I think I had my first LD, can someone confirm or explain a bit?

Hi guys.

A couple months ago I had two episodes of sleep paralysis in the same night (I was going through very severe anxiety).

I freaked out big time, asked my friends and nobody knew what it was, then I researched the internet and found this subreddit along with the wikipedia article about it.

Fast forward until this morning, everything is normal, I wake up (slept 4:30h only), went to class 2h, then I came home and tried to sleep.

What happened there is I started dreaming sexy things, but then I kinda realized I could "manipulate" the dream, and I knew it was a dream. Still I tried to hold into it, and suddenly I decided to walk out of the building.

The sun, the landscape, the brightness of the beach, it all felt so real. I just kept walking, it was not a place I had seen before but some details reminded me of places I had been before.

I found some friends at the beach, and one of them was drinking a bottle of beer, so I took it and threw it. Then I went to examine the remains. The shattered glass looked very real, so much that I was affraid to cut myself with it so I didn't touch it.

Then I found another friend of mine, but she's not getting along with the rest of the other friends IRL so something kind of clicked and the dream stopped.

I woke up, and I had an episode of sleep paralysis again. Again the helpless feeling that you can't move, your arms weight a ton. Then I saw two dark figures on the corner of my eyes (like they were watching me from both sides of my bed) and a female laugh (similar to my sister's).

I was fucking terrified, my breathing fastened, but then I remembered that it was a hallucination (last time it happened I didn't have hallucinations, but I read in wikipedia it's a common thing).

Then I completely woke up, half terrified half amazed. Went to my sister's room, she's still asleep.

Hi!

I believe that was indeed a lucid dream, since you mentioned that you knew it was a dream. Congrats!

Also, good thing you didn't panic when you felt paralyzed, and that you reminded yourself the things you heard and saw were just hallucinations. That's a very great feat, in my opinion. It's very hard, i think, to convince oneself when it comes to that. Even I have a hard time reminding myself when I get scary auditory hallucinations like bed shaking, scraming and banging on the door, etc.

Next time when you wake up paralyzed, maybe you can try reentering the dream? Visualize it while you are laying there, and try to slip back into it. That is another method of attaining lucidity, called DEILD.

Congrats again, and best of luck! :)

Hi, thanks for answering.

I really panicked for a while after hearing the laugh, it wasn't instantaneous. Then it faded away and I don't think I could have entered it again, I was very excited (both afraid and amazed).