Thread: First lucid experience, followed by 2 more! (w/ a pleasant meeting with my corpse)

A little background info:

I've been 'lucid training' for about 3-4 weeks now, and although my dream recall was slowly improving through consistent dream journaling, I didn't feel as if I was very close to actually becoming lucid, primarily because it didn't seem as if I had any strong dream signs.

I went to bed on Thursday excited since I knew I'd be able to sleep in and increase my chances of becoming lucid. However, upon waking, I could barely even recall the dream/s from that night. This was disappointing to say the least. I had the day to myself and decided to dedicate a portion of it to starting what I'm hoping to become a regular meditation schedule. I was meditating for about 15 minutes and kept dozing off every 3 or so (I need practice), and this dozing off gave me the idea to try to take a nap since I remember reading that naps can often times lead to lucid dreams. Also, I've never tried listening to Binaural Beats before, and thought I'd give it a whirl. I tried falling asleep to Lucid Dream Induction - "Neuroscape", but after probably 20 minutes I turned it off and took a nap in silence.

*Dream recall starts here*

I was being driven down my road (and back to my house) in my mom's car (a dream sign) by a guy who had long hair and seemed to be in his early 20s. I was in the backseat on the left, with a girl (about my age, 17) to my right, and the driver's seat was on the right as opposed to the left. I felt uneasy having someone else drive my mom's car and I decided to unlock the car. I had the car keys/remote in my hand and felt as if to unlock the car I needed to bounce the signal off of something and back at the car. I looked out the window and there was a group of 4-5 bikers that were riding on the sidewalk in the opposite direction and would pass by us every 20 seconds or so (reminiscent of a budget cartoon with a looping background) and I chose a girl from the group (again, about my age) as a target and kept trying to bounce the remote signal off of her, but I realized that I was pressing the lock button instead of the unlock button, but at this point I was over trying to unlock the car and just sat back as the driver pulled into my driveway. It was then when I started getting the strange feeling that something wasn't right. The first thing that came to mind was that I was in a dream and I immediately tried to fly out of my seat, but instead I pathetically lifted myself from my seat with my hands and exhaled in a really strange way and then sat back down. I realized that this could still be a dream and that I just don't have the skills needed in order to fly yet, so I asked the girl sitting next to me, "Where were we before this?" and she just ignored me (another dream sign) and that's when I really became lucid and started feeling myself fill my dream body. She told the driver, "we need to get Chris next." I asked the girl, "Why are you ignoring me?", and of course she continued to ignore me. I then turned to face the driver and say "This is a dream" but I woke up just before and said that with the lips of my actual body back in my bed with my eyes closed. I got up and started dancing in excitement.

That night, I had a dream that I can't exactly put into order/narrative form, but the main thing to take away from it is that part of one of the dreams involved me having to find a pair of lucid dream inducing shorts for a woman who was supposedly my boss.

I woke up from this and went back to bed after writing it all down. I now dreamt that I was skating in the front yard of my house and I felt really hot and sweaty and decided to go cool off in the pool in my backyard. I ran around back and jumped in but immediately got out because I remembered that I wanted to get my camera to film something related to what I was doing. But before I dried off I noticed a large roach swimming around on the surface of the pool, and I looked around for something I could use to get it out. I noticed a bowl in the pool and decided that would be perfect, but as I stepped in to retrieve it I noticed that the roach had become a beautiful red fish. It seemed divine in nature, and had very intricate patterns and things hanging off of it. It swam away from me, and as I waded in the pool I looked to my left and I saw a floating body. My first thought that it was someone who was at a recent party at my house that fell in and drowned, but this didn't seem very sad or morbid at the time, just interesting. I continued to look at the body and noticed it was wearing a sweater of mine. I looked closer at its head/face and I realized it was me! This still did not freak me out, and as I continued to look at it, the other me's eyes opened and we locked eye contract for a few seconds and then it closed its eyes. I tried to fly away but failed, and the dream lingered on for a bit more without any memorable details.

I woke up, wrote that dream down, and went back to sleep. I don't recall the first dream, but recall falsely waking up in my bed. My room was rearranged differently, in an arrangement I had before with my bed facing my bedroom door. I was looking out into the dimly lit hallway and my younger brother walked into view from the left, looked in the direction where my bed usually is, then looked at me, and then kept walking. This made me realize that this is not how my bedroom is usually set up and I became lucid. I looked back into the hallway and saw my younger brother again, but this time he was half revealing himself from the edge of the door way and was staring at me menacingly. This did not scare me, and I simply tried to get up but could not. I falsely awoke in my struggle to get up, and I was now back in my bed with my room in its normal arrangement. I tried to move but could not. I realized I am probably experiencing sleep paralysis. I remembered that freaking out only makes this worse, and I remained calm, which was very surprising since I didn't feel very confident in being able to do this when thinking about sleep paralysis before. My cat (who was laying on my bed before I last fell asleep) was still laying on my bed and I decided to try to sit up and get close to/pet my cat because it seemed like it would call me down. I struggled against the sleep paralysis, which also effected my vision by causing my eyes to look upward, and finally fell towards my cat and starting petting him as he purred, and I awoke a few moments later.

What I found interesting:
-I didn't use my usual reality check method in any dream experience, which is the look at my hands
-Simply that I came face to face with a drowned-corpse version of me, and didn't feel frightened. Maybe it's a metaphor for how I've become a new person and have no regrets? The sweater my corpse was wearing was an older one so it could represent an older me.
-The fact that I didn't freak out under false sleep paralysis. Maybe this my mind's way of training me for when it actually happens?