A ridiculously long, detailed description of my first LD

[gavi dvan]

About a month ago while utterly bored, I somehow stumbled across a detailed FAQ on lucid dreaming. Before this day, all I knew of it was its reference in the movie Vanilla Sky (top movie). I was completely fascinated by what I read and proceeded to look up more and more information on the topic. After a couple of (weak) attempts to pull it off, I kind of forgot about it, well not really forgot about it but just became distracted or lazy and hadn't bothered trying it since.

Last night I had my first lucid dream. Out of nowhere. What a trip.

I went to bed at about 11 or something as I was a bit tired. (I actually slept with my head on the opposite end of the bed to usual as I was watching TV the night before as I went to sleep and my pillows were still down there). At about 4am, I woke up.
Could NOT sleep.
I turned on the radio on my CD player. About 15 minutes later I turned that off and decided to swap ends back to my normal sleeping position. I then put on my bedside radio clock radio with the 59 minute sleep function thing. (By the way, a bit of music usually helps me sleep. I listen to music most nights.) I still could NOT sleep. I rolled from side to back to other side and just got nowhere. By the time the radio turned itself after the 59 minutes off I was quite $&^%@@!ing frustrated as I just wanted to sleep, goddamnit.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I had to resort to the trusty, foolproof, don't-know-where-I-got-it-from, "lie still and count down from 1000" technique.

Got down to 900 no problem. By the time I was at 830, I was getting all those ridiculous thoughts that just make absolutely no sense whatsoever and I found myself half-asleepily restarting from 830 a few times.
Boom. I was gone. :D

Now in this sleepy time I am pretty sure I had 3 or 4 separate lucid dreams. Or at least different main settings, I don't know. But I only really remember the first one, of realisation that I was infact dreaming, and the last one, before I awoke.

I don't know how exactly I came to realise I was dreaming. I went into the upstairs toilet-room-thing in my house and I just remember suddenly thinking, "I think I could be dreaming." (Years ago I had a "normal" dream where I was able to fly when I went into the toilet-room-thing of my house, even though "my" house in that case was a completely different house, it sounds so damn stupid but it was a very clear dream, I think this may have had something to do with the connection.) Anyway, as I thought this, I just tried to fly. And up I went. It was like swimming in space or something, but there was a roof and all. I then deliberately tried to surpress my excitement. I don't really remember much from this point until my last dream...

My last dream, I shall not go into too much detail as it primarily concerned the fact that I well and truly knew that I was lucid dreaming and could do whatever I wanted, and so for some strange reason, that mainly involved women and certain actions involving them. Haha, it was cool. Remembering what I'd read about expecting things to be there, I was able to do things such as look at my empty bed, look away, and look back at it with someone in it. Or see my bedroom door slightly ajar, and then conjure up people to come in through it. Unfortunately during an unbelievable encounter that then followed, everything then faded and disappeared for good. Goddamn it!

EDIT-I forgot to mention, I do not know how to describe the feeling I felt after awaking from this experience. It felt just unreal. I was lying there trying to commit everything to memory with a big goofy smile on my face. I was also extremely happy that what began as such a frustrating night became the best sleep I ever had. I haven't got this off my mind all day.

Some interesting notes:

Every now and then, my vision would start to fade, not to black but to a kind of charcoal greyish colour I think! When this would happen, I would think along the lines of "no no no stay stay!!!" and I think I kind of swayed my head about or something. This tended to work, until the whole thing ended.

The entire experience was in 1st-person. Most of my dreams tend to be, at least partially, seen in third-person.

I also recall conciously thinking and worrying about the fact that while I am dreaming, my real body might be sleep walking or be being watched by somebody. Is that strange!? To have your dream body worrying about your real body? (After awaking I was quite relieved to find myself lying normally in my bed alone. Not naked in my loungeroom or something.)



Anyways sorry about the ridiculous length of this post, I don't care if nobody reads it, I just wanted to get it off my chest. But thanks for reading if you did. You're crazy!

[Matthew]

Good for you, Gavi Dvan. I hope you experience many more in the future. On that note, I would suggest working with some type of energy gathering exercises if you are not already. Systems like chi kung or New Energy Ways will give you lots of energy to explore.... by the way, it's pretty common to "plant" the idea of lucid dreaming in your unconscious and have it pop up a few weeks later in a series of lucid moments. Doing some reality checks through the day would probably help, too.

Keep up the good work!

-Matthew

[floatingadam]

Most of my lucid dreams happen early in the morning or about 15 minutes after I go to bed. I know what it's like not to be able to sleep like that, and it usually happens when I have to start work at 7 am! For me it just seems like my brain is too excited to sleep because I'm not done thinking. I think and think and think and I can't calm down enough to doze off. And that's why probably why thinking about something boring helps you fall asleep. I tap one finger up and down on the bed for as long as I can and that's all I think about. When my finger falls, then I'm pretty much asleep!

It's common for my vision to fade when I start thinking about the fact that I'm dreaming, and I usually lose it. If that happens, I have to start all over most of the time.

I've done a million crazy things while lucid dreaming and every single time I woke in a normal position in my bed. I don't think you need to worry about that, unless you sleepwalk already or something.

Thanks for calling me crazy for reading your ENTIRE post, lol! It's true that some people might see how long it is and decide to skip it, but since it's about something that everybody here is interested in, I'll bet most people do read the whole thing.

Enjoy your lucid dreams.

[gavi dvan]

Thanks guys for taking the time to read it! I do hope to get a bit deeper into the whole "scene", still being quite knew to it all, I've always had an interest but have recently gotten into it alot more after things such as seeing the documentary "What The Bleep Do We Know", reading "The Celestine Prophecy" and of course just random finds on the net. Thank you all for the suggestions, I'll work on it.


For me it just seems like my brain is too excited to sleep because I'm not done thinking. I think and think and think and I can't calm down enough to doze off. And that's why probably why thinking about something boring helps you fall asleep. I tap one finger up and down on the bed for as long as I can and that's all I think about. When my finger falls, then I'm pretty much asleep!

I think I know how you feel... My brain just never shuts up, it's just always thinking thinking thinking, especially lying in bed, sometimes I wish I was a little more braindead, heh. You're probably right about why the countdown technique thing works, I think that's also why listening to music helps me sleep (it's usually familiar CD's that I know word-for-word.) I really like that finger tap idea, thanks for the lowdown.

[floatingadam]

Hey no problem, and that documentary was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time on TV!