Hi.

I'm new to the board but not new to lucid dreaming. I hope you guys don't mind if I just tell a bit about what my lucid dreams are like so that you can tell me how they compare to yours This is exciting for me because I've never talked to anyone else who can control their dreams, I'm just self-taught and don't know anything about it!

So, the way I taught myself was by concentrating very hard, before I fall asleep, on thinking "I'm only dreaming .. I can control anything in a dream ... I can do whatever I want, it's only a dream, it's only a dream .." Eventually I could reproduce that thinking while in the dream. I'd just stop and realize "wait a moment, I'm dreaming!" At first I couldn't do much, I'd get distracted very easily and lose the consciousness right away. That's been slowly improving, though.

Nowadays I can keep up the consciousness for quite a while, or if I lose it I can regain it. I can decide what to do, and I can even morph my surroundings a bit. I have one main problem ...

You know how in normal dreams, you often have that sensation of your eyelids being dragged down, or everything being dark and thick? I can't make that go away when I lucid dream. I'll realize very fully that it's there, and I'll think about it, and physically try and lift my eyes and my head, but it doesn't work. Is this just a stage of learning that I'll eventually overcome? Any ideas of ways of defeating it?

Please reply and I'd love to just hear other people's stories of learning to lucid dream, or compare with my "style" of lucid dreaming.