Assistance in First-Time

[MiscellaneousPastry]

I've been studying the topic of lucid dreaming for several days now, gathered as much information as I can and begun the process of achieving lucidity while dreaming. I have a mind that really makes this a lot easier, because habilitating myself to do things like reality checks has been ridiculously easy. The problem, however, is that my reality check doesn't help me. Foggily, I remember actually doing the reality check in my dream, which is looking at my hands and away, asking if I'm in a dream, and then looking back, but the thing is that in my dreams, physics almost always maintain consistency with reality; it's PEOPLE that act strange. I can't think of a universal reality check, however, that could be performed in any wide variety of circumstances with human behavior that my mind wouldn't immediately try to rationalize within the dream. Does anyone have any suggestions for a method I could use, reality checking or otherwise, that would help me attain lucidity? If it's of use, there's normally a uniform way that people act. They keep their own appearance, voices, and to an extent, personalities, but my mind morphs everyone's way of thinking a bit, my own included. First of all, people don't seem to ever do things at the same time. There's always one person in the spotlight, saying or doing something very impactful. Often, my dreams will set themselves up in repeatable loops in these situations and others. People's lines sound completely normal in the dream, except that there's just this general feeling of SOMETHING being odd, but would be ridiculous in reality most of the time (although they've gotten more realistic lately). Also, I'm a foot fetishist, and in my dreams, my mind likes to erase the prejudices and stereotypes that the real world has, so in MANY of my dreams, I will find myself at least almost achieving a fetishistic situation. This is one of my biggest dreamsigns. Alternatively, I've been trying to achieve lucidity for two nights. On only my second night, I came inches from achieving a WILD. As I was focusing on hypnagogic images with my eyes closed, after about half an hour and focusing very intently, I felt the bed beneath me disappear, the images became a bit more vivid, and I knew that I was entering a dream state. My heart started to pound, but I did all that I could to keep myself calm and repeated to myself that it was a lucid dream and that I could control it. After about 20-30 seconds, I felt myself drift back to an almost-normal state, except that at that point, I couldn't tell if it was a dream or not. It turned out not to be. People say that WILDs are almost impossible to achieve, but I came extremely close on my first attempt at going into one. Does this mean that I should turn to a WILD approach rather than reality checks and dreamsigns? Thank you for any and all assistance, cheers to all

[MementoMori]

well, it seems to me that you're on the right path. It takes time as well, but i wouldn't doubt you'll be Lucid Dreaming in no time. Just don't over work the process.

[MiscellaneousPastry]

You think so? Thank you ^^

[apocalypse]

to the forum. You are doing a great job already. You have already begun to initiate your "dreaming" attention & recognizing your own dreamsigns. You should use what ever you can that works for you best, WILD reality checks & dreamsigns. I hope you enjoy it here and I look forward to you reporting your successes. Others can enjoy & benefit from your experience, if you start a dream journal here too. sweet dreams, and good luck!

[MiscellaneousPastry]

Glad to know I'm on the right track =] One thing I do need to work on is that I either never seem to have dreams or else they decide to evaporate from my memory immediately after my awakening. That's gotten better just in the short time I've been doing this, so I'm confident that with time, I will finally reach the ability to remember my dreams and lucidity, at which point I would love nothing more than to assist others. Thank you for the encouragement =D