Thread: My First Lucid Dream

I guess it's been about a week since I started trying to lucid dream, thinking about dreaming more than I ever had before. I've been trying WILD for a few days, with only very limitted success, semi-lucidity, failed reality checks and false awakenings. Last night I finally broke through that metaphorical wall and become fully lucid... though the experience wasn't quite what I'd have liked it to be.

It was after several regular dreams, and I found myself stood in my bedroom. In my hand was a CD case, black on one side. I wanted to see the cover on the other side so I turned it over to look, but the other side was black too. I thought to myself 'that's like something that would happen in a dream...' and BANG. That was all I needed. After days of constantly thinking in the back of my mind 'maybe I'm dreaming', just that simple thought was all I needed to become lucid.

The first thing I thought after that was that I needed to do a reality check. The digital clock one was the first one I'd learned, so I put my hand in my pocket to get my phone (I have an analogue watch) but remembered that I was dreaming, thus asleep, thus my phone was on charge as I put it there every night before I sleep. So I went down next to my bed to get my phone, but suddenly it became really difficult to move, like I was in a clunky spacesuit, and the sheets on my bed were getting in my way so that I couldn't see the display on my phone, like the dream didn't want me to know it was a dream.

This only convinced me more though, and although I gave up on the phone, I decided I was definitely dreaming. Looking around my room, I knew that I wanted to test it out and leave the familiar place. So I looked at the wall, and figured, if I can pick up a CD case, I can level this wall. So I throw my hands forward like I'm something out of the ****ing X-Men, and... nothing happens.

To try a different tact, I think I'll take a Narnia-type approach and escape through the wardrobe, so I open the door and there are clothes and everything, and I try to go in but of course I just get all tangled in the clothes and coathangers are falling everywhere. At this point the touch of the materials and the sounds seem so realistic that I begin to wonder if I am, in fact, dreaming. I worry that my family is going to walk in at any moment and see me trying to get into the wardrobe and think that my sudden obsession with dreams has driven me insane. More to the point, I didn't know it was possible to be so embarassed when it's just you alone in a room.

Looking through the blinds in my window, I see it is daylight outside, but raining, and my bedroom lamp is on. Another reality check is, as I'm sure you all know, to try light switches, however I didn't know what the light level in the room should have been so I didn't think that would work (I know, that's not how that check works, that's just how the logic went in my brain at the time). I stood there trying to think of another check I could do, and remembered the reflections were different or faulty in dreams. I walked toward my bedroom mirror, but just before I saw what was inside, I woke up.

I hear that most people, when becoming lucid for the first time, have great emotions of excitement that cause them to wake up. My emotions were uncertainty and scepticism, and I suppose that's why I was trapped in the room (and didn't think of simply using the door).

Still, it was something of an experience, and now I know that I can do it, I'll certainly be doing it again.