Why didn't I know it was a dream?

Last night I set my alarm for 5:20 I think and stayed up for about 45 minutes after it went off. I was attempting the WBTB method for the first time.

So I was tired after awhile and decided to start sleeping thinking about LDs hoping it would induce one. I quickly went into a real light dream like the one you get when you’re not totally asleep but you’re starting to go into a dream and I didn’t realize it was a dream. I woke up from it kind of mad because I didn’t realize it was a dream and tried to have another one, and I did very shortly after, like 1 minute later. I was also unaware this light dream was a dream but I woke up and was mad once again. I forget why I kept waking up and why they were so short. I think I almost went into another dream because I started seeing a book and I immediately tried to tell myself “It’s a dream!!” to make sure I didn’t forget, then I woke up .

It’s like my mind just completely wandered off to make it’s own dream instead of letting me keep thinking about LDs. Why in the world would this happen? I tried really hard to remember it was a dream.

HI is quite hypnotic to me and it’s easy to fall off course. If you can get to HI so quickly you are not far off LDing. Keep at it and be patient.

HI? Is that what it was? Because it was like a dream only light enough that I could wake up very easily. I thought HI was just random shapes and stuff you see floating around when you close your eyes :blush:

Anyway, if I can get HI easily—which I can only do after I wake up real late—how can it help me with LDing? My problem is I can’t keep concious when doing this :sad:

But hey, if I am close to LDing then I’m happy :grin:

P.S. What does HI stand for? I thought it was hypnotic imagery :eh:

HI-indeed Hipnagogic imaginery has a very hypnotic effects.So its no wonder you have troubles staying awake when concentrating on them.
What Pilot was propably saying is that seeing those blyrry shapes can help you in lding because those shapes are more and more clear and vivid in time.You can gently shape them into different shapes.Thats hard to describe…remember when you look at the clouds trying to figure out what they are similar to?same here-you kinda "bent"your HI to be as close to your dream signs as possibile.If your dreamsign are your hands ,try to see hands in those shapes under your eyelids.And keep being aware…eventually you will kind of “create” first images of the dream which you could enter conciously.
ufffffff…really hard to explain…hope u got what i mean:)