Lucid Dreaming – First Experiences
So far you should have practiced all the lucid dream induction techniques. At this point you may or may not have had a lucid dream.
Some people take longer than others. Don’t worry if you haven’t, it will come in time.
This chapter is intended to give a guiding hand to those who have not had a lucid dream yet. Some causes of not having lucid dreams can be linked with a slight trepidation that is largely unfounded.
Some people have a fear of being awake in a dream. I cannot stress enough that lucid dreaming is perfectly safe. You cannot come to any harm.
Some people have one lucid dream and the feeling was so realistic that they forget that they cannot come to harm, wake up and fail to ever have another one. This section is concerned with allaying those fears and hopefully making you feel comfortable with the whole experience before you experience it for yourself.
The amazing thing about lucid dreaming is that because you are awake and rational within your dream, you can take thoughts, ideas, intentions, into your dream with you.
You will be able to remember what you have read here and use it within your dream. You may even think to yourself “Right, I’m lucid dreaming now. I have nothing to fear so I’m o.k.!” I remember once having a conversation with a peer about what I was going to do in my next lucid dream. When I became lucid, I stood there and remembered the conversation I’d had, and proceeded to do what we had discussed.
What to expect
When you have your first lucid dream, one of the first things you will notice is your awareness. By this I mean that you will be quite overwhelmed just how ‘awake’ you are although you know that you are still dreaming. This can lead to a sudden rush of excitement and exhilaration that will inevitable cause you to wake up.
Also a fear of the unknown can cause your dreams to end prematurely. People do not willingly go somewhere if they don’t know what to expect. To overcome this, I will take you through what you may encounter so that you can be more relaxed about it when it happens.
How will I know?
A lot of people ask me how they will know that they are lucid dreaming. This is easy to answer. The realization that you are awake and still within a dream is such an overwhelmingly exciting feeling; you will know exactly what is going on.
The first thing that you will notice is your dreamscape – your environment. On realizing that you are lucid, you surroundings will become really vivid and colourful and you will be able to look around you. It really is an awe inspiring experience.
Things will have much more detail. You may sense things such as sound, smell, warmth, cold. It never fails to impress me the amount of detail and realism the human mind can generate within a lucid dream. Sometimes this can cause such excitement that you wake up.
I will never forget when I first picked a handful of snow in a lucid dream. I could see every single tiny snowflake and as I moved the handful of snow, I could see the light bouncing off each snow flake as it separate into all its different colors. The power of the human mind is truly awesome.
The problem therefore, is not knowing that you are lucid dreaming, it is staying there when you realize.
I become lucid, but wake up!
One of the many things that I hear from people when they talk about their first lucid dream is that the experience is always a short lived one. The main reason for this is that they didn’t know what to expect and the surprise/shock of the whole experience caused them to wake up. This is a very common problem.
This is the most common problem for beginners. You become lucid; get really excited at the prospect and then wake up from being too excited. You can overcome this problem but it takes a bit of practice.
By preparing yourself for your first lucid dream, you will be able to control how long you stay in the dream and have a much more fruitful experience.
The trick is to STAY CALM!
The obvious but most effective answer is to stay relaxed. This is easier said than done. As soon as you realize that you are lucid, you need to say to yourself “Stay Calm”.
Also when you become lucid look around you, take in the experience but try and keep a calm rational frame of mind. Think to yourself “Hey, this is amazing. But I must stay calm and relaxed.” Take a deep (dream) breath and relax. Once you relax you will be able to stabilize the dream and have a more fruitful experience.
I am lucid but my dreamscape vanishes
Another problem you may encounter is that as you are happily enjoying your lucid dream but the dreamscape – your surroundings – start to disintegrate or fade away.
The detail/color/reality becomes slightly vague. Sometimes you will see everything start to turn gray or just simply go blurred. This is usually when the brain is preparing to wake up and your mind cannot hold the dream for you.
It can be a very frustrating experience!
There is a very powerful way to pull the dream back and carry on with it. This is called the spinning technique.
When you feel the dream beginning to fade, hold your arms out in front of you and spin around as fast as you can for a few moments. When you stop spinning you will either be in the same dreamscape but with more clarity or you will have transported to another entirely different dreamscape but with the similar clarity.
Either way, you have stabilized the dream and prevented yourself from waking up. Enjoy!
One thing to avoid is staring at something stationary for too long.
Sometimes you can become so fascinated with something like a flower for example that you cannot help but stare at its intricate petals or the detail of it.
Staring at something for so long can cause your dream to fade. It seems that some sort of motion helps maintain the dream. Do not be afraid to look at things, just not for too long.
TOP TIP – Try to avoid staring at anything for too long. This can cause you to wake up as well. By all means look at things but just not for too long. Try not to stare at something for more than about 10-15 seconds.
Sometimes when I am lucid dreaming, I can feel the amount of lucidity beginning to go. I feel myself dozing back into a non-lucid state. There is another great way to get around this little problem.
Hanging onto your dream
The simplicity of this technique belies its effectiveness.
When you find yourself in a lucid dream, after maybe 5 minutes or so you may feel like you are losing a grip on your ‘reality’ i.e. your dreamscape. If you want to carry on with your dream you need to convince your brain to stay in the dream.
The way that you do this is to tell it! That’s right. At the top of your (dream) voice just simply shout “I want more clarity” or “Give me more clarity”. Be very assertive bordering on the aggressive. Think ‘I am not going to stand for this! I want more clarity’.
As odd as it may seem to be shouting at yourself, it works! You should start to find the clarity coming back and a feeling of solidity about the dream. I have used this technique to maintain a detailed dream for 30 minutes without a problem. Every time it started to fade I just re-asserted that I wanted more clarity in the dream and hey presto!
