Thread: How did you discover Lucid Dreaming?

I first learned about LDs when an old friend was telling me years ago about it. (edgewizz7) I really wanted to try it, but didn't know how. for a couple years I forgot about the whole thing, then one day I was stoned and up late at night watching tv and a movie came on called "Waking Life" (many of you are familiar with this movie) And it was an awesome experience, just watching it alone, stoned, late at night. After that I eventually had a couple LDs, but they were short and certainly not vivid. I found it very difficult to see, to move, and simple things like that. I'm sure that was because of the cannabis. Anyway, here I am, having found DV on google, having given up cannabis 4 years ago, and having regular LDs. The last was the other night - I was on the run from the FBI after robbing a bank and i fell off a train and they found me and I used 'the force' to push them away

So how did you guys first hear/learn about Lucid dreaming? Were you interested in dreams before you did? How has it affected your life?

I was watching a video about the life of an INTJ by a woman named Des when she said she's started learning lucid dreaming. I then somehow felt that this would become very important to me, so I googled it and found this site.

I was looking into hypnosis (inspired by the Mythbusters and my IP relations professor) in an effort to hypnotize my sister just for fun, when I somehow stumbled upon lucid dreaming. I then recalled a documentary about lucid dreaming, and decided to do a bit more digging. I liked what I saw, and here I am.

I doing some research about Theta Wave and their reaction with the brains and stubbles upon this website. And I remembered my friend saying he was able to control his dreams and was amazed I could actually LEARN to do it!

I was intruduced to it on another forum. We had a "Nightmare/Bad Dream" Thread going and these guys were talking about Lucids...

I asked what they were on about and Eagle, who you all know as Dairyman here informed me. I was intriuged. He later linked me to his DJ, and then that got me started here.

Glad that conversation happened.

When I was in high school and first learned about dreaming in psych class, it occurred to me that being able to control my dreams would be really cool. One day, while I was rather interested in my dreams, I spontaneously realized I was in a dream, but immediately woke up upon that realization. About a year later, as a college freshman, at which point I think I'd heard of lucid dreaming proper (probably from a documentary video about dreams I'd gotten as a gift), I had my first stable LD, a WILD, after a long night of astronomy. Within about another year of that I bought LaBerge's book and kept dream journals and all that jazz. Since then it's been a hobby I pick back up every now and then to varying degrees of intensity. Every once in a while since I first developed the hobby I've also had very rare spontaneous LD's when I wasn't actively cultivating them.

I actually had a LD first before I knew what it was. When I was a teenager, I had a really intense dream that I had supernatural abilities, and the CIA were chasing me. Near the end of the dream, they shot my dad on our lawn outside my house. I remember thinking I didn't want to see this plot through, I didn't want this to happen or deal with it, and it was like the scene rewound and I thought, "Oh wow, this is a dream!" and told my dad to get inside the house.

That dream prompted me to keep a dream journal, ever since then. I tried doing some research on the internet and found that dream control has a name, but I couldn't really find much else about it (this was about 12 or so years ago).

I'd sporadically had LD's since then, but never had very much control over them. Mostly just that I knew I was dreaming. Sometimes I only had enough control to make plot choice changes or scene changes. Sometimes I had enough control to activate certain abilities (like one dream I was in someone's house, and I didn't want to get caught, so I levitated), sometimes I had total control to stop the dream plot and do something cool like flying, only, I wouldn't get very far with that. I could get up there, and I kept getting dragged back down, while in flight.

I found DV through a google search too when I wanted to learn if I could have more control of lucidity.

back in1st grade like 15 years ago and I thought It would be fun to learn but as kid I ended up waiting till i was like 17 senior year when I sleep through half my classes and say Hell I screwed up school by not putting any effort into school since after kindergarten and doing no homework in my life and I showed them I could have graduated valedictorian rather than come out of school with a 3.1 ( would have been 3.6 if i didn't sleep) g.p.a and only showing I have genius level I.q. which made me think of the lucid dream I had making me think to myself It would be nice to gain control of my dreams and do what I want to do.

