Thread: Hello new DV-companions! Help out a newbie?

I found this page about a year ago, and eagerly read my way through tutorials, etc, very fascinated with this phenomena. I had never experienced anything like it before, and was hoping to learn some more about it.

My major problem, at least back then, was my only remembering dreams on rare occasions. I never worked on my dream recall since then, though. Recently, however, I've been able to recall my dreams more frequently, once every two weeks, approximately. Still quite rarely...

What got me back to this website again now, and made me join the forum, was a dream I had two days back.
It was quite an exciting dream, I got picked up by a red, small helicopter (don't ask me why, it's a dream, they're always absurd, as you probably know). Flying low above the ground, out above and down waterfalls, right above waves, quite a thrill. (I believe it might have something to do with me watching Avatar recently, there are these helicopter-like vehicles and at some point the main character jumps down a small waterfall, ya know?)

Then, at some point, the helicopter crashes (only recall seeing the wreck) quite near where I live. We (no idea who the other persons are, two or three people) start walking up this street, that leads to the street where I live.

Now comes the strange part. I manage to ask myself, "Is this a dream?" and look at my hands, counting my fingers, doing the reality-check (as it's called, if I've understood the concept correctly). I read this here a while back, but I haven't been doing that in my normal daily life, at all. Anyway, seven fingers on my right hand.
I realize that this must be an LD, getting curious, and I figure that I have to come up with something cool to do, so first I start off jumping up and down, I'd say at first 4, then maybe 7 meters. Getting really excited I think of something else to do, I try running extremely fast. However, it doesn't work. I just feel like I'm moving my legs really really fast (imagine the cartoons with spinning legs), without moving quickly at all, normal running speed for approx 20-40m. I really want to run fast, suddenly I have a feeling of stress, someone is following me (those 2-3 persons were still around when I started jumping, the just looked normally at me, now however I get the feeling one or more of them try to catch up with me), but I can't move faster, at all.

And that's what I remember... seemed like, perhaps, 10-15 seconds since the reality check.
Now, what confuses me the most, is that it didn't feel that vivid, or lucid, at least not when I try to recall the dream. I've always imagined that LD's are really, well, lucid, and "realistic".
I kind of have a feeling that I, as strange as it might seems, only dreamt that I was experiencing an LD, if that makes any sense? It seems strange that I should already experience a proper LD, I just think about it once in a while and hope that I'll experience it. Dreaming that one has a Lucid Dream - sounds weird, but makes sense to me at the moment. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Is this anything someone else has ever experienced before?

I normally don't get that much sleep, 5-6 hours a night (well, of course not in the weekends ), I'm at a lively boarding school and there's always something happening, although I try my best to get the ideal 8 hours of sleep. Whenever I dream, it usually happens in the morning if I've woken up a bit early and fall asleep again, and I often don't remember until later that day, when something random brings it into my thoughts again.
I've bought a small notebook I'm hoping to use as a Dream Journal, but it's not easy to do so when it's not always accessible (i.e. I remember the dream while being in class, etc).

So, any tips for an eager newbie?

Thanks for reading, looking forward to learning more about Lucid Dreaming, hopefully I'll experience something soon!