I'm not perfect at this, and sometimes I question if what flashes before my eyes is real or not, but I've had a couple odd experiences as of late.

A week or two ago I began a dream, nothing important was going on until I saw a pair of red eyes in the bushes. I asked myself if they were eyes and then immediately told myself not to think that way or else they would turn into eyes because I was asleep and if I imagined it to be real, it would be. - I suppose I could blame BBC Sherlock for that - suddenly I had an urge to fall asleep, I told myself that if I woke again I would be in control, and I was. Since the only other time I remember having control I spent flying for the rest of the dream, I have nothing to compare it to. The dream was simple, I woke up in a bed and looked around, saw myself in the mirror looking nothing like myself and walked down a set of stairs in a house I'd never seen wondering what I would do in my dream. Many ideas came to me and I started getting excited, but I shrugged them off and decided to focus on something simple, making an ice cream cone appear. This took a couple minutes longer than I'd expected it, and I for the first time remember the taste of a food from my dream and the elation I had from making it appear. At this point I was ready for something more, so I attempted to transport myself to another place, thought I'd be ready. I simply sunk to the ground and woke up.

I apologize, but this will get longer. Last night I also knew I was dreaming, however I decided instead to search around rather than make anything happen. It's not as though I didn't want to make anything happen, my mind seemed to be blocking that part off. I made choices in the dream, like whether or not to do something that would get me excited or nervous enough to forget I was dreaming, but I didn't really do anything.

This has happened recently, I believe, because I didn't get sleep the nights before both these dreams happened. I have awful insomnia and for the first time I'd decided to attempt partially correcting my sleep schedule by passing up a couple nights. It just makes me wonder. Could I classify these as lucid experiences?