First Lucid?

[Dempa]

I've been lurking these forums and attempting to lucid dream for approximately 3 weeks now. Up until last night, i've had little success, Although i'm still not sure if last night was a success or not. In my dream I was at a mates house in a suburb called Sunrise and decided I was going to go to the shops for a bite to eat. As I left his house, I turned down a street and around the corner and then realised I was in a suburb called Marcus Beach which was approximately 6 or 7km away. So I was quite confused at this point, when all of a sudden my mate (who's house I was previously at) turns around the corner and was walking over to me. It was only about 5 seconds after realising I was in Marcus Beach and my mate coming over that I said to myself "This is so weird, I must be dreaming." So I proceeded to do a reality check by holding my nose and trying to breath. Although I already suspected I was dreaming I still was suprised to be breathing through my nose while closed off. I said loudly "I'm dreaming!" My mate was still standing about 2 paces away from me and said "Thats right!" (As of now i'm still confused about if he was there to help me achieve my first lucid or was just a coincidence) So at this point, I'm extremely excited that I am dreaming and just imagined myself laying in my bed. I found it extremely weird that I could be standing here right now and laying in bed at the same time. So after that another friend drives by and happens to pick us up and all I can think of was that I was dreaming. All I seemed to do in my lucid experience was just think and ponder about how excited I was and various things about lucidity such as me still laying in bed at the present time. After this things just seemed to continue as normal and just seemed to be a very normal dream after about 5 minutes of being lucid and thinking. The weird part about my whole dream was that in waking life, all I can think about is all the cool things I want to do while lucid, such as flying, transforming, teleporting, imagining scenarios and so forth. But in my first lucid dream I didn't even think about doing a single one of those things. This particular night I actually had an alarm set for 4.00am to attempt a FILD. Although I never woke up during the night so I must have slept through it. So my main question to you all is: -Was this a lucid dream if I realised I was dreaming yet failed to do anything different? I'm quite excited about lucid dreaming now as I seem to have had some success, however slight it may be. I can't wait till my next one!

[Freemorph]

Well congrats on that lucid! And yes that sure does sound like a lucid dream to me. And to your question, you were just excited and good thing you didn't try anything like controlling to much of it or else it would of stopped. You lasted pretty long for a first and I think just you thinking and taking it all in helped because you didn't do much in the dream to disrupt it. It's great that you are thinking ahead of what you want to do next time that will really help you out. Read some control and stabilization guides (sure you have already) and welcome to the world of lucid ;D P.S. My first lucid was the CANWILD way but way before I ever knew about it. I just woke up out of nowhere and didn't move and BAM went right into a dream. It only lasted a few seconds but it was an amazing experience to be able to move around and what not. P.S.S. (lol) May I ask what method you are using? And do you keep a DJ?

[Dempa]

Thanks for your post MadWorld For the most part I have been attempting FILD. Although in reality i've only ever woken up for the alarm twice. All the other times I have either woken up before the alarm was set off, thus me being awake for the alarm or I didn't wake up at all/computer shut down for updates. Yeah, I have been reading up on a LOT of guides. If I ever need to stabilize myself i'm sure i'll be using the spinning around technique. If not, I'll focus on my surroundings paying attention to detail and whatnot. I have also attempted WILD several times and I find that I have not achieved anything near to Sleep Paralysis (from what I have read). And I seem to have a problem with the swallow reflex which I am not sure if it impacts on my body thinking i'm awake. As for the Dream Journal, I have a journal on my bedside table and have for about 2 days now. I haven't started writing in it yet as i've had a fairly busy week. Currently I recall about 1 dream per night and some nights none. But when I do recall dreams I could probably write a whole A4 page down haha

[Freemorph]

Nice! WILD is what I am focusing on right now and I have had one lucid so far and just last night slipped into SP for a few seconds til it confused the hell out of me it was weird. But that's great you are showing some progress. I'm like that with writing, I had a dream the other night and wrote a whole page but it's amazing as I wrote I kept remembering more and more. so DJ's are great for me. FILD seems interesting too, would you care to explain how YOU do it?

[Dempa]

Considering I have not succeeded with the FILD technique, i'm not sure how much use this information will be to you . I believe the type of LD I had last night was a DILD if i'm not mistaken. Anyway, the way I have been doing the FILD technique is pretty basic. I have a program on my computer called Easy MP3 Alarm Clock. The beauty of this program is the alarm rings for 5 seconds and stops, so there is no need to get out of bed to turn it off. I also have my laptop plugged in and on 'Power Save' mode, which decreases CPU speed and LCD brightness to 0%. I also have the setting which turns my laptop monitor off after 1 minute of inactivity, but I have sleep mode set to never so that the alarm always goes off. I set this alarm for 4.00am and go off to sleep and try not to worry about it. I find that if I think about it heaps I might trick my body clock into waking me up around that time making the alarm useless. When I wake up from the alarm I try not to move and have been successful in not moving every time when the alarm wakes me up. I then start moving my index and middle fingers ever so slightly up and down. I keep repeating to myself in my head "I will do a reality check in 1 minute" until I believe it has been about one minute. I then do the breath through nose RC and hope for the best. If it fails, some nights I attempt to do WILDs if I don't have to be up early in the morning. Although the way I have been attempting FILDs is very basic, you asked for it so there you are! Good luck if you choose to attempt it.