Acheiving long, rational lucid dreams

First on my background: I had my first lucid dream about 9 years ago. This prompted me to research lucid dreaming and apply techniques to induce lucid dreams. Within the next two years I was able to have one or two lucid dreams per week, many of which were quite vivid and remarkable. Unfortunately, due to school and then work, I neglected my lucid dreaming skills and since then I have greatly diminished my dream recall. So I usually only have a couple lucid dreams a year, and they aren't too vivid or spectacular.

Last night I had a lucid dream experience which I would like to share because it was quite different in that it was quite "real" for what seemed to be a long time. I was dreaming that I was in Indonesia or Sri Lanka (one of the tsunami affected countries) walking along the beach witnessing the destruction of the earthquake. I realized that I was lucid, and kept on walking. It felt like I walked for at least 10 minutes when I came across a little hut that was serving drinks so I went inside and ordered a beer. The first beer was a bit flat, so I ordered a different one, I drank and talked with the bartender about the tsunami. I also started conversations with other people etc...

Now the whole experience was very calm and casual, from start to finish it felt like my lucid dream spanned at least half an hour. Everything appeared to obey the laws of physics, no anomolies occured. When I felt myself slipping away, I was able to "focus" myself back into the dream. This was very much unlike my previous lucid dreams which usually involve impossible things such as flying, changing scenery, or bizarre behaviour from people.

I always been a fan of "holodecks" like on Star Trek. However, with my lucid dreams the reality is far beyond anything that could be generated using a computer. In addition, it would appear that it is possible to have a dream that is not chaotic, but rational and orderly.

Lucid dreaming is still very unknown to the masses. 99% of the population has no clue that they can be aware and in control of dreaming. With the advancement of technology and science as well as the research into lucid dreaming, I would imagine that some day having a lucid dream will be as easy as flipping a switch before going to sleep. Perhaps one day, a dreamer will be able to choose whether to have a bizarre random dream, or perhaps be able to return to a particular place or meet the same people over and over. What do you guys think?

Yeah, I reckon someday a device will be invented that will instantly induce lucid dreams. (something like a helmet to alter brain waves). In time, there will be a network of these devices connected together to induce a collective lucid dream of millions of lucid dreamers and create the greatest invention since the Internet - somewhere where anything is possible - something like the MATRIX!!!!!11

Seriously though, when I had my first lucid dream about 2 years ago, before I knew what lucid dreaming was, I didn't know flying and anything out of the ordinary was possible. My first two lucid dreams mainly consisted of exploring realistic locations. In my first lucid dream, I was exploring a supermarket, and I was amazed that my mind could generate this very vivid supermarket. I could read the price of products and feel everything. It was definitely the most vivid dream of my life, and it has yet to be beaten.

I had a LD where I flew over my neighborhood and could see the rooftops of the houses in amazing detail. Since I never actually flew over my neighborhood, I can only assume that the brain "filled" in the unknown parts with what it thought the rooftops should look like.

I recall a science teacher way back telling me how we only see about 1 degree in the very center of our field of vision clearly, the rest is a blur (try focusing on a single word in a book and "read" the words around it and you will have a hard time). But our brain (using its vast database of visual memory) can piece together the stuff we don't really see and make us think we have the complete picture.