Leave a Comment at the Bottom of the Page. Older Archived Comments are Here.
I just had my first lucid dream. It scared the daylights out of me! I was in my living room, but it was really dark. A family friend was there with a kitten in a basket. I knew then that I was dreaming because the family friend is smart enough to know that you don’t carry a kitten around in a flimsy basket.
Anyway, the kitten escaped. It ran up onto the stairs. I walked up to it and just stood there. Then I realized I was in control and reached out to pet it, but some invisible force was pulling me back to my original position.
Then everything faded and I felt like I was being sucked into a black hole. Is that the disintegration thing, or my dream taking a bad turn? I couldn’t control the environment, just my actions. And even that simple action took a lot of mental effort.
I’ve been having recurring dreams of a certain girl for quite some time now. She, with the long, blonde hair and green cat-like eyes, would always appear just before or during a flood, whether it be severe or not. On one occasion, she commanded me to drown a chicken (weird, yeah). Every dream seems to be a continuation of the last. This girl is certainly evil, but I feel quite attracted to her. Since these dreams, I’ve loved no one else, and I’ve felt my mind slipping away. A friend recommended Lucid Dreaming to me, saying that I could ask her who she was. I was skeptical; if it were a lucid dream, and I spoke to her, then my subconscious, or my conscious mind, would control what she said. Some friends think she’s a ghost (I’m also skeptical of that), and that I would have no control of her regardless.
I’ve been trying Wake-induced techniques, but the farthest I got was to the point where I heard dream noises; ducks quacking, music boxes, screaming, and flowing water. Then everything fades away, I shift my position slightly due to in involuntary muscle twitch, and I fall into a non-lucid dream.
These techniques seem like the easiest to follow thus far, and I will embark on another journey to lucidity tonight. Even if I can’t unravel the mystery of this lucid dream, I plan to go on great adventures with this dream-girl of mine. If I can’t ask her questions for some reason, I plan to make a carbon-copy of myself to represent my subconscious mind, so that I can connect to the other half of my brain.
Sorry for the wall-of-text, but wish me luck.
I started reading about lucid dreaming yesterday.I had a dreamm today but woke up and wrote it down.I woke up at night too and did the finger check it seemed normal but this time ill use my alarm clock if it happens again to see if im lucid.listening to banural beats before i sleep as well hopefully ill have a lucid dream soon : D wish me luck
15y-Sam
It was kinda lame because i only made an apple appear out of nowhere. my alarm clock then woke me up.
Hii, I have some questions about lucid dreaming
I recorded yesterdays dream, It was not lucid but I did it for my dream journal tonight will be my first actual attempt. Im using the WTBT method first. Ive been saying all day, “Am I dreaming and pushing walls and trying to fly.
Should I take any other steps?
Is this an effective method?
Any advice?
Can I leave the TV on and still do this, Any advice would be great.
Please Reply back (:
Since I was young I have always been able to have very vivid dreams , I have been able to touch smell hear taste and see in color. My dreams have always been so vibrant and vivid that I have been able to always recall them . The dreams always feel so real as if I’m actually watching myself having the dreams but still in control. Most times it feels so real that woken only to feel like I’m on a 24 hr loop of de ja vu. The dreams never scare me as for some reason I always feel as if I have some control over them and feel like at times I can dictate the dream that I want to have.
What concerns me is this is it normal to dream like this all the time????? I never realized that not everyone has lucid dreams until Ii came across the term lucid dreaming and googled it. Maybe this is not the site to ask this question but I am hoping I get some kind of answer
I have had three lucid dreams throughout my 65 years. I remember them all.
#1 and #2 were identical in theme and length. I don’t think I was anywhere in particular, but as soon as I realized I was dreaming, two immediately jumped on my back and bore me to the ground, whereupon I immediately woke up.
#3 I was walking down a street than ended in a ‘T’. In the yard of the property on the southeast corner of the ‘T’ intersection was a man shouting at me all sorts of nasty things. It appeared he was unable to move from the property. Directly across the street to the north was another man, also shouting nasty things at me. It appeared he was also unable to move from the property. I continued walking north, ignoring the two angry men, and turned left at the ‘T’ intersection. After walking not very far from the intersection, I decided I would like to fly. I had no doubt I would be able to fly since I knew this was a dream. But as soon as I leaped into the air, I immediately came right back down onto the pavement. My second try ended with the same result. On my third attempt to fly, and in the middle of my leap, I woke up.
Thus ended my last experience with lucid dreams.
My first lucid dream experience was quite amusing. But before I begin, as a tip to those attempting to lucid dream, the trick is to constantly have it on your mind. It turns out this dream happened only a few days after I first began researching and thinking of lucid dreams.
So, here’s what happened. In the dream, I was walking home from school (which I never do). In front of me was this one girl from my school. Soon, we found ourselves in a strange room with a pit in front of us, and the only exit was a small window in front of the pit. Somehow, I flew over this pit. Yet, when I exited, and continued walking into my neighborhood, confronted with strange intersections I did not know, all of a sudden I had an epiphany: I was dreaming!
Now, I don’t consider myself a perverted person. I’m not a sex-craving loser. However, my adolescent hormones seemed to be quite in control during the dream. As soon as I realized my lucidity, I immediately hustled to change the dream to suit my sexual desire. I made the garage of a house open in front of me, and caused a considerable attractive woman to appear. It may be of note that this woman didn’t really have features; her face was completely indistinct and lacked any expression. She was also naked. I proceeded to have less than 10 seconds of sexual intercourse before waking up to a nocturnal emission.
It was quite a strange experience. But dreams are by nature, strange experiences.