Greetings

[Happiness is a Warm Gun]

Hey all, been lurking for a couple weeks now so I figured it would be good to man up and register an account. I've been meditating/reading to Venom's lucid dreaming mp3s for 3-4 days now, and they've increased my dream recall (as well as encouraged me to start waking up after semi-lucid dreams) very quickly. Currently, I can recall an average of 2 semi-lucid dreams per night, and I'm hoping for some advice on improving my lucidity. At the moment, I've got a lot more control over my dream reality than even a few months ago, but I'm still lacking in key ways. I've been able to change the scene if it's one I didn't like, tame dream animals, and give myself powers like teleportation in combat scenarios, but I still don't seem to realize that I'm dreaming. Additionally, I get the impression when fully lucid, people can think to themselves while dreaming, but I haven't developed an inner-voice yet; I simply react to dream situations without conscious thought. I think part of my issue is that I'm still not doing consistent reality checks. I don't understand the 'holding the nose' technique. When I hold my nose/close my mouth and attempt to inhale or exhale, my diaphragm still expands and contracts as it would if it were moving air. This means that my waking reality checks seem to fail just like my dream ones, because I still feel like i'm breathing despite not intaking additional air, unless I do them 3-4 times in a row until I'm actually out of usable air. I've never noticed air flow in my dreams, so if I have to think with every failed reality check, "well, just keep trying, these results might just be your imagination" it seems like the method wouldn't be very useful in dreams. E: Also, I'm finding it interesting that I seem to dream about the same place each time. I dream about being in different places in my home city, and though the layout is different from the city's real layout, it's the same every time in my dreams. For example, I can travel by car, trolley, or just walking from the setting of a dream I had last night to the setting of a dream I had last week, and feel like I understand where the settings all are in relationship to each other. I might even be able to draw up a map of my dream world soon. Thanks for any advice and for the great resource that is the dreamviews LD forums.