Hello!

[Bumblebee]

Hi everyone, I thought I introduce myself as hopefully I'll get to know some of you as I get better at this! About 6 months ago I started looking into NDEs, astral projection and the like, after a long time being a stout Atheist and arming myself with Science to disbelieve in anything other than the physical (a defense mechanism due to my Mums experiences while I was a kid which scared the crap out of me). I've always been open minded but clung onto those defenses to stop myself experiencing anything I couldn't explain. Now, I remain both open minded and skeptical but I'm starting to want to experience things outside of the box I built around myself. The way I see it, either the "dreamscape and beyond" are real places, and when I die I will end up there so I might as well get used to it now - or they are purely products of the brain, in which case I'm wasting a lot of sleep time unconscious when I should be making the most of this time to experience as much as I can in a lifetime! I've had two lucid experiences after trying to astral project. Both times were the times I wasn't actually trying - the first I heard a voice outside when I was drifting to sleep, it was muffled at first but when I focused on it it became clearer. It was a male voice chanting a mantra (I assume this was my hypnogogic point) which lead into me floating in my bedroom. I thought "Wow, this is possible!" then started freaking out, but my subconscious created a dream scenerio for me to beat the fear (I'll post about it fully when I start writing a dream journal). When I woke up I thought - that was amazing! The second time an "outside" influence lead me in a guided meditation to sink into blackness. This time I ended up in a semi lucid dream which I later became lucid in. Again I woke up thinking - That was pretty cool! After that I had a few nightmares which scared me out of trying again. It made me realise I had a lot of nasties lurking in my subconscious and I was worried about experiencing them "for real". So it's been on hold for a few months. Then, I watched Avatar in 3d... I know it sounds corny, but after reading a post on here about someone going to Pandora in a LD it gave me a renewed strength to try it out. If LDs can be that pretty, then it's definately something I want to try. So far, I'm doing reality checks in waking life and whenever I wake during the night (right now I wake a lot during the night as I have a 7 month old who doesn't sleep well, so I tend to wake even when she doesn't!). I know that at some point I will have to try something more proactive like WILD, but I still find it hard to give up my control to the dreamscape - as soon as I get images form I feel like I'm going to fall into them and get worried about control, therefore waking myself up. I'm hoping the RCing will let me catch a FA so I can experience a few LDs to get used to it... but if it takes too long I'll starting WILDing etc. I have the same problem with meditation - I really need to work on my control issues! Thanks for such a great site, and I hope I can join you all in LDing soon!

[morbid73]

cool! and goodluck to both of us, but unlike you, i'm still new to everything! friends? hehe

[LipeMarques]

hello, it is cool that you have Lucid dreams that easily, i still have none, but i just learned about it 2 days ago, you know, i read that if ou become lucid in a nightmare you can fight it and beat it... just for you to know... And dream on!