drug related comments removed from post … please read the forum guidelines 
Before you decide not to read this long post because of my post count, I ask you to reconsider, and read as much as you can/want to. I have included a lot of struggles that I’ve encountered and how I’ve come over them. My methods come from a combination of a lot of reading and a lot of experience in the fields of psychology, philosophy, and removed. I have a lot of control of my mind and the placebo effect, which I believe can be beneficial for achieving personal goals. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy.
I’ve been reading about LDing for a while, but never posted here although LD4all has been my main source of LD literature. I had my first lucid dream last night and it was the result of several things I have been doing.
I started trying to LD about 2 months ago, and I initially just tried to jump right into it, even though I wasn’t remembering any dreams at all. Obviously, since I wasn’t familiar with the dream world or even my imagination very much, it didn’t happen. The dream journal thing never worked for me. Maybe I’ll start it soon just to keep track of dream signs, but I have greatly improved my dream recall without the use of such a tool. I began just by reminding myself that I was about to go dream while trying to sleep. When I was younger I used to easily bounce back and forth between dreams and reality, and sometimes even confused the two. Sometimes my parents woke me up and I would tell them that I was having a good dream and I could just hop right back into it. Why am I telling you this? Well I tried to remember those days and it helped a lot. Dreams aren’t that far or hard to reach. They are an integral part of our lives and they happen to all of us. So if you aren’t having luck with dream recall or lucidity, just remember that. The dream world is surprisingly similar to waking life. Although it might be a bit “floatier” or more “dream like”, it is essentially the same. This is a good reason why it’s hard to distinguish the two worlds.
One thing that I find to be very important is to become familiar with your own imagination, for a dream is composed completely of your own thoughts and imagination. So while going to sleep I practiced increasingly more difficult visualizations. I could never imagine an entire scene/environment all around me, it’s just too much. I started simply by picturing a 2D image. A square, for example. Then after I can see the square, I would try to give it a color. It was hard at first but by sticking to it I could eventually see my green square, and I knew I got something done, because I couldn’t do it before. Now I tried to make it a cube (it wasn’t for a few days that I could actually make this happen). Now I was looking at a 3D image. Somehow, it wasn’t very hard to make it rotate after this happened.
I kept playing with my imagination and if it kept me awake too long, I would commence counting up from 1, trying to picture every number on the way. The key was not to block out all other thoughts, but simply let them come and go without following them or thinking much about them. Just focus on the counting and visualizing. Eventually I was able to integrate this into an environment, the one I use often was one that I read about: seeing each number on a step while walking up/down a staircase. I still couldn’t imagine much more but the staircase (like I tried to see the railing and wall, etc, but no cigar). My biggest mistake at this stage was that I tried to count too quickly. The point of this is to keep yourself focused on one thing so you can remain aware as you enter a dream. I heard something about making your brainwaves working in a certain pattern, but I’m not so sure about it. Either way, it helps. Count slowly, and don’t continue to the next number until you can completely visualize the one that you’re on. When I rushed it the numbers/steps began flickering and changing to parts of other numbers.
Eventually, (and if you try harder to make things look clearer and have more control over what you see, it will happen quicker. Of this I am sure.) you will be able to close your eyes and imagine a room around you. comment removed
Ok now, so my first LD happened like this. Last night I was at a friend’s house. We were playing poker and drinking some beers. The night turned into a drunken frenzy and we tired ourselves out and slept while watching some funny movie. I realized that my imagination was pretty much nonexistent, and I was sure that it was because of the drinking. I had HI for wayyyy too long and didn’t experience move into the dreaming phase. SP came and went back and forth. I might have been sleeping, but not definitely not dreaming, and I was definitely aware. After a while, I just relied on counting to help me fall asleep. I awoke to a drunk friend playing nintendo wii at like 8 am (I went to sleep at around 5am). I recalled that I was in a dream that involved headlights. I went back to sleep trying to recall that dream, and the headlights became cars became a scene on a road with traffic lights. This dream just involved driving around, and no lucidity. So I wake up around 10 after one of the least satisfying nights of sleep of my life. I go home, chill on the computer a bit and decided I was going to read a book.
