My first attempt at a reality check

My first lucid dream was when I was 6 years old. I had a nightmare and ran up to my parents’ bedroom and got into bed with my mom. I told her about my nightmare and she told me she was going to take me back into my dream and help me take control of the scary situation and make it not scary. I still remember to this day, as does she, that she literally induced me into lucid dreaming in order to control a nightmare. Since then, I’d have a lucid dream randomly every couple of months or so.

About a year ago, I read about reality tests and other techniques to induce lucid dreams, and to be honest I kind of thought they were all BS. Well I just revisited the topic yesterday and decided to try to pursue some reality tests. Throughout the day yesterday, I would do the clock test, count my fingers, lean on a wall, and repeatedly ask myself if I was awake or asleep.

Well last night, during my second dream of the night (that I can remember…I almost always remember 1-2 dreams/night), I was a member of the Houston Rockets and we were playing in the playoffs. I specifically remember saying to Andrew Bynum (I guess he got traded…) “this is so amazing to me, it’s almost like a dream. I can’t tell whether I’m awake or dreaming” and those words were like an epiphany to me, I realized that I might actually be dreaming. So I started performing reality tests all over the place in my dream. I’d look at a sign then look away then look back and it would have different text on it or be a different size. Or i’d look away then look back and new people would have appeared. Or buildings would disappear when I’d look away then look back. Basically, I used reality tests in my dream to confirm that I was in fact dreaming. I also remember remembering in my dream that I had read that at first you shouldn’t try to take control of a dream, just be conscious that you’re dreaming, so that’s what I did. There was some serious connection between the dream and waking worlds. It was incredible that the first night after trying to introduce some reality tests into my life I used them in my dream to confirm that I was dreaming. I’m really excited to see where this will take me.

The weird thing was that I snapped out of this lucid dream in an instant. In virtually every other LD i’ve had, the dream would slowly fade away…I could feel it slipping away, knowing that I was about to wake up, and I couldn’t do anything about it. But in this dream I was instantly awake, and as far as I could tell, there was no loud noise or anything like that that woke me up. Anyone have any thoughts on this instant ending to a LD? Also, anyone have any thoughts on becoming lucid in my 2nd dream and not my first?

Welcome en47! Hope you enjoy your stay, and congratulation for getting lucid on your first try of RC’ing ^^
You know, I have the same problem, I manage to stay lucid if I just realize it by myself, but wake up real fast if I did it by performig a RC. It might have to do with the fact high lucidity (the one brought forth by a RC, mostly) can be associated with the waking state; it can take a while to introduce this state of mind successfully to dreams for some.

And the “try to follow the flow at first” advice is sound, as it makes first LD’s easier to obtain (as you are not really forcing them with desire to do anything) and longer (the exitement of being in dream can bring someone to wake up the first times); with time and practice, it is possible to have the same awareness and lucidity of waking life in dreams, it’s a matter of taking it easy mostly and gaining the upper edge at a natural rate.