I hope I’m posting this in the right place!
On Friday night I stayed at my parents house and I had a very vivid dream, when I woke in the morning my mum was standing over my bed drying something with a hairdryer. I lay there propped up on my elbow and recounted everything that happened in my dream. Then I woke up again (this time for real). I was so shocked and amazed as I really believed that I was awake the first time. I had never experienced a false awakening so I google’d it and came across this site. After reading about reality checking I was looking at my hand and touching my palm with a finger all day on Saturday. Then on Saturday night I had a few dreams that I remember but I definitely looked at my hand in a dream and my fingers were all wavy and I said ‘oh, I’m dreaming’ but then the dream changed and nothing came of it.
I’ve had a dream journal for years as I have very vivid dreams and I liked to keep memories of what happens, its like having two lives. but I’ve never really heard anything about lucid dreaming until now, I’m really intrigued and would love to have some amount of control in my dreams.
Welcome, Torturedgarden.
Lucid dreaming means that you realize you are in a dream, no matter how little control you might have over it - if you know you are dreaming, then you are lucid.
And it sounds like you have already had a LD, since you said to yourself that you were in a dream.
Now, how do you become lucid?
The trick is to learn to become familiar with your dreams and develop a questioning attitude.
One very classic way to become more aware of your current situation is to simply ask yourself things like “where am I?”, “what was I doing a moment ago?”, “why am I here right now?” and really make sure that you can answer these questions.
If you frequently ask yourself these kinds of things during the day you will eventually start doing it in your dreams, and while you try to find a good answer you will suddenly realize that you are in fact in a dream at that moment.
Also make sure that you have some concrete plans prepared, so that you know what you will do when you become lucid.
This will also fuel your ambition to get lucid dreams, because you have something to look forward to.
I also highly recommend that you check out Stephen LaBerge’s “MILD” technique - it is quite easy to understand and yet very deep at the same time, and is a great step towards lucidity.
Thanks for the info Laurelindo I shall check out that link.
Yes, do that.
MILD is a really useful and fundamental technique because it covers all the most important skills for any lucid dreamer, such as prospective memory, dream recall and motivation.