I lie in my bed reading. I got through about 5 pages and I knew I was going to knock out so I took off my glasses and told my self I just remained aware. I guess after that night of trying hard to imagine things while drunk, and it wasn’t working, now that I wasn’t drunk anymore I could imagine things much more vividly after all this practice. (I can relate it to a track runner practicing with weights on his ankles, and taking them off for the race. This nap, my friends, was the race.) I closed my eyes and I didn’t even have to count or anything. I just tried to sleep and my imagination was running wild. In a very short amount of time I was sleeping and didn’t even recognize HI or SP. I thought I was still trying to go to sleep when I entered my dream. I was keeping my eyes closed and I peeked a bit. I realized when I peeked that (1) I was not in my room anymore, and (2) I could see clearly even though I just took my glasses off. Although these were huge hints that I was dreaming already, I didn’t think much of it, and rolled over on my side with my eyes closed. I opened my eyes a bit again and realized it was now dark (keep in mind I was taking this nap at around noon and my bed is next to a window). That did it for me. I went to sit up, and before I knew it I was standing. I just knew it had to be a dream. It seemed way more real than I thought it would so I looked at my right hand. My index finger was flickering on and off and kind of morphing into my other finger or whatever. I didn’t look at it too long because I knew immediately after seeing them that I was dreaming. At first I thought “woo!” and felt my heart race a bit, but I knew that would be the end of the LD, as I’ve made this mistake before. So I put my hand down and examined my surroundings. I was in a dark room, but all of a sudden objects popped all around me and the room took a more real form. The only DC in this LD appeared at this moment, and it was my mom. I walked to her and I was like “hey ma I’m in a dream.” She began to answer me but I couldn’t understand me and then she kind of started yelling and stuff in a language that I didn’t understand so I was like "whatever it’s a dream I can walk away from her and not have any real consequences. I walked over to the wall and before realizing that there was no door there, I expected one there. I already felt in complete control although it was my first LD. Boom, there was a door there and the knob was already in my hand. I opened it and just hoped there was something on the other side. (I have had a slight fear in the past that I’m not longer imaginative enough to have good dreams. This fear subsided a bit because I realized I’m a great musician and this LD was pretty damn vivid.) I step into this hallway and on the other side there’s a door slightly open and it was a bathroom. I chuckled a bit because I’ve heard there’s no bathrooms in dreams. Well in my dream there was, and it had a shower and everything. I didn’t go in but the door was open. I didn’t look left and I walked right. The hallway led right outside and there was an empty cafe area paved with red brick tiles. I had so many things I wanted to do. At first I was like, “OK I’m going to have sex with ____.” and I just decided I’ll have time for that later. There was a staircase in front of me and I didn’t feel like walking down it. I felt like God, so I might as well fly. I couldn’t fly nearly as well as I thought I’d be able to. I actually floated a bit and tumbled down the stairs doing a few front flips in the process. Now I was determined to fly. I only looked left and there was a building with windows and no doors. I was just going to fly over it; I knew I could. I then got this weird flashback from the movie Waking Life and felt a lifting feeling. I opened my arms and legs up and began to float again, higher and higher, and eventually I was too high up and I woke to a phone call from a friend.
I hope this can help anyone struggling with LDs. I tried to put a bit of a different spin on it and make it interesting so you guys could follow and relate. Just remember a majority of things in life are based on your perception of them. If you believe, if you know you can do something, you can. It’s impossible to stress how true this is, not only when it comes to dreams. If you know you can pick up a certain girl/guy you can. If you know you broke a habit that you still had 5 minutes ago, you did. It takes a good level of self assurance and it cannot be faked. Work on that and you’ll have a lot of success in the things you want to do.
P.S. - If you wear contacts/glasses and take them off before sleeping, try to use that as an RC. If you can see clearly and don’t remember putting on your glasses, look at your hands and see if you’re awake. If you wake up and you can already see well without putting your glasses/contacts on, it’s probably a false awakening and you are in a dream.
P.P.S. - Don’t focus on HI. It’s pretty and cool, but focusing on it will not help you achieve lucidity, for it is not a product of your imagination. Try to keep your focus on one thing that you are consciously thinking of. In my opinion HI can actually become quite a distraction in our quests for lucidity.
