I think i had my first Lucid Dream!!??

Hello everyone,

So I have been practicing/ studying lucid dreaming for about 3 weeks now. I have had no luck at all yet but I have had increased dream recall from writing in my dream journal. this has also allowed me to have more vivid dreams than I had before (way more vivid.)

Last night I was asleep for about 4 hours and was having a "ordinary dream" when I walked into a class room and saw one of my old high school teachers sitting behind the desk. at this point out of nowhere I said to myself (this isn't right I must be dreaming). All of a sudden I started to get really happy but I started "falling out of my dream" everything started to turn a whitish color and everything became blurry. At this point I told my self ok I read about this rub your hands together. but I did not seem to work, so then I told myself ok spin around in a circle. Problem was I didn't really know how. So I tried with all of my might to spin around and it worked!! Everything became clear and I was just standing there excited (but trying to hold it in at the same time because I didn't want to wake up.) So the first thought that popped into my head was FLY and so I jumped in the air and off I went through the window and into the city. I vividly remember telling my self to fly faster but to no avail (I was in a slow cruise control lol.) The city I ended up flying to looked like New York city. ( I have never been there but from what I have seen in pictures and on movies) I ended up in George Steinbrenner's office complex ( I have no idea why lol but it looked like a seen out of Seinfeld where George works for him.) he takes me in and talks and talks and then needs me to go run an errand for him in south America so I fly over there (took me forever on cruise control) When I got there for some reason that I can't remember they wanted to hurt me, so I started hovering on the ceiling trying to fly away but the power seemed to of left me. I then tried really hard to fly and blasted off through the roof on my way back to the city. Once I arrived back there I just couldn't take anymore of flying slow so I thought to myself I need a fast car or something so I summoned a Enzo Ferrari ( no idea where I got that idea but oh well its nice and fast.) I was driving around the city trying to find Steinbrenner's office complex when I for some I told my self "you know what, this has been fun but let me see if I can wake myself up. But before I do let me try a reality check." So I stuck my thumb through my hand and it worked! I was so excited I could barely take it so then I told my self wake up and boom I was awake staring at the wifey.
I couldn't believe what had just happened I laid there for about 5 minutes and just smiled at like 6 in the morning. I went to use the bathroom and tried to jump back in but it was just "regular dreams" for the rest of the night but I didn't care but I felt like I just had my first lucid dream.

1. So with all of that said I do want to state that my dream kind of seemed like a hybrid dream ( where I could control some things and for some of it I was just observing). Is this even a thing

2. I don't know if anyone has had this experience before but I could feel my actual physical body kind of. ( like I swear I remember scratching my ribs at one point while i was dreaming and thinking to my self wait how did I just fell that if I was dreaming) Has anyone experienced this before or is this an indicator I was or was not lucid?

3. my final question is if this was in fact a lucid dream why did I have a reality check at the end of my dream and not when I saw my old school teacher ( the point where i think i became lucid)

p.s. sorry about all of the grammatical errors but I am just excited I had to get all of this out.

thank you all for your responses in advance!!!

It's important to keep in mind that the only requirement for a dream to be "lucid" is that you know that you are dreaming. You don't have to RC in order to have a lucid dream - it's possible to become lucid without one (on the flip-side, it's possible to RC without actually becoming lucid, a sign of bad RC practice in waking life). You also don't have to have dream control in order to have a lucid dream - control is just often a side effect of being lucid (on the flip-side, it's possible to have good dream control without actually being lucid). So all that in mind, based on this line:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theu1986

at this point out of nowhere I said to myself (this isn't right I must be dreaming).

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you most definitely did have a lucid dream. Congrats!

So based on that, it's easy to answer your remaining questions.

1) It's not really known as a hybrid dream, it's just a lucid dream where you don't have full control. Some people reference these dreams as being a lower "level" or "layer" - you can read more in this article from the Wiki: The Five layers of Lucidity - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views . A higher layer lucid dream is one where you are much more aware, have much clearer logic, and have much better control.

2) I've had that feeling in several lucids. It can be fairly distracting, and focusing on your real body lying in bed can actually make you wake up. However, it doesn't mean you aren't lucid, it just means that you're not quite fully asleep, or you maybe still have some conscious awareness of your body. If that happens again, try your best to ignore it, and instead turn your attention to the dream scene. Engage all your senses in the dream in order to stabilize it (I find it usually works best to rub my hands on everything around me in order to ground myself in the dream). You can learn more about stabilization in this article from the Wiki: Dream Stabilization and Clarity Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

3) No particular reason. From your description, it sounds like a Layer 2 lucid, where you may know you're dreaming and have some control, but your logic is not 100%. So if you thought of doing an RC, you just did it. There's nothing wrong with doing an RC when you're already lucid - it can actually be another good way to stabilize yourself in the dream, and can reinforce the notion that you're dreaming, reducing the chance of you losing your lucidity later in the dream.

Hope that helps!

^^^ thank you so much that brings a lot of clarity ^^^^