So... Does This Count as Lucid?

I'll cut to the lucid part... I was made to wait in a small room that had a floor fan that was running, and it wasn't plugged in. I stared at it, and made it stop with my mind. I knew I was dreaming...

The joy of this realization overpowered me a bit (which is strange, cause it's the 5th time since I restarted in 2011 trying to have lucid dreams), and I jumped into a little dance in this small room, while a dream rap song began playing. It was something silly and humorous out of a movie (I had just seen parts of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, and Johnny Depp's senseless dance at the end must've mated with Sandra Bullock's stupid dance in The Proposal), but mostly, I was just happy, so I danced.

I find this particularly odd now, because usually when I become lucid, I get an urgent sense of purpose. The first good lucid dream I had in January, after I knew I was dreaming, I literally said, "Okay, down to business..." and flew.

This time, I danced around. HOWEVER; I did do some tricks I've read about here, so I'm inclined to say I was genuinely lucid.

Silly me, I jumped in front of a mirror, thinking, "That's something I've never done in a dream before!", but that's a Reality Check, not a grounding technique. It was kind of scary, but my happiness (and the intelligence to know if I allowed it, fear would overtake the dream) kept me in the moment. What I saw looking back was me, but like something out of Jacob's Ladder or The Ring, all schizophrenic, fast-forward and jumping in position.

I danced over to a refrigerator in the room, remembering someone told me to eat something to better ground myself within the dream, looked in the freezer, and logic dictated all the items in there were frozen. Kind of annoyed me, but I kept my cool (I was like, really? this is my DREAM, and the freezer has to really be a freezer?), opened to bottom of the fridge, pulled out a packet of strawberries in a plastic wrap (why was I making things MORE difficult??) and ripped it open, grabbed one out, and ate it.

I tried to imagine the taste, I got the texture about right, but it wasn't too flavorful. At that, I noticed something on the opposite side of the room and forget what it was, and my wife rolled around in the bed and woke me up!

Is it possible to "pretend" you're lucid in a dream, doing the things you'd do, but you're not REALLY in control? Wouldn't that scenario produce a lucid dream, even if at first it was just you *dremaing* you're lucid?

i feel as if ive had dreams about lucid dreaming, but that sounds pretty lucid to me

I don't understand how this would not be a lucid dream. It sounds like you knew you were dreaming beyond a doubt. Thinking isn't always crystal clear in lucid dreams. And control is not necessary for it to count as a lucid.

That's the part I wasn't sure on, if thought is hazy and I'm not reacting like *I* would react, am I still lucid. But that's cool -- I mean, I did know I was dreaming and was trying to gain more control... but it was so unlike me. My last lucid dream was muddy, and even then I pushed all the "distractions" out of my way (usually characters, but I was alone in last night's dream), and work at controlling the dream. In this case, it felt like the DREAM was the distraction.

I'm working on a new idea, where I will focus on visualizing DOORS. I may even create some HD videos of doors appearing in various places with After Effects, to juice up my mind's determination to do this. That way, no matter what scenario I find myself in when I become lucid (in this case, a 15x10ft room), I'll be strong at creating a door where ever I want, and walk thru it TO where ever I want.

Seeing the mirror and eating the strawberry was interesting, and maybe I need to keep doing this preliminary dream tests/experiments, but I wanna REALLY start cooking, building worlds, scenarios, music, characters, etc.

Oh, and PS: I had this dream in the 2nd REM cycle, after taking Acetyl-L-Aarnitine with Lipoic Acid about a half hour to an hour before I went to bed.

The line does become a little hazy at times. Awareness in my lucids seems to vary along a spectrum. True, there are dreams where I am pretty much in my "right mind" and am thinking almost like I do in waking life, but it seems in most of them my thoughts are a little different from waking life thoughts. I am often easily distracted and interested in things that wouldn't normally interest me. Sometimes my thoughts in lucid dreams are downright strange even though I am completely aware I am dreaming. Like in my LD from a couple of nights ago. I was talking to my band's drummer when he shrank to the size of a smurf. For some reason I thought it would be hilarious to go put him inside the upright bass. Not what I would usually think of as a dream goal. But I was completely lucid at the time.

I really have the best control and feel most accomplished in the morning when I have a very clear goal for my lucid that I think about during the day and as I fall asleep (or WILD). Sounds like that is what you are doing with the doors. I am working on the doors to other locations thing too. I have no problem finding doors in dreams. It is having what I want on the other side that gives me trouble. Especially in a familiar location like my house. The door will always lead where it does in real life. I am experimenting with using portals instead, hoping that since I don't encounter them every day I can control them better.

rofl, excellent dream goal

I have yet to come close to a WILD, and I'm really determined but have little time to do it. I'm gonna try tonight (after a WBTB around 5:00am). I seem to retain "goals" somewhat well, even in choppy lucid dreams, so I'm hoping the doors work.