Thread: Frustrating First-time Experience

Hey guys! I've been lurking these forums off and on for a while now, but this is my first post.

So here's the story. Quite a while ago I actively tried for about a month to improve my dream recall and achieve lucidity, but despite reading everything I could find on Google, I had little success. I believed (I'm not sure if I still believe this) that I was naturally disadvantaged at this, as I would estimate that on average I only remember one dream fragment per 3 or 4 nights of sleep. During my time when I was actively keeping a dream log, I recall waking up a few times and remembering entire dreams, or most of them, however I often found it difficult to write them down and ended up going back to sleep rather than recording them, and when I finally woke up for good, I would have forgotten. When finals came around, the combination of frustration and decreased sleep time caused me to more or less abandon the endeavor.
But then, out of nowhere and without really trying, I had my first lucid dream 2 nights ago. Sadly, I remember very few things about it, but I do recall an immense sense of gratification when I realized that I was dreaming and, what's more, that this realization had not caused me to wake up (as it did several times in the past). The dream was not a good one, at first, although it certainly was far from nightmarish. I was alone on a very large, perhaps military-type ship. The ship was anchored and I had no way of moving it, and felt I was stranded in the middle of the ocean. I then asked myself how I got into this situation, and realized that since there was absolutely no logical explanation, I must be dreaming. I do not really recall what I did specifically after I achieved lucidity (although I do remember thinking at one point, "I've got to remember this when I wake up!"), but I remember that I was in some manner doing the impossible, just for its own sake- I think specifically that I may have flown around the ship Superman-style, although I am uncertain of this.
Anyways, what I'm getting at is how simultaneously frustrating and fulfilling this experience was! It has given me a great desire to do this again, and while I would certainly prefer to remember my dream next time, the excitement and fulfillment of the moment was in and of itself so great that what I really want most is just the ability to do this again. I had always expected lucid dreaming to be somewhat similar to daydreaming, but with an increased sense of reality. But I was way off! The sense of reality was overwhelming, the experience so lifelike that it felt more like I was simply in control of the real world. I had no idea that my brain was capable of producing such powerful, convincing hallucinations (for lack of a better term)!

In any case, I just felt I had to get this experience out there and have another go at developing my recall and achieving lucid dreams. Look forward to seeing you all around the forums!
-Will

==EDIT==
Forgot to mention the frustrating part: I wonder if I have had more lucid dreams, perhaps even been lucid dreaming on a regular basis, but given my practically nonexistent recall, do not remember them! It seems that asking oneself how they got into whatever situation they're currently in would result in lucidity in a great number of dreams; the fact that in this particular case I thought to do that seems to me to be evidence that I may be doing this regularly, but not remembering it.