Hello everyone, I'm a 25 year old student from Sweden. I found this site a few days ago when I was searching on ways to control dreams so I could describe it better on another message board. I didn't know it was this big, the last time I tried some years ago I didn't find anything, but probably because I was searching for the wrong things. It seems that official dream research in this area still hasn't come all that far, and even one of my books in psychology A said that they had no reports of it happening so it's a relief to find this site so I know I'm not all that crazy :P
I really haven't read enough of the basic things here, so I'm not familiar with a lot of the terms used. Probably won't post a lot the coming two weeks due to time constraints but will read up things and start to keep a dream journal (although not online yet). I'll try to write a quick recap of my experiences so far.
The first times I knew I was dreaming was as a kid during some reoccurring nightmares and I said things like 'No!' 'I refuse!' or 'I want to wake up now!' and that got me out of it and most of the time before getting hurt. Later on if I got one again I found out that if I blinked and then thought about opening my eyes I woke up instantly which is preferable during a nightmare. The first time I was able to change something was when I was walking around a corner and I knew there was something really bad behind that corner and this time I didn't think about waking up for some reason. I felt a slight terror as the corner got closer and pictured a little white rabbit in my head and tried to tell myself that that's the thing that's behind the corner and it actually worked, but I was so shocked to see it that I woke a few seconds after it.
These dreams where I could control what would happen then happened every 1 or 2 months and most of the time it was about something sexual and I don't think I really should go into detail into that. I can say though that the first times were rather short since I would either wake up too soon or lose control when I found out that I was slowly waking up and trying to compensate it by letting go and I let myself slip too far. I've always had a problem with that, too much control = thinking too much about that this is just a dream and it won't be too long before I wake up.
One of the few dreams where I didn't go for something sexual I tried to search for Napoleon. I drifted through the air (Never gotten flying to work really, this time I was transporting myself over a map and then it zoomed in when I got to where I was going. There was no sensation of speed involved. Normally when I try to fly it's more of a sideways swim one meter above the ground and it's not exactly fast) and landed at his command tent in Poland. I knew it was his tent and the guards outside didn't say anything when I walked past them. Napoleon wasn't there though and I wasn't sure on what to do. I went back outside and looked at how big the camp was and then went back inside since it would be impossible to find him by walking around aimlessly. I sat there for a while but eventually the dream faded and I went back into normal sleep.
The thing with this lucid dreaming is that I'm not sure I want it or not. While you are dreaming it sure is good, but when I wake up it's not very often that I feel happy, most of the time I feel sad because of how my current life is and how far away it is from being like in the dream. On the good side I've awoken to an orgasm twice, but on the bad side there are lots of feelings of emptiness. The most painful memory is from when I met some girl and I decided we were in love and for the first time ever I really felt intensely loved and we danced and smiled so much, and kissed. The second time we kissed I felt I was becoming awake and I instantly let go of all control to try to stay at least a few seconds longer. I didn't wake up, and for once I stayed in the same dream, possibly because she was holding onto me. The really bad thing is that it was now a normal dream and I got even more in love. It felt endless, and I really thought it was real. It went on for a while and in the dream I cried tears of joy because I had finally found what I always wanted. Images flashed and she disappeared for a while and when she comes back I see her pregnant and I follow her up to the house we just bought. The front door had no door, and when I walk in and place my hand on the doorframe I wake up.
The disappointment when waking up to find it wasn't real after all was like a huge black hole. It felt like I had lost a real person, I kept saying 'noo...noo...noo...noo...' and tears were streaming down my face and I laid curled up in a ball for close to an hour.
After that when I noticed I was dreaming I woke myself instead almost every time since I didn't want anything like that to happen again, but around 3 months ago I had my wierdest experience so far. Sometimes when I fall asleep I begin to dream just shortly afterwards, possibly due to a very warped sleeping schedule, and rarely even while falling asleep. In most of those I wake up again because instead of being inside a dream I see clear pictures of things in my mind shimmering past and I feel I'm not sleeping yet and I lose focus of the pictures, or I experience falling and jerk an arm out to try to stop the fall.
Now this time I was lying on my bed with my eyes closed and had intended to rest for a while only. I was more tired than I thought and began to doze off. Suddenly I see the face and shoulders of a slightly cartoonish fireman appear above where my feet are and it comes closer and gets larger. I become aware that it's not real. I know I'm lying in my bed and that I have my eyes closed, but I can still see the image. The image disappears and then two seconds later it appears again and begin to come closer. I know I will be able to change the image the next time around and wonder about what I want to see. I decide to see someone naked, but who? I had had a little crush on a classmate just before and decided on her since I couldn't think of anyone else at the moment. The timer was ticking after all, I needed to decide before the next image appeared. I was thinking 'Is this right?' because at the moment we were friends, we had decided we weren't compatible after all, and I answered myself 'No' but then countered with 'But I want to!' At that time it was time for the image to appear and I concentrated real hard on her face to get it right and then added the body of a dryad I had seen in a picture because I wasn't sure at all how it looked like.
It failed, no image came. Instead I felt a blackness coming closer and my brain began to hurt. I concentrated harder to get it to appear but still nothing happened, only the pain increased. When the picture was supposed to reach the spot where it would vanish I woke up screaming in pain and raised my hands to press against my head. For some reason my left side of the brain felt like it had gotten overloaded, the pain was searing, but also chilly and numb and the only thing I could hear was blood pumping in my left ear, something I could also feel since one of my hands was over that ear. When the pain was subsiding I wondered why I hadn't felt anything in the right half of the brain and I still have no idea what happened.
I do enjoy some of them, especially the really clear ones where vision is better than ever, like a high resolution version of life, and all the other senses are enhanced too and you can hear the wind blowing through the grass, smell sweet fragrances, feel warmth and experience taste. It's worth it those times when you come back to the real world, but they are so rare. And I already daydream so much and need to get more in touch with reality, not lose it even further. But since it seems they won't just go away and I've already failed at deciding to just wake up every time instead I think I should learn on how to control it better so I can choose more freely on what I really want to do during a lucid dream. I really want to focus way less on love/sex but right now without the proper training that's where it's heading almost every time. I guess it's because I'm the loneliest guy I know and it's what I desire the most, but there must be some way I can get out of it.
Sorry if it got slightly long for being an introduction post. I maybe should have posted parts of it in another forum but I felt it belonged more here since it describes my past somewhat.
