I'm new! I'm feel like I have more dream recall and more vividness in my dreams than most other people that I talk to, so for many reasons I feel like it's time for me to invest some time and thought into lucid dreaming. I thought this would be an appropriate place to give you all the short version of my history of lucid dreaming. I have vivid dreams, which I recall, almost every night of my life. I fall asleep very fast and seem to dream most of the time I'm asleep (though that might just be a misperception). I have had a sleep test and found out that I do in fact rarely get past REM into a deeper sleep. I flutter between REM and "very light sleep" many times throughout the night. Unfortunately I suffer from nightmares. Most nights my dreams are nightmares. I believe that my dreams are bad from a combination of anxiety, personal issues, hormonal/chemical stuff, and the aforementioned lack of good deep sleep.

Every once in awhile I become aware that I'm dreaming. Sometimes I get "stuck" in a dream and experience sleep paralysis.

Anyhow, I have early memories of lucid dreams. Here is one of many examples: I was being kidnapped by a man on a motorcycle, and I knew I was dreaming, but I was "stuck," so I yelled to myself "jump off of the motorcycle, you will wake up then" and I jumped, and I woke up.

Last night, I was on a beach, presumably on vacation, and things started going badly. The usual stuff. People in dreams (usually people from real life, I have a few regular visitors in my dreams) saying and doing hurtful things to me, and for whatever reason, this time I realized I was dreaming, and I was able to send away the bad people, and I actually was able to conjure up a completely new person, not from my real life. He drove up on a boat and was nothing short of my prince on a white horse. I have a very vivid memory of "creating" this person. I consciously named him, decided what his voice would sound like, etc etc, and I was able to do this, and then the dream continued for quite awhile, until I was woken up by my cat (stupid cat!).

Anyhow, this was wonderful for me. I haven't had much luck turning around my nightmares since they got really bad again. I'm 29, and the dreams started getting really awful at around 25. I would like to learn how to harness what happened last night and eventually make my dreams go away.

Thanks for listening!