Hi i'm new to the site but i've been into this sort of thing for a while now. Well i'll skip all of that and start with my question. I've had a few lucid dreams before but i didn't really know what was going on until I stumbled upon this site after researching OBE's. But now that i know i have been trying to have them and doing all of the basic things that will help me progress. I was excited to go to bed last night with my friend over and all and i was looking forward to it all day. When i went to bed, i had a few dreams that i couldnt remember very well, but wrote what i could recall in my journal nonetheless. It was about 8 in the morning when i awoke with my friend close by talking in his sleep, and i had realized i had not been lucid. So i was in a half sleep half awake sort of trance. And as i fell asleep i used my imagination and pictured myself in my backyard. Eventually i fell asleep, only my dream was that i WAS in my backyard, with some of the guys over, and i thought everything was reality - because it was then. So i did multiple reality checks in my dream and eventually stumbled on the counting the fingers thing, and realized every time i counted the fingers on my right hand there would be six. I did it for a while when i suddenly proclaimed i was dreaming. I guess you could say i became lucid, because i guess that is what it is. I went over to the diving board at our pool and began to dream spin as i could feel my dream fading. I ended up in my backyard, and i dream spun again only i commanded that i was in a city, and i eventually stopped spinning to be there. Then my friend coughed and woke me up. But it was weird, i knew i was awake, but it only barely felt like i was asleep when i was. Because i was thinking maybe i just imagined all of that and thought i was sleeping. Which brought me to the question of was my dream really lucid, or was my dream me being lucid, but not actually being so. I am very confused by this and just would like to know if this is...common or whatever. It just didn't feel right.