First lucid dream... maybe

Hello all, just trying to get into this whole LD thing and discovered the forum. I’ve enjoyed reading some people’s accounts. It would seem that there are some very proficient lucid dreamers.

Last night I had what MAY have been my first lucid dream. I say MAY because there is a small question about whether it was lucid and a big question about whether it was the first. I was kind of amused by the whole thing so I thought I’d post.

The most interesting thing is that I’ve been mostly trying WILD, rather than reality-checks/diary/MILD but WILD hasn’t quite worked for me yet. I always get to some kind of SP but then can’t push through to the dream without waking up.

But this dream I had last night happened very late at night, certainly not the result of WILD as I had already gone to sleep for some hours.

It started out as a classic “no clothes” dream… I was in some building (I think it was somehow part of my university campus) trying to figure out how to get back into the room where I’d changed out of my clothes (I don’t remember why I changed out of them, or into what). Anyway, the whole situtation was inherently ridiculous, but of course I didn’t notice because it was a dream. Until, at some point I looked down and realised that I actually WAS wearing at least some of my clothes, even though I was definitely naked and didn’t remember putting them on. This internal inconsistency somehow twigged me to the fact I was in dreamland.

Next thing I did was a reality check… looked at my watch. Now the watch I have worn for the past 7 years or so is a Joe Boxer smiley-face analog watch, where the happy face is the second hand and rotates around once per minute (it seems impossible for anyone else to it to tell time on it at all, it has no numbers or markers, you kind of have to “know” it). So I looked at it, looked away, looked back, wasn’t sure if I was looking at the same time (obviously digital watches are better suited). So then I stared at the watch closely and saw that the hands were visibly moving (not normal) backward (definitely not normal) and I started to float off the ground as I realized I was in dreamland.

I remember a tremendously strong feeling of deja vu, as if to say “ah yes here we are back in lucid dream land”. This brings up my second question about whether it’s really my first lucid dream… maybe I don’t remember others. I flew around a surreal landscape for a few moments, realized I was losing it and tried spinning around trying to find something to focus on, woke up. I went back to sleep pretty soon after but still remembered the dream later in the day.

Now the reason I’m not sure if it was REALLY a lucid dream is that I think it might have just been a dream ABOUT having a lucid dream. Everything that happened in the dream was so “classic”, it included all of the usual behaviours I’ve read about in accounts of what you “should” do. But since the lucid part at the end was so short, I can’t really be sure that I actually had any control over anything, and it didn’t seem like I got all that excited, whereas I usually get quite excited (and frustrated) with WILD.

Some people might think there’s no difference between dreaming that I had a lucid dream as described and actually having it, but I think there is. For example, if nothing you do makes sense after you “realise you’re in a dream” then maybe it’s just a dream about lucidity. If you only experience non-sensical things but do rational things, that’s what I think of as true lucidity. In the case of my dream, everything that happened was a caricature of what I’ve read people do in lucid dreams, and nothing more, so I’m still not totally sure!

Anyway, I’m sure I must be slowly ingraining the idea of lucidity into my subconscious by my attempts and reading (and now posting) so my chances of a real, satisfying lucid dream are probably pretty good.

Whew that was a rambling post, sorry! Time to go to bed…

Hello Sophistibation :happy: , welcome to the forum!

Congratulations on that first start. Whether it’s a lucid dream or not, only you can decide: it’s a lucid dream if you were conscious of the fact that you were dreaming. But it’s not necessary to have control over the dream for it to be called lucid, even though lucidity increases the control you have over the dream most of the time.

Whatever technique you do, you have to keep a dream diary, whether it’s WILD or MILD. Even reality checks can help with WILD :happy: (to make sure you got there or not) since not all WILDs are accompanied by the SP symptoms. As for your reality check, most people find it easier to do with a digital watch, but anything that works is fine. :content:

Your “first LD” is very similar to my “first” LD. Actually I had at least one lucid dream (that i can remember) when I was 12, that’s 7 years before I started practicing. When I got lucid in that intentional LD, I suddenly had that feeling of Deja vu, of being once again in that lucid dream I had 7 years ago, and I started to remember fragments from other lucid dreams I had when I was a child! :confused: now were these false memories, or really happened, i’m not certain, but what happened with you is typical for most beginners :content: When I got lucid in that LD, I started floating without even thinking about it. I think it was engrained in my subconscious (which still affects the dream even when you are lucid!)

If you decide that it was not a lucid dream, then rest assured that the idea got into your subconscious mind, and a real LD is right around the corner. Good Luck! :smile: