possibly my first lucid dream?

Quest for Lucidity
1

last night i tried the MILD technique, and, after a long break (six or so months - i lost interest and thought it just wouldn’t work for me) from a month or so trying to reach lucidity using the WILD technique, this was a fairly successful… endeavour.

so last night, i went to bed at about half past twelve and read for a half hour (river god - wilbur smith <3), then i stuck my nas album on (i know that can’t be very good music to help me with my lucid dreaming, but i figured that because using the MILD technique, i wouldn’t need it for my first sleep) and drifted to sleep. i dreamt a normal dream at school. my head of year brought the whole of my year, year 9 out into the yard and we were all sat down in a really small area of it. then i somehow found myself on a path in between a forest and a wiiiide river (it was possibly my book that influenced that - it’s hugely based around the nile). after that, i don’t remember much of it.

at about 5am my phone rang for some bizarre reason (which was quite lucky because i forgot to set my alarm). it said that it was my friend from school phoning me, but he said i phoned him (wtf?). so anyways, i struggled to get back to sleep after that because my window was open and birds were tweeting by that time, plus i was really confused about the phone busines. i kept repeating “i’m in a dream, i’m going to wake up in my dream, i’m going to control my dream” whilst thinking about my last dream.

here’s where i’m a bit confused…
so eventually i stopped thinking and drifted off to sleep, and funnily enough i was there in the school yard again. it felt, in the dream, like i was in control, but when i compare it to the feeling of real life, it was mostly dizziness that i felt. if i wanted to go left, i went left. if i wanted to touch a tree, i touched a tree. but now, while i think back to and remember it, i don’t know whether i was actually in full control or not, or whether the first few lucid dreams feel this way with just about everyone. any thoughts or reasons? what was your first time like, compared with this?

many thanks.
-satty

2

But did you know you were dreaming while dreaming? Control of dreams and lucidity are two different things. Also you can have the illusion of control in a dream :eek:

3

well, i don’t think i knew i was dreaming. the “illusion of control” sounds about right to what i experienced.

when you have an LD, though, does it all feel like real life? i mean, do you look out through your own eyes? can you control your body? i half remember feeling like this, but i’m not 100% sure. cheers.

-satty

4

Yes, being lucid is (at least to me) exactly like waking life. You perceive things just as you normally would through your senses and you have the full capacity of your mental functioning. What you’ve described does not sound like a bona fide lucid dream but it still sounds like it’s something more than a normal dream.

Keep trying, once you’ve had a lucid dream you’ll know for sure and you can reflect back on this experience to find out if it was.

Good luck.

5

at the moment, i can’t really understand how the brain can create smell or taste in a dream, but i am sure i’ll find out if and when i have my first actual lucid dream.

thanks for all your help. :smile:

-satty

6

Heh I never said that the information you receive through your senses is correct, just that for all intents and purposes they will do what they do in everyday life. If you use your nose to smell then you will smell, likewise if you touch something you can expect to receive a sensation from it.