Thread: The first lucid dream I remember

Basically, when I was very young, around 3-6 years old, living in my first house I used to have a recurring nightmare. To the best of my recollection, this is the only recurring nightmare/dream I've ever had, and it stopped after we had moved house. Anyway, in this nightmare, I'd be standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up, and inevitably a giant green hand would burst round the corner at the top, shoot down the stairs and grab me, and I think I used to always wake up there. Certainly don't remember anything happening after that anyway.

But I remember one time, the dream started as normal, I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Only this time I knew it was a dream, but obviously I had absolutely no idea what this meant. I was just packing myself, worried about the hand coming down the stairs. I instantly tried to move to open the front door behind me, but I couldn't, I was pretty much rooted to the spot. I remember all I could manage was a "clicking" motion (don't know how to explain it, that's just how I've always thought of it.) Beginning to panic, I saw my dad in the next room, and pretty much begged him to help me move. But he wouldn't, the absolute git. Now I'm not entirely sure what happened next, but I'm fairly certain it ended as normal with the hand shooting down the stairs and grabbing me and waking up.

So that's the first "lucid" dream I remember having, and the whole lucidity being initiated by fear thing seems to have stuck with me.
I remember also a lot around that kinda age period where I'd know I was having a dream/nightmare and that I could wake myself up by rolling my eyes in the back of my head, but yeah, still didn't actually realise what it meant to be lucid. I remember in one particular dream saying to my family 'Im just gunna wake myself up now' and it failed to work, and I felt wholly embarassed by the whole thing.