felt as if I had actually been somewhere else. If I were more inclined toward fantasy, I would suggest I had been to an actual alternate reality, but I know it was a product of my sleep-deprived brain. I can't stop thinking about it though. I have never experienced anything like it. I am a heavy dreamer and have wonderful recall, but all other dreams I have ever had pale in comparison to that one. It is like night and day. It was hardly dreaming at all. It was more like traveling.

I'm wondering if anyone else ever experienced a similar sense of "I'm not supposed to be doing this..." while having a lucid dream. Has anyone else ever been warned off while in the dream? It was as if I were violating some basic rule and didn't have clearance to be there.

I know there must be resources here for trying to willfully instigate lucid dreaming, and I'm going to investigate them. Having experienced that little bit, I can imagine the amazing potential. Life would be so much more interesting if I could do that repeatedly (without that malevolent presence, though!)

Thanks

hi! congratulations on your first lucid dream. the "I'm not supposed to be here" thing can be easily explained. Dreams, especially lucid dreams are very auto-suggestive. Did you notice that at first you thought that in your brain, and only then did those fears materialise? Funnily enough you actually "summoned" that skull-sized thing or whatever it was. Experienced dreamers use this technique (consciously) to summon all sorts of objects at will, for instance if you think with conviction "If I look to the left, I'll see george washington fighting aliens" or "if I look to the left I'll see Jesus and the Buddha conversing on the meaning of life", and so forth- that skull was nothing but your own fear materializing itself- don't let it bother you- you created that skull and can just as easily destroy it.

Yes, some lucid dreams are stunningly real- I've had a few that just made you gasp, especially when you try to compare it to a virtual reality environment or computer game- there is no comparison since dreams can be just as real as real life, sometimes real-er if that makes sense. Basically that's because all we perceive from the outside world is actually what our sense organs tell us - electrical signals basically. And the brain can be quite adept at making them up when no real signals come in :)
Cheers!