Reading through the forum...

[I_Have_A_Dream]

I've been reading through the forum and it sounds a lot like Inception in real life. It's hard to keep myself from thinking this is all fake after watching Inception. People actually doing reality checks? Like you can't tell if you are in a dream or not? I mean movies aren't real... but this is. It's like I already believed it was fake, and now it's all real? It's awesome! But still having small doubts... anyways, that's not why I posted. I want to get to lucid dreams but I first want to learn how to fall asleep since I have a bit of a "toss and turn for an hour before I fall asleep" problem.

WARNING: This will be long... but please take the time to read it. I am a student and I am here to learn.

I think I can only recall one lucid dream. I think a lucid dream is a dream where you can control what you do right? Well I can remember back a long time ago this happened. I was in the middle of a dream I guess and all of the sudden I could control what I did. I was in my front yard and I think I knew that this was a dream and that I had control. I went into my neighbors house and I don't remember what I did if I did anything after that because this was so long ago. That is all I remember. From that point on I thought that this happened only by accident and would probably never happen again. Now that I am here, I want to be proven wrong. I want to be in control! Mwahahaha! (:

Anyways.. last night I tried a lot of things I watched in the videos for 101. I did the stretches to help me relax. I relaxed my jaw, shoulders, etc. Then I put socks on (which I never sleep in). I read a little until I started yawning and felt tired. I was really relaxed. I turned out my reading light and layed on my back like the stop drop and roll technique. I've never slept on my back before. This is a weird position for sleeping for me. Being as curious as I am, I had to try it. So I layed there with my hands down at my sides just like the video. I didn't move a muscle. I relaxed and tried to forget my eyes were there. I focused on sleep breathing. After maybe 5 minutes, I went to move my mouth and it was really hard and slow. I thought maybe I'm getting somewhere here. I did feel very relaxed. I started to get the lead blanket feeling. It came over my feet and eventually came just over my hands. My chest also felt a little tighter and my breathing was different. It was the weirdest feeling. Then it felt like I was spinning to the right. It started to feel like I wasn't lying in bed but I was spinning in darkness. Then from my hands down to my feet it started to burn? It felt really warm. I decided to stop at this point and I felt that my hands were sweaty. I don't know what happened or what was going on. Maybe this was some kind of placebo affect where I wanted something odd to happen so bad my mind created it for me? I am still learning about lucid dreams and everything so I don't know what paralysis really is besides being paralyzed. I don't think it was paralysis or anything because I could instantly move my hands when I stopped. I'm just trying to learn what's going on here. After that, I turned over to the side, tried to gather my thoughts, eventually turned over to the other side.... and I can't remember after that. I must of fell asleep. This is the fastest I've fallen asleep in a while which is really good. I am a noob at this stuff and I need someone to tell me what I should do. I know you are supposed to do the lucid dreams and stuff in the early morning so I'm not ready for that. I want to make sure I can fall asleep quickly first I guess. So I really want to know if anyone has had this experience before, something like it, or could tell me what was going on.

Thanks a lot.

[Dream Cream]

Do you remember having dreams last night? If you can't remember your dreams you obviously can't remember the lucid ones.

It's good to just keep trying, most people won't have them so soon.

And it's not really like inception, you can't dream with other people. It's just a place created by your mind and you can imagine anything and your body makes it feel real.

Another thing, did you do a reality check when you got that feeling? My first lucid dream happened when I had a really weird feeling all over and I did a reality check because of the feeling.

Good luck ^^
_________________
And also I lost my clothes.

[joethfc]

It was probably sleep paralysis by the sounds of it, you can break out of it so it probably was.

If you find it hard to drift off I suggest doing