I just did it. At first it just happend, I knew I was dreaming and could do whatever I wanted. When I told people about my dreams they always acted as if it was weird to remember so much of my dreams and to be able to control them. Later I tried going from the waking state to the lucid state. It wasn't until years later I discovered it had a name.

I was trying to find ways to get hallucinations and I saw somebody say about lucid dreaming and decided it sounded a lot cooler and healthier, that guy probably saved me from a life of being a druggy ^^

EDIT - That or I was just googling how to control dreams as I found out about a year ago that whatever I think about during the day a lot or just before I go to sleep is usually what I dream about.

Actually, the second option is the most likely way that I learned about lucid dreams but I saw the words lucid dreaming in the first option.

About 3 years ago, my drummer in my old band and I would chill all the time and talk about spiritual stuff, drugs, the universe, ya know, the usual things freshman psychonaughts talk about. We started experimenting with ethnobotanicals and obscure psychoactives, when one day he called me up and was like "dude do u know what lucid dreaming is? We must learn how!" I wasn't excited or anything cause when he described it it didn't sound nearly as cool as astral projection and obes. I did more research about it then became obsessed. 3 years later I am having lucids almost naturally at 8 per month, while he has only had 1 in a 3 year span. We don't keep close in contact anymore due to the law, but if it wasn't for him, I would be a closed minded ignorant bastard, he's showed me a lot and I thank him for that.

My mum told me about them years ago she learned them from a friend.

Interestingly,

I was browzing the ZDoom forums, when I came across a thread (no longer exists) in the off-topic section where someone was talking about how they had been lucid dreaming recently. After reading thhrough the thread, I became very intewrested, and found my way here and a few days later to DV.

i learnt how to naturally from nightmares when i was younger then a few months ago after asking a lot of people if they can control dreams they all said no and looked puzzled so i thought id google it and ended up here ..

Well, I had my first LD three years ago, I just wanted to start looking around, and I was just like "Ok...". Break 2 years, then about last Feb. or March, I had another and another, till I had like 7 I believe...though I don't totally remember. Keep in mind I didn't know the name of them at this point.

Then, I was very interested in what I could do in these LDs...I think that before I came onto DV I used a dream dictionary, though I am not into that part of dreaming anymore. I think that I may have looked up "dreaming that you know you're dreaming", and found that the term for it was LDing. At some point I checked out a book by Labernge, the history of LDing. I saw that on this site, read the main stuff on the main page, which helped me a lot. I was impressed, so I joined the site.

I was on Xfire (Like a MSN or AIM) and I was talking to my friend he he told me about dreamviews so I looked here and now im really into lucid dreaming1

i first heard about lucid dreaming after seeing this video

it starts talking about ld's after 5 mins in. its part of a series about the human body, actually a good series. anyway the way the video explained it, i thought that you needed the Novadreamer to have ld's. so i forgot about it for a while. then i think last summer or before, i had a spontaneous ld. then i thought "wait a minute, you dont need the Novadreamer!". so i looked up lucid dreaming in google and here i am! and yea Stephen Laberge is in the video, i thought yall might like that.

Ri,
I started when i was real young, it came almost natural. It all began because i've always had and still do have this giant yearning to fly, and in my dreams i began to fly. Funny thing though is that when i started i would flap my arms to fly lmao! i eventually started to think to myself (outside the dream realm) that flapping my arms to fly is rediculouse(dono why since it's a dream and i could blink to fly if i wanted lol) so i promised myself on my next flight dream i would do it the right way. Now i fly atleast once a week unless it's been a stressful week. My father was never in my life but he had left this box of his stuff and in it was The Art of Dreaming by Carlos Castaneda and with that and my interest i devoted my life to become an ascended being. I began practicing gaining control throughout school and never spoke to anyone about it as i live in a little hick town that thinks anyone who doesn't go to church EVERY sunday is a devil worshipper... anyways i went to the military after high school and met a man than is a very well known magician and is part of the brotherhood of magicians. He taught me how to have OBE's and about The Secret and about energy beings in general (i will be sharing this very soon) and i was discharged from the military from what they said was anxiety, i came home and ran into my best friend and he was in a bad position in his life and i began teaching him about LD and OBE's and helped to open is mind. That's the point when i realized this is a way of life for me.

