Introduction

For those of you who don't know what Lucid Dreaming is, being able to Lucid Dream is being self-aware in your dreams and being able to actively control your own thoughts and actions in your dream.

What so great about it? In your dream, you control everything and you make the rules. It's just like Inception! Here are some of the benefits:

• You can do miraculous things in your dreams that you can't do in real life, like fly, or not die, or get a girlfriend
• You have more time in "life". You are asleep 1/3 of your life where you don't do anything. Being able to Lucid Dream allows you to utilise that 1/3 of your life. Sometimes it actually allows you to utilise MORE than you life. I will elaborate further later
• You get to visit magical places. No money to travel? No problem, imagine you're at the Eiffel Tower. POOF! There it is

Source Bending Reality

Personal Experience

While I've been able to Lucid Dream for awhile, I'm by no means a pro at it. Meaning, I still can't fully control myself or be completely self-aware. Or I still have dreams where I do not Lucid Dream and it's just a normal dream where I wakeup with a faint memory. It really depends on your Sleep Quality.

I've noticed if I watch videos, play video games, or just go to sleep with an active mind in general, my Sleep Quality is a lot worse and I don't really get to Lucid Dream.

For me, I started doing a little bit of research (a.k.a Googling, or maybe at that time Yahoo-ing) into dreams when I was very young, at about 10. Why I did that was because I had a horrible experience with my dream. It was the first time I experienced a dream within a dream. Have you had that before?

I had the usual nightmare where I was being chased around by monsters, I can still remember what the monsters were and the sequence the whole dreams played out even today. I also remember how each monster chose to torment me and let me go to play with me further (Yes, I was a very imaginative and deranged child). The first time I had this dream, I finally ran and hid in a room. The room looked like a cheerful kindergarten room with toys and crayons and colours everywhere. There were also balloons floating everywhere.

As I went into the middle of the room and stood there. The balloons all started turning around, and with their horrible faces, started staring at me and slowly moving closer.

This was something I made awhile ago for fun, but it was wayyyyy creepier than this

As the closest one came near me, it pounced on me and I woke up lying in my bed.

I was relieved that it was just a dream, everything felt normal again and I thought I was awake but I felt something moving under my blanket. When I slowly lifted my blanket, the balloon with the scary face was there and it pounced at me again! Then, I woke up again!

That was the first time in my life I have ever had a dream within a dream. To be honest, even today, 15 years later, there is still that small itch at the back of my brain asking myself:

• have I really woken up that night?
• am I still in another dream?
• am I going to live out the next 50 years of my life and suddenly wakeup as a 10 year old in that mattress again?

Repeating Nightmare

When I first started gaining the ability to Lucid Dream was also because I was aware that Lucid Dreaming was possible in the first place not long after I had that horrible experience. I looked it up online and I learned that controlling yourself in your dream is possible, so I had a way to fight back then!

When I first got to use my Lucid Dreaming ability was when I had the same dream happen again. Literally, the exact same nightmare, with the same monsters, with the same scenarios playing out.

However, this time I was aware. When the nightmare started, I didn't know I was having the same dream. This was the first time my dreams repeated as well. It was not until the first monster started appearing that I realised I was having the same dream. But this time I was equipped with my memory of the scenarios from before, I thought I was saved!

As I successfully hid from Monster #1, then Monster #2, Monster #3. The one that caught me was a skyscraper-tall skeleton. I thought I'd hide from him under a table in a random skyscraper. But I heard him bellowing out there while searching for me:

"Don't think you can hide from me, I know you remember your last dream, but that won't work, we remember you as well"

Source Think this, but a giant rotting skeleton with some flesh still attached

Just as he ended his sentence, he ripped off the top of the building I was hiding in, each eye socket as big as an elephant, staring at me and laughing maniacally. As he came over to reach for me, and I thought I was a goner, I couldn't think of any other solution, then it hit me! I'll just wakeup!

So, I forced myself awake and I was safe! This was also when I learned an important lesson that I've used in many of my dreams and nightmares since. If I ever want to change the scenery, or get myself out of a not-so-favorable situation, just wakeup!

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This post ended way longer than I intended. I didn't touch on how you can learn how to Lucid Dream, but I will do that in my next post. I wanted to give you an idea of how I first learned about it and how I first utilised it.

If you'd like to learn more about Lucid Dreaming, how to do it, and more of my experiences with it, that's coming up in my next post!