Long Time LD'er

Hi I'm new to the forums, and very excited that I've found a community of LDers. That being said, let me give you a bit of background on my dreamstates...

I'm a 32 year old male, that started having lucid dreams around the age of 13-14 (although I had no idea it was called lucid dreaming, and I just learned about lucid dreaming a few years ago). I can't remember exactly how old I was, but it was somewhere around that age. My parents got divorced when I was 7, and it devastated my world. I was an innocent and purely happy kid before that point, and it brought down my "real" world when my parents got divorced. It eventually started having the same effect on my "dream" worlds. It got to the point to where I was having terrible nightmares every night, waking up because I wet the bed. I wet the bed every night for over 6 years. It was embarassing, confusing, and a harsh reality to live in. I had to start sleeping with trash bags under my sheets every night, and eventually just learned to live with the nightmares and bedwetting. I was afraid to fall asleep at a relatives or friends house in fear that I'd pee myself while I was sleeping. Until one night...


MY FIRST LUCID EXPERIENCE

I was being chased by two guys in suits with black sunglasses (think agent Smith on the Matrix), and we were outside the duplex my mom lived in. I was very frightened, and the dream was very vivid, I can still remember many details as if it were a real happening that I experienced. There was a stairway that went to the upstairs apartment in real life and in my dream. The two guys chased me around to the side of the house with the stairway and I was able to hide behind a bush underneath the stairway (as they ran up the stairs). All of a sudden I had a conscious thought, "Why would two guys in suits and sunglasses be chasing me around?" That's when I pulled a leaf from the bush I was hiding behind and started chewing it. I couldn't taste anything.... I KNEW I WAS DREAMING! I ran up the stairs to meet the two guys that were chasing me. In my dream the stairway didn't lead to an upstairs apartment (like in real life), it lead to the roof of the house. The guys started running toward me on the roof, and I just started teleporting around making them barely miss me every time. It was such a liberating feeling, I felt in control of my life for the first time (even though it was only my dream life, it was a great feeling).

The dream goes on for a bit, and I'm lucid the whole time. It wasn't long after that, I stopped wetting the bed and having nightmares. I learned to consciously become lucid in my dreams, and was a frequent lucid dreamer. I'd love going to bed at night because it was a reality that was so much better than the world I lived in while waking, and I had much more control in the dream world. I don't believe I was lucid every night, but it was hundreds (or more) of nights over the next 6-7 years. That's when I got into the drug scene...

THE END OF MY LUCIDITY

I became a heavy pot smoker. I was stoned every day, almost all day. I graduated high school, started college, and was working full time managing a local restaurant. I moved out of my parents house, and in with some friends. We never really drank alcohol, but we smoked pot all the time, and occasionally took acid. I don't know whether it was the drugs, or the change of lifestyle that made the lucids stop, but they did. I was in that lifestyle for about 6-7 years and eventually stopped smoking pot altogether. I will smoke a few times a year now on rare occasions, but I will never go back to being a regular smoker... however on with the story. I was now 25-26 years old (around the year 2000), living by myself and totally off drugs (sorta depressed due to girl issues). That's when they started again...

MY LUCIDS RETURN

I can't remember what dream I was having, but one night I consciously realized I was dreaming. I woke up and was so excited. It was like I was a kid again. I had forgotten about the ability I learned as a child/adolescent. Like that, tons of memories I had pushed back (about lucid dreams) came rushing back to me. I started doing research online and learned there was a term for this type of dreaming, and even contemplated buying the only Lucid Dream goggles that were available at that time (but decided against it because of the price).

Anyway, I've been occasionally becoming Lucid again ever since 2000. I've never used any RC techniques or any of the other methods that I've read about, so I guess I'm a natural. Although, I would like to lucid every night, so I may start experimenting with other methods to see if it increases the frequency of LDs. I've tried to explain to my friends how awesome this dreamworld can be when you learn to control it, but none seem too excited or anxious to learn. I'm just glad I've found a community of people that seem to be as into lucid dreaming as I am. Thanks for listening, and it's nice to share the experience with people that will appreciate it. :)

Welcome :) yeah its hard to explain this amazing stuff to others :s they just say "...but its not real so why bother or it cant feel real"

Hope you have many Lds more

Narcissus,

I'm new to this forum too, thought I'd drop a note to you as I'm also a "Long Time LD'er". Our stories are a little similar. I also started spontaneously at a young age, and for me it was finally deciding to stand up to the monsters that were always chasing me in my dreams. One day I was just tired of always being chased in my dreams so I turned around and confronted the monster. I don't remember the dream exactly now, but I know the monster became powerless. After that in dreams I would often fly or jump down from high places, and was lucid quite often, although I never called it that or thought about it in that way. By the time I was 13 I began smoking pot, later taking acid and other stuff and didn't think much about my dreaming for years. At 23 I stopped smoking pot (and everything else), that was in 1980. The 80's thru the mid 90's were the hayday of my lucid dreaming years. I was reading Muldoon, Monroe, and Labarge, and others and I was quite effortlessly lucid dreaming several times a weeks and often 2 - 4 times a night. In those years I developed my dreaming attention quite a lot and could easily take my waking intentions into my dreams.

In 1990 I move from the mountains of Montana to Portland, Oregon and became very busy with work. My dreaming came much harder and less frequent. By harder I mean I had to work at it to produce lucidity fairly frequently. Setting up my dreaming during the day, saying affirmations, I even made a pair of dream goggles!!

I think about 1991 me and a couple other people started a lucid dreaming forum on CompuServe. The net wasn't like this back in those days, CIS was about the only place for public forums. The forum was very active with hundreds of dreamers coming through and a nice group of core lucid dreamers, much like it is here I imagine, (although I haven't gotten to know anyone yet.)

About 1995 I kind of burnt out from all the energy/time I was spending conversing on the forum - and my time not spent with my family was taking a toll. Also and actually most important, I had come to an interesting place... The more I lucid dreamed, the more I found that dreaming was like waking life (I mean the reality value of it), and inversely the more waking life was becoming like a dream.

I finally decided that since my waking life dream was where I spent most of my "time" anyway I might as well devote my energies to becoming fully lucid in that... the waking dream. So about 1995 I dropped off the forum and gave up "trying" to lucid dream. In the 14 years that have passed since I have had relatively few lucid dreams (although some very powerful ones and powerful non-lucid dreams), but in all that time I haven't tried to pick it back up. (But did develop a lot in my waking dreaming). However, the reason I'm writing now is that I find these days my dreaming coming back to me, and I have a feeling it is time to explore my sleep-dreaming worlds once more.

So for these reasons your story and introduction to the forum caught my eye and I wanted to respond to you. I hope others will see this too and this will be my introduction to the forum. I look forward to sharing with everybody in the days (and nights) ahead.

Thanks... dream well.