Through a nightmare! Became lucid on the nightmare, so started from there. Though if you mean the formal name, a few years ago in another forum, thread about dreams, I mentioned a dream, someone said you can't control your dreams and that it was BS and only the nuts think it can be done, someone said it was LD and linked to laberge in wikipedia. Didn't care for the name though, only read the description and hurried to join a LD site <.<

Well, no one ever told me that it's possible to control your dreams. About 4 months ago, I had my very first (vivid) lucid dream. My brother told me the house was going to explode.

And I said 'that's odd...'
I took a look around myself, and thought alot of things were off.

'THis is a dream.'

And I took complete control, like a pro
About a month later I searched 'Can you control your dreams?' because I wanted to know if anyone else could do it. And I found this place.

And just a few days ago I decided to join. (I would'ce gotten into it sooner, but algebra is kicking my ass )

lol i know the feeling. im in algebra II honors. i hate the stuff were learning right now.

Originally Posted by jareemon

I first learned about LDs when an old friend was telling me years ago about it. (edgewizz7) I really wanted to try it, but didn't know how. for a couple years I forgot about the whole thing, then one day I was stoned and up late at night watching tv and a movie came on called "Waking Life" (many of you are familiar with this movie) And it was an awesome experience, just watching it alone, stoned, late at night. After that I eventually had a couple LDs, but they were short and certainly not vivid. I found it very difficult to see, to move, and simple things like that. I'm sure that was because of the cannabis. Anyway, here I am, having found DV on google, having given up cannabis 4 years ago, and having regular LDs. The last was the other night - I was on the run from the FBI after robbing a bank and i fell off a train and they found me and I used 'the force' to push them away

So how did you guys first hear/learn about Lucid dreaming? Were you interested in dreams before you did? How has it affected your life?

I heard about Lucid Dreams from Waking Life. After watching that movie with a very close and open minded friend of mine. Personally for me the realization of Lucid Dreams are very overwhelming because to me it is a completely separate reality in which i can escape and live in. It still has not sunk in i watched the movie last night and i am still mind boggled about it.

Originally Posted by Vashen

I heard about Lucid Dreams from Waking Life. After watching that movie with a very close and open minded friend of mine. Personally for me the realization of Lucid Dreams are very overwhelming because to me it is a completely separate reality in which i can escape and live in. It still has not sunk in i watched the movie last night and i am still mind boggled about it.

I don't know if escaping and living in the dream world is the right way to think about it. The dream world to me is an extension of the real world, where everything is possible. I don't look at it as a second life and I don't think you should. Not that that makes Lding less amazing. But also when you don't see it as a second life but an extension where you can also solve problems from your everyday life. It can enhance your everyday life so you don't even want to escape from it.

It was at least 5 years a go (maybe more) when I had a fase awakening and I realized I was asleep.
I was telling my mother about it and she was saying how you can have dreams where you are aware you are asleep and you can do things in them like change them for your benefit.
I then found out they were lucid dreams. I spent many years hoping each night I'd have one, and when I did have a lucid dream it was so amazing.
Only recently I found the forum. I wanted to find a lucid community for at least 2 years now, and failed my search twice. Finally DV popped up. Its great. Now I can LD when I want.

I learned/heard about LD'ing from a friend who visits these forums regularly. HI JARRHEAD!!!! *cheers with pompoms*

I'm thinking he has got me into a new topic that I will fall in love with.