My first lucid experience...I think

[loray]

I'm driving a car...and that is when I know I am dreaming, for I do not drive in reality, it is not legal! However, I am driving this car very well. I am driving it up a hill and it is all dark. I stop the engine at the top of the hill. I know that if I turn the engine back on, the car will roll back, and spin out of control... so after a few seconds of thought, I turn it back on...and I am swerving around and around, down the hill. I slam my hand on the stearing wheel and the car stops, but I am trapped. I place my hands on the windscreen and it seperates into two and I jump out of the car, through the windscreen. Then I am gliding, off the side of the hill, and I feel as though I am flying, but I get too carried away, and then...I wake up. Can anyone explain this?! Was I lucid dreaming at all?!

[irishcream]

well, you might have been. did you get a sudden moment of clarity, where you thought 'i'm dreaming' and go from there? i usually get some indication that i'm dreaming, i don't just switch seamlessly from non lucid to lucid, something gives it away usually, an odd occurence, or a sudden desire to do something, for example, i had a lucid dream last night, and decided to make someone disappear. hope this helps.

[will.i.am]

I think it was lucid, when you wanted something to stop, it did. When you wanted something to move, it did.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by loray I'm driving a car...and that is when I know I am dreaming, for I do not drive in reality, it is not legal! However, I am driving this car very well. I am driving it up a hill and it is all dark. I stop the engine at the top of the hill. I know that if I turn the engine back on, the car will roll back, and spin out of control... so after a few seconds of thought, I turn it back on...and I am swerving around and around, down the hill. I slam my hand on the stearing wheel and the car stops, but I am trapped. I place my hands on the windscreen and it seperates into two and I jump out of the car, through the windscreen. Then I am gliding, off the side of the hill, and I feel as though I am flying, but I get too carried away, and then...I wake up. Can anyone explain this?! Was I lucid dreaming at all?! Yes, it was a Lucid Dream in that you knew you were dreaming at the time. That being settled, let's analyze the choices you made. You do understand that once a Dream becomes Lucid it should inform all of your Choices with the Understanding that you are a Dream Self -- that can Fly, that can go through Walls, and that cannot be killed no matter what. In most cases you are entirely free to walk out of one dream scene and to fly up and descend down into another -- I've heard some people simply walk through mirrors to change scenes. But you decided to stay with the Car Scenario. Good. The Car Dream is a common motif for dreams. It shows how one applies one's will power to assert control over one's life. Here your Higher Dream Self showed you in complete control while going up the Mountain, but then you had this insane anxiety about what to do next. It is like the famous Japanese Zen Koan, "What do you do after you climbed to the top of the flagpole?" To turn the engine off is the safe option, but then there is nothing. The Goal has been reached and now emptiness. You know that if you turn the engine back on, there will be a descent into insanity and chaos. You go for it. Everything goes crazy and you end up stopping the car, with frustrated anger rather than any true control input, at a level much lower than you had attained, and, feeling trapped, you escape. Sounds almost suicidal. They should take away your belt and shoelaces. But flying away shows a good choice. Don't worry that the dream dimmed right about then. All dreams are always on a time constraint. Some are a bit longer than others, but none go on forever. This Dream was an important Anxiety Dream -- important because it was allowed to become lucid which is signal that your Higher Dream Mind wanted to emphasize it. It was a Message. Perhaps you should re-evaluate your thinking about the top of the Mountain. Perhaps you should meditate on that Japanese Zen koan and figure out another alternative besides simply dropping off, when you achieve the Height of your Ambitions. Lucid Dreams are not so much about exercising Control as they are about making informed Choices. Each Important Dream is something of a Test, and you are graded and progress on how you respond to the Dream Material as it is presented. And then we have an opportunity to judge ourselves. We need to examine our dreams -- the choices we made and the results that followed and see if that is indeed showing us a Message for our Lives. Anxiety Dreams are something of a blessing and a curse. They are a big bummer to have, but studies have shown that people who have the most Anxiety Dreams are the very people who have the least to be anxious about. Apparently all of the Warnings they are given by their Dream Mind work out so as to keep them on the Successful Straight and Narrow.

[Resnemetan]

i usually get some indication that i'm dreaming, i don't just switch seamlessly from non lucid to lucid[/b] In all of my lucid dreams, except one, I became lucid with nothing that caused me to think that I was dreaming. For example: In my first LD, I was staring at the grass, it was green as usual, nothing odd about it, and suddenly I realized that I was dreaming and attempted to fly. In my most recent LD: I was talking to a girl and i suddenly realized that I was dreaming, with nothing to trigger my thinking of the possibility that I could be dreaming. I am not sure why i always do that.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Resnemetan In all of my lucid dreams, except one, I became lucid with nothing that caused me to think that I was dreaming. For example: In my first LD, I was staring at the grass, it was green as usual, nothing odd about it, and suddenly I realized that I was dreaming and attempted to fly. In my most recent LD: I was talking to a girl and i suddenly realized that I was dreaming, with nothing to trigger my thinking of the possibility that I could be dreaming. I am not sure why i always do that. Yes, exactly! The idea of doing Reality Checks is a technique developed by Seminar Operators so they don't feel guilty for giving people absolutely nothing for a Three Hundred Dollar wasted Weekend. People want techniques for Lucid Dreaming, and so people make this crap up, but when we actually look at how Lucid Dreaming works, all significant Lucid Dream come because the Consciousness Energy rise up and breaks through that certain Threshold. If the Energy Level is not high enough, even if we say to ourselves "this is all a dream" it would scarsely matter, since none of the intensity would be there. I'm glad somebody else has noticed this. One knows one is in a Lucid Dream because suddenly things are not only Real but they seem more intense than Real. Sometimes Lucidity comes as a reward. years ago I had a dream in which I was on a commando operation in a foreign country. We had just conducted a raid and my part was to cover for the evacuation of the Main Team. So I hung back to fire upon the pursuers. But they did not come in my direction... the idiots thought our escape route was off in a whole other direction. I shot at them as they went by, missing them, and thought it was time for my own escape, in a third direction. I boarded a passenger bus and hyjacked it. I acted very tough and took charge, or tried to take charge. But there was a young lady who began to talk back, and I realized I would have a problem. If she continued to call my bluff I would have to shoot her and I didn't want to do that, and so I asked the bus driver to stop the bus... I was simply going to find another escape, if this particular one was going to be so unpleasant. I looked down and noticed I was not wearing shoes. Here is a Hint! When you are not wearing shoes in a Dream, it means you are on Holy Ground. Getting off the bus, it looked like a gravel pit next to a rail yard, but it was exquisitely beautiful too. I levitated up and folded into a lotus postion and intoned an AUM. the air seemed to turn Violet (pinkish purple) and the air rippled in waves before about 20 feet infront of me the very fabric of Space tore open and the While Light poured out -- all into my forehead. There was no Reality Checking there. The Dream gave me a Test and I responded correctly enough so that a great deal of Energy was released. Dreaming is all about hitting certain milestones. And these very intense and special dreams are those Milestones.

[loray]

Thanks for all this advice! It all seems to be making sense now...no longer so confussed!

[Wicked]

Yes, it was a lucid dream. BUT. It doesn't matter at all if you had control (or, as will.i.am said: "When you wanted something to move, it did"), or clarity (I can have very fuzzy LD's all the time), what matters is that you realized you were in a dream, and that it wasn't real. That's the ONLY think that counts as a LD.