Lucidity and Fear of Death
While I've had a number of lucid dreams over the years, with degrees of control ranging from being able to generate guns that don't work to complete omnipotence, I'd had a dry spell for a year or two. I am happy to report that about a week ago, the first night that I found this forum, I had another lucid dream.
I was on a snowy hill next to a sled that was little more than a piece of misshapen plastic the size of a small pizza box. Somehow causing it to convey me down the slope, I slid for a while until the path suddenly branched off in two directions, between which was a cliff, which I then went over. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of feet below me was a small town which I was rapidly plummeting toward. I had a brief feeling of overwhelming panic, as if I were going to explode with fear, and then as I realized that my life was over and there wasn't anything I could do about it, I became completely calm. This sudden shift between fear of death and acceptance of death felt strangely familiar, and I realized I had experienced it before. The only way I could have previously experienced a fatal fall, to my mind, was if I was dreaming, so I must be dreaming.
The transition from fear to acceptance to lucidity happened in the briefest moment. It's been on my mind since.
At any rate, once I realized I was dreaming I let myself gently drift down onto the street and woke up shortly after landing quite safely.
