Okay, so I became "aware" of Lucid Dreaming about three weeks ago, and thought it sounded great, because I've always had really vivid and long dreams, and being able to control the dream world would be wild to me(as I already have a lot of dreams where I'll be doing something unbelievable, like jumping from freeway to freeway, I'm just not really in control). I was, however, extremely skeptical of these claims that dreams can be so realistic and once you're lucid you have full control over everything. My dreams are pretty wild, but I seem to know I'm dreaming most of the time, and I had never gained the control everyone was talking about. Still, I was willing to try, hoping that all these forum posts I had read weren't all just extremely exaggerated forms of the dreams I was already having.
So first, I read up on the steps to attaining Lucidity, starting with dream recall. I figured I had a head start on this, as I usually tell my dreams to someone, just because I find them so strange/long/clear, and I usually can remember most of my dreams even if I dream four times a night or more. I read up on doing reality checks and whatnot during the day, which I found to be kind of ridiculous, so I skipped out on that part. So, after reading about different techniques to gain lucidity, I found a link to this audio file that was supposed to induce lucid dreaming. After listening to the whole thing while laying down, I was sure this was all just some big sham. The audio included a guy basically just saying things like "I will Lucid dream tonight, am I dreaming? I WILL Lucid dream tonight, it's only a matter of willpower, I will become the master of my mind." etc.
So, Lucid dreaming was either a moneymaking scheme, or just an exaggerated explanation of dreams I was already having. Anyhow, I completely stopped reading about it after that, so that would've been maybe two and a half weeks ago.
Last night, however, my mind decided to slap me in the face with my own doubts. I was having a standard dream, I was in a mansion with friends, but the mansion was extremely creepy. At one point randomly, I had to go to the bathroom, so I walked into what seemed like a really dark carpeted bathroom, and saw the toilet in an odd place. I walked over, looking at the paintings on the walls and everything, and then leaned down to where I thought the toilet was, only it was gone, replaced by a magazine rack. I turned around, and saw the toilet right in front of the door, and thought "Wow what a weird place for a toilet." I then turned back around to look at the magazine rack, except the toilet was there now. For some reason I felt panicked and I looked back towards the door and there was no toilet again. The room started spinning, and for some reason at that point I thought "WAIT I'M DREAMING, and this spinning is trying to wake me up."(I have waken up from dreams by the spinning effect many times, usually feeling like I'm spinning once I wake up). I focused on one of the magazines, and tried to calm down, which I actually managed to do. Once the room stopped spinning, something was very very different. I was completely aware of my dream-state, yet I hadn't woken up, and I was looking around freely as if I were awake. I almost panicked again, but I thought "Wait, this is what everyone is talking about, Lucid Dreaming." Though this was something I had never felt before in a dream, I was still the skeptic, so I tried a test. There was a bowl on the sink counter, and I thought "If I'm dreaming I should be able to make this float." Well, I was not only surprised at the fact I made it float, but once I started to almost throw it, it was heading straight for a wall, and I didn't want it to break, so voosh, right through the wall it went, without breaking. Amazed, I ran straight for the wall without thinking, and jumped straight through it, right into a patch of grass where I was now outside.
Needless to say, this feeling was amazing. I realized my mind had created this whole outside world I was in(which looked like a school/park/fair type place), and I decided to have fun with it. The first thing of course I wanted to try was flying, but I remember hearing a lot of people can only float, so I think that held me back. After jumping a few times with no success, I instead just focused on getting into the air without jumping, thinking "If it's a dream I shouldn't NEED a boost from jumping" I managed to float, but I felt limited, and then I got kind of unbalanced, and turned upside down, floating with my head maybe a foot off the cement. A lot of people in the dream were family/friends/people I had seen before. I noticed backflipping through walls became a sort of favorite thing of mine to do, with other people acting like it was nothing. I saw someone that looked like this person I knew, but her face looked a little different. I walked up to her, and managed to morph her face into what I remembered her looking like, then she thanked me. One person I remember got angry at me for removing a door he was about to walk into, and I made him disappear before he managed to take a swing at me.
Things like this went on for what really felt like hours, though I'm not sure if it was really that long. I knew when I was going to wake up though, as people started disappearing, and everything was kind of dissipating. I ran over to this table where these three people were playing cards, and I sat down, but when I looked over at them, only one girl was still there, except she was only her legs, her whole upper boddy was missing. I still heard her voice say though "Time to wake up" and I opened my eyes to my room, still in awe.
Sorry for the extremely long post, but I was really excited and felt the need to share. Skeptic-no-more, this has really been an amazing experience, and I now understand why people sound so enthusiastic about it(making it sound more exaggerated :D). Being Lucid is a draw-dropping state of mind, and makes me wonder what else the human mind is capable of. I can only hope to experience this again. :D
*EDIT* I forgot to mention that I was VERY touchy-feely during the dream, and was amazed at how everything felt. I would run my hands along walls, grab people's arms, rip grass from the floor, anything I could get my hands on I would(nothing too sexual other than lots of peck-kissing though as I think lips are sensitive, surprisingly that wasn't on my mind, maybe I was too much in awe? :D)
