First Lucid Dream

Hi, I have just Joined Abovetopsecret for the sole reason of posting this thread. I am happy to announce that last night i had my first Lucid dream. i was sat at my desk in work and i suddenly jumped out of my chair as it all came back to me. I was flying over either Manchester or New York (cant figure out which), and i was kind of swimming through the air and i realised, Hey this is impossible, this cant be real i must be in a dream, so why am i flying like such a prat. at which point i stuck my arm out in front of me like superman and took off like a speeding bullet. unfortuntely i then woke up after about 5 seconds. i have been keeping a dream journal for the past couple of months and i think that has helped.

I was hopeing that someone on here may have any special tricks or ways of enhancing or prolonging my next lucid dream (which will hopefully be tonight). i would also like to hear of other people lucid dreams and how strange or real they can seem.

Hi there. Welcome to ATS and Congrats! I'm by no means an expert on lucid dreaming, but here's my thoughts and experiences.

My first Lucid Dream was when I was about 23. I'd been out partying the night before, and had gotten no good sleep that night. I woke up, went to work and then came home to nap on my lunch hour, which I took early that day. That nap led to my first experience. I realized I was dreaming soon into the dream and began controlling it. I walked around my apartment, shifted through walls. When I tried to wake up, I experienced some sleep paralysis and it took me a while to get up. This experience was intense and might have even been an OOBE. The only reason I don't classify it as that is I was definitely asleep througout.

I believe the reason this dream happened was because I had only slept 4-5 hours that night and wasn't fully *awake* when I went to work and when I came back home for my nap I immediately returned to the *same* sleep cycle and went straight into REM sleep. Being awake and then going straight to REM sleep seems to help the recognition of the dreams. That's the big problem for most of us. I truly think I have multiple lucid dreams every night, but I just don't remember them.

My main technique for lucid dreaming is to wake up about 5 hours after I've gone to bed. Get up, get some water, stay up for about 30 mins to an hour then go back to bed. This puts me back into REM sleep quickly. While I'm falling asleep I repeat to myself over and over "I'm going to remember. I'm going to remember." Or something similar.

A lot of Lucid Dreaming literature emphasizes the "reality checks" and the clues to tell if you're dreaming or not... focusing on the "becoming lucid" aspect. For me that's not a problem. My dreams tend to be pretty weird and it's obvious I'm dreaming without checking a digital clock or pinching myself. Like I say, the remembering afterwards is the biggest stumbling block for me. Right now, i can remember about every other night's lucid dreams, which isn't bad and it makes a good vehicle for adressing frustrations or exploring fantasies.

A good way to increase the potential for recall is to do the "building energy" excercises you'll find with most meditation/astral projection guides. I've been trying to Astral Project for a couple of weeks not, inspired by this forum actually, and I get close but don't quite make it. Part of my "practice" for Astral Projection is the body-awareness and raising energy exercises outlined in Robert Bruce's book Astral Dynamics. Even though I've failed at a conscious projection, I have found that those excercises increased my dream recall abilities quite a bit. Basically the raising energy excercises outlines how to pull energy through your body and focus your awareness on certain "energy centers" or chakras. If you don't want to go buy the book, he outlines it pretty thouroughly in the section called "Energy Work" here:

Treatise on Astral Projection

It worked for me, so it may work for you. Have fun!

I have experienced lucid dreaming twice in 10 yrs. Once, about 10 yrs ago, I dreamed I was back in high school and suddenly realized , hey, I can't be in school, I'm 30 something yrs old! The other one was a flying type experience. It would be fun to repeat and see what adventures one could come up with.

[edit on 4-3-2006 by tommyb98201]

Lucid dreaming it seems to many is where you realize you are in a dream and can manipulate it through the understanding that this dream world is held within your mind and created through your senses.Yet how come we can only mostly change what we do in our dreams and aswell are we creating the interactions of others?

When it comes to others in our dreams ,do we create their likeness and behaviors based upon what we have mentally stored within the subconcious.Or are we actually connecting with these peoples minds aswell?

Just some food for thought?

Scarecrow.

I dont know.
Lucid dreaming seems cool, but for me if I know Im dreaming and doing a bunch of "super hero" type stuff...it kind of looses the impact that its not really real.

Its like, time to wake up and deal with life. (not saying its not good to have a fun imaginative break now and then.)

But on another thought...maybe life is like the matrix...we chooose to not know this is all fake, as not to be dissappointed by the illusion. (though many a times Im sure we have all wished to "wake up")

Gods peace

dalen


[edit on 13-3-2006 by dAlen]

A couple of things I've been working on as far as becoming lucid and maintaining the lucidity are as follows:

1. Rather than waking up and then trying to work out what weird things happened in your dream that should've prompted you to become lucid, take notice of what seems strange to you whilst you are still IN your dream. I have noticed several things, like items being in different places each time I look away and look back at them, the digital time reading 4.60am instead of 5am, becoming airbourne when travelling over small hills and meeting dead relatives in recent times. All of these experiences have now added to the array of events that will enable me to become lucid.

2. I noticed a few weeks ago that I was beginning to wake from a lucid dream, thus was able to rewind and replay the dream past the wake up point. This seems to be a possible way for me to maintain the lucidity. Others methods I heard include looking at your hands and spinning around.

The other night I also tried creating a lucidity switch which I could press to maintain the state, but it didn't seem to work on that occasion. I do feel that it has potential.

Good luck in your endeavours.