Lucid Dream Experience

Have you ever had a dream in which you were aware that you were dreaming? If so, then you had a lucid dream! Before we go any further, I probably should explain first what a lucid dream is, in case you’ve never heard the term. A lucid dream is a dream where the dreamer knows he or she is dreaming. Say you are in the middle of your dream and randomly figure out, “Hey, this is a dream!” Most of the time we mistake dreams for reality, right? But on certain occasions, being aware in a dream is not impossible. It’s a skill that anyone can learn. However, expert lucid dreamers are not simply aware during their dreams but they are also capable to control them, create places, display characters, and even make inspirations out of it which they sometimes actualize into an art work in real life.

In my lifetime, I have experienced several lucid dreams, but this one that I’m going to tell you, was remarkably vivid. Although this marvelous experience actually happened only for a brief moment, its enigmatic strangeness was enough to leave an overwhelming impression on me.

After watching Inception three times (once alone, once with my sister, and once with my brother) on my last vacation, the most brilliant of Chris Nolan’s masterpieces in my opinion, I became curious about the genius idea. I’d ever heard about lucid dreaming before so I supposed it was where the idea was coming. Then I began to learn the techniques. I mean, the techniques of lucid dreaming, not the extraction thing that Mr. Cobb did. I was so excited, searched how-to-lucid-dream articles and videos on YouTube, set my alarm earlier than normal to interrupt dream intense REM sleep and made my mind focus for a while on lucidity and lucidity only until I fell asleep again. Once getting up in the morning, I immediately wrote everything down what I’d just dreamed as much as I could remember in a dream journal I kept under the pillow. During the day I did some reality checks such as pinching my hand and asking myself, “Am I dreaming?” in hoping that I would do them subconsciously during my dreams. It will help you recognize dreams because when you pinch yourself in a dream you feel no pain.

Good news, the whole thing works! A few times though because now I rarely do it anymore. It needs to be worked up.

Okay, now let me take you to the main topic: my lucid dream experience. One night, I had a very long nightmare but I forgot what it was like. I just remembered it was so terrible. All of sudden I realized I was dreaming, “Oh my God, I’m in a dream! I have a lucid dream! Yay!” But then I started to sense the softness of my bed in the threshold of consciousness. “No no no, please don’t wake up!” I said to myself. This often happened to me. My problem of lucid dreaming: whenever my dream turned lucid, I couldn’t help myself but being overly excited and boom… I landed in my bed. It mostly occurred if I was getting too excited, even though I had anticipated myself with some useful video and article references from the internet. However, this time it was different. I knew exactly what to do. Without thinking any longer, I did this technique called the spinning technique. It said that spinning around helped you prolong your lucid dream, so I pretended to spin around in circles. Eventually I sank in again into the depth of unconsciousness… In a dream world! Unbelievable. I stood there. Unlike classic dreams most of us experience, I was “being” myself, not “watching” myself. It was so real. I could see, hear, smell, touch…literally sense everything. Then I looked around. The place was strange, kinda creeped me out. It was dark and empty with howling noises filled the atmosphere. “Wow, I think I’m having a nightmare right now. This will be the coolest nightmare ever!” I thought to myself. Having a lucid nightmare is actually much better than any horror movies you could imagine by the way. The fear and terror are real, yet you realize the danger isn’t since physically you are in your bed sleeping soundly. Shortly afterwards, I was just thinking about what I should do when I felt waves of numbness spreading all over my body. “Wait… I think I’ve got a sleep paralysis.” I tried to hold on but the more I did, the stronger those feelings were getting, that I was afraid it would harm me. Giving up, I decided to wake up before it got any worse.

Such a shame I passed up the great opportunity of doing something consciously in a dream, not even a single little thing. Anyway, the amazement I felt shoved my disappointment away. I’d never known a dream could be that vivid, as vivid as real life did in which you could use your five senses. It literally felt the same as waking life experiences. Hopefully I would get the chance to experience it again. But of course without sleep paralysis or any other kind of interruptions.