Hi all :) I've been reading things on the site for a long time now & decided it was time I signed up for the forums. Some of the stuff here's really interesting! Thought I'd share my attempts at attaining lucidity.
Firstly, this was a while back now (maybe a month)... I was writing down all the dreams I was having each night, and it was definitely making me remember more of them. I have to start doing it again I think it helped a lot. At first I was just having normal dreams and remembering a lot of them. Then one night I think I may have had a lucid dream. I hadn't been thinking about them at the time and hadn't written any down for a day or two... hadn't been using any techniques at all that night. I was just in a dream and suddenly realised I'm dreaming.
So this dream.. I was on a street with houses either side, and it was a sunny day. I walked down some steps, and as I did, the bars on the side of the steps were causing the sun to flicker in my eyes. It was very realistic. I was trying to shield my eyes in case the light woke me up. Then I bent down to feel the ground and it felt just like a real pavement. I decided to try making people appear by opening doors and knowing they were on the other side. But I was not quite in control because I was running at the doors and kicking them down instead of opening them. Then once inside I couldn't really control what I was doing, but I was still lucid. Two times the person I wanted to appear was there - and I was impressed as it's the first time I've ever tried it. The third time the person I wanted was there, but kind of faded away into a little model person for some reason and I woke up. On waking, I wondered how lucid I really was, as my brain felt so much more awake than I was in the dream. Like when you normally wake up and realise "ohh it was just a dream" - I still had that feeling, even though it appeared to be lucid. So not sure if I was lucid or just acting out the things I'd want to do if I was lucid - if you get my meaning :P I think I was though.
More recently, a few nights ago I tried WILD, as I've been getting into the whole idea again. The idea of how things appear and what happens to your body as you fall asleep was a scary thought so I don't think that helped. I had played a meditating MP3 and was extremely relaxed. I was laying perfectly still and then my body started to feel kind of fuzzyish, and my neck felt a bit tight - not quite like I was actually being choked, but like something was pushing down on it slightly. This made me move to move away whatever it was pushing on it. That happened about 3 times. Then I did it again without the choking feeling, and I saw a figure appear in my room. This woke me up completely so I decided to just go to sleep normally after that.
After reading that other people have had this choking, and images, and even feeling like they might die! I was reassured that no matter what I'm not going to die doing it, and I know it's all in my head. I think once you really really think.. it's just in my head, it's fine. I tried again last night and no choking.. no weird figures. My body started to feel weird again as it got stiffer, but wasn't sure if it really was paralysed or not yet.. didn't want to try moving it in case that woke me up. So I just lay there for a long time, and the stiff feeling gets more and more prominent at times, and other times seems to subside and I feel very relaxed. It could be I was trying to resist it too much. Eventually though I felt like I was kind of floating. I just wanted to float upwards. Didn't last that long though but I think I was getting there. Then the blackness behind my eyelids went to whiteness, I thought oh maybe I'm going to start dreaming or something now, but it wore off quicky and I felt quite normal again, so I opened my eyes and woke up. After the experience my body still felt kind of tingling, like the blood hadn't been running to my limbs properly. That wore off though and I went to sleep.
So there's my progress so far! Sorry I wrote so much, hope I'll get some comments from others with similar experiences or who know a bit more about it than I do. I think I'm halfway to WILD, don't know if that'll be the method for me or not. I have been trying to do lots of reality checks the last couple of days so that should help. Looking forward to my next lucid dream!
Edit: Err I really did write a lot lol! Sorry! Thanks for reading :)
