Quote Originally Posted by opalwolf View Post
i just put "a lot" in for my lucid count, because i am one of those people that "it came naturally to". I have definitely had hundreds and possibly thousands of lucid dreams. I don't consider myself a "pro" and i do not think there is a "pro" status really. I used to have repeating nightmares as a child and taught myself to recognize when i was sleeping in order to escape the demons i was encountering. This led to me being able to recognize when i am sleeping / dreaming. it wasn't until later that i even learned what a lucid dream was and then got into the "practice" of it. I must admit my prior experience gave me an edge in learning techniques. The BEST advice I can give a beginner is:
1. keep a dream journal
2. improve dream recall
3. NEVER GIVE UP / REMAIN FOCUSED (you can do it!!)

i think a large part in achieving lucidity in a dream is the belief that you can
This is pretty much my storyline, i have always had some level of awareness in my dreams but didnt know what it ment. Here is a copy/paste from another post;

When i was younger, I had bad dreams about being chased and unable to get away. I dealt with it by waking myself up, but I never realized that most people couldn’t do this. As time went on, I had actually developed a power of some sorts over the situation. For example say someone is about to harm me in some way. I would say to the person or monster " you cant not hurt me because i can just wake up". Most of the time the situation would dissolve in some sort of wierd way or if need be, i would force myself to wake up. Having said that, this was before i knew anything about lucid dreaming. Also growing up, in my dreams I would aquire things of value and hide them somewhere like upder my pillow. The thinking was that when I woke up, the things would be there. So there had to be a level of awareness, but I just accepted it as normal.

I didnt know what lucid dreaming was until a little over a year ago I started having LDs about once every few weeks to now having them 2-3 nights a week with a majority of them multiple LDs and FAs. I have recently learned to reconize the FAs which as increased my frequency. Now, i in noway where i want to be. Im actually on a 5 day dry spell and it seems like the harder i try to LD, the less it happens. I would have these dry spells and get frustrated. Then i would decrease my efforts, and then would have several nights in a row with quality LDs. What adds to the frustration is that i have very good dream recall, and have tons of non LDs in which i miss so may dream signs.