Welcome, DKN!

That future-seeing stuff sounds freaky! It seems that a lot of our members (myself included) had their first LD experiences when fairly young, I'm thinking that younger minds are more open to that kind of stuff, and maybe it's a little easier at that age than trying to learn it once you're an adult.

Your first definition -- "being aware that you are dreaming" -- is truly lucid dreaming. Being able to control your dreams is sort of the next step. I know what you mean about the dream world "feeling" different than reality -- that's often how I know I'm dreaming, though I apparently don't have LDs as often as you -- most of my dreams are still the ordinary variety where I'm just along for the ride.

As far as controlling my dreams, that's kind of hit-or-miss as well, so don't feel bad. I find that it's usually fairly easy to control my own actions, even to the point of defying physics (like flying), but controlling the dream environment is much harder.

But stick around, and read the tips you'll find on the site. Everyone here is quite friendly and helpful, and I'm sure you'll find some methods to help improve your dream control, or whatever else you'd like to do. Ciao!