Thread: My first lucid experience

I am a night person, and not just a late night person, but a "good lord I am going to have to be at work in a couple of hours" kind of night person. I am employed as a computer programmer, and I work 8am to 5pm on weekdays, and have weekends off. So, during my work week, I don't get as much sleep as I should, but make up for it with weekend sleep marathons. During such weekends, I usually have nothing to stress me out and as much time as I want to dedicate to sleep. Frequently, these long bouts of sleep result in extremely vivid dreams. While being a programmer at work, I am also a fairly talented artist, which I feel has an impact on my dreams. When I'm in a dream, its like exploring the inner soul of my creative, artistic side – and the resulting dreams are like exploring pieces of my own artwork. So basically, my job makes me extremely tired, and during the weekend I will have one, or several, very deep sleep sessions, in which my dreams seem to reflect my creative side.

That all said, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon this website. I suddenly realized that I was more familiar with lucid dreams than I had ever realized. Several times before visiting the website, I managed to make the realization that I was in a dream. However, I never managed to gain control of them. After visiting the website, I suddenly realized I could put a name to what I had nearly experienced in my dreams. I read through a fair portion of it, but the parts about how to realize you were in a dream seemed to stick out for me (purple dogs, changing times on your digital watch, etc). A week passed, and by the time Friday rolled around I was exhausted. I went to bed at 3:30am Saturday morning, and woke up at 3:30pm Saturday afternoon. During that sleep session, I had the exciting experience of going lucid, although it was just briefly. Here is what happened:

The dream I had been having involved a lot of running. I was running everywhere imaginable, preforming many urgent tasks that apparently had to get done in good time. I suddenly found myself running through an ancient, abandoned factory. The building was made of massive sheets of metal that had been worn down by the elements. Mosses and films coated the walls, and much of the building dripped with moisture, just like your lawn does in the early morning. The colors of the factory were predominately rusty browns and sandy tans. As I was running, I passed a massive hallway that jaunted off to my my left. The hallway opened into a massive area with large drainage grates running along the floor. Chains hung from the ceiling and were clicking lightly in a breeze that flowed in from the roof, from which large shafts of light descended, illuminating the area with a peaceful aura. It is through this hallway that I saw a little girl with pure white skin and a pure white dress, skipping merrily and peacefully along. At first I though nothing of her, but then I suddenly realized that I had been running for an impossibly long distance, and that I was in a building that simply couldn't exist. The unusual coloring of the girl might have also helped me realize that I was in a dream, just as a purple dog might, but for the most part it was my running and the building that tipped me off.

“I'm in a dream,” I said to myself, and suddenly remembered the information I had read about lucid dreaming on this very website.

Excited, I stopped running and returned to the large hallway. The girl was still skipping away from me, and had not noticed me.

“Hey you!” I called out, excited to get the opportunity to get her attention.

She stopped skipping and suddenly turned around to face me, her eyes peering directly at me. Her dress and skin were illuminated by shafts of sunlight that made her entire being glow radiantly, and for a moment all I could see was her face. Suddenly, however, I began to return to a waking state. Even as I regained consciousness, my imagination was still churning, but as I became more and more awake the dream drifted further, and further away, until it finally disappeared altogether. I took a moment to reflect on what happened. The experience was incredible. I have had very vivid and extremely intense dreams before, but never once did I make a conscious decision inside the dream world. It was amazing, being able to literally control my actions, if only just briefly, while inside my inner imagination. It was a really fascinating experience, and I hope there will be more to come.