Wooooooooo-hoo! First Lucid Dream!

[WanderAbout]

Last night I had a long, clear, beautiful lucid dream, my first lucid dream ever, apart from a few strange spontaneous ones many years ago. I was in a loft, some old stables that I remember from my childhood, at my grandparent's house. It was always a magical place when I was a child, where my grandparents stored boxes of old junk that fascinated me. It also used to be the workshop of a poor artist that my grandparents supported, they let him live there and work there. He was long gone when I was kid, but some of his brushes and old paints were still scattered around. In the dream, the large open doors in the upstairs section looked out on a beautiful lake, with weeping willows coming down to the water, possibly an old slavery-era, Southern style mansion on the other side. I wasn't quite sure how I'd got there, but I was aware that people rowed on the lake. I'm not even sure at what point I became lucid, but all of a sudden there was a boat full of friendly young people arriving, most of them gorgeous young women. There was an instant mutual attraction between me and one of them. She was very short, petite, curvy, pretty, a light-skinned Asian with jet black hair and shining eyes. I was arguing with her in a good natured way, telling her that it was a dream. She was laughing at me and telling me I was being ridiculous, but I knew I was right. I remembered about lucidity checks. Just to be sure, I picked up a large pack of paper towels that was lying discarded on the floor, with some writing on the side. I thought I'd check to see if the phrases were stable, but every time I tried to focus on them, the writing faded away and wriggled off to the side, leaving the plain pink color of the packaging. Yep, it's a dream alright! Okay, lets jump in the air and see if I can stay afloat. Hmmm, no, I can't. That's funny, I thought you were meant to be able to float in dreams. But I didn't let that worry me, I knew I was still dreaming. It was quite a long dream, and I'm confused about the chronology of events. I think I slipped in and out of lucidity throughout. I remember dancing wildly and exuberantly with the women. In real life, I'm a lousy dancer! I feel repressed and shy, but I thought, the hell, it's a dream, I can do it. At one point, I fell asleep on the floor, cuddling up affectionately with the girl with bright eyes. When I woke, she asked me "Do you STILL think this is a dream?" That reminded me that it WAS a dream, and I became lucid again. I remember either talking about an old friend, or thinking about him very loudly. I shared a house with him decades ago, but have fallen out of contact. He now lives on the other side of the world, in California, with his family. But just as I was talking about him, he also arrived in a boat. I said to myself: Now, what are the chances that would happen in real life?! More proof it's a dream! I told him that, and he gave me the kind of sly smile that he always used to give me when I said something he found a bit ridiculous, but we didn't let that get in the way. It was great to see him. At another point, there was a huge storm. I'd wandered off from the main area of the loft, then I remembered I'd left my phone and kindle somewhere exposed. I rushed back to try to rescue them. The bright-eyed girl proudly told me she'd put them somewhere safe. Alas, she'd chosen a bad spot. They were now in a puddle of water. I was a bit upset, I turned on the kindle, and it was malfunctioning badly. Then I though, ah well, it's a dream. It will be working again in the morning. Somehow the scene shifted, and I was in a pretentious, grandiose mansion, the kind of house rich expatriates rent in Jakarta. I was in the hallway with the girl, and things were getting quite sexual. People were wandering back and forwards, but no one seemed particularly concerned. I could feel her getting aroused, almost to the point of orgasm, but when I tried to touch her tits, she gently pushed my hand away. Somehow my hand went under her shirt, and I could feel that she had fur all over her body, like a chimpanzee. It was mildly disconcerting. I figured that that was why she was pushing me away, there was something about her that she didn't want me to know. +++ And then I woke up. I felt incredibly happy and amazed that I'd had the dream. I made quite a long recording on my voice recorder, as many details as I could remember. I was a bit sad that so many of the details were already fading and that I'd lost track of the order of things. Still, I recorded as much as I could. It wasn't that late, about 12.30, and I went to bed at about 9.30. I went back to sleep, had some more dreams, sometimes woke up, but didn't really make much of an effort to record them. I felt like I'd done a lot that night, anything more would be a bit of an anti-climax. In the morning, I listened back. It was already fading even more, but I wrote down as much as I could, filling in a few details that I hadn't recorded, sometimes letting my imagination fill in the gaps when I forgot. It's now VERY blurry. But I'm extremely happy to have had the dream. By the way, this is now about five weeks since I first started trying to pay attention to my dreams, and I started from the "I never dream" point. I really did think I was a very untalented dreamer and that it would take me a long time before I ever achieved lucidity. So, I've surprised myself. I consulted with the I Ching this morning about it all. I got Before Completion, which basically says, This is not the end of the path, it's only the very beginning, and there are many challenges ahead. That somehow seemed very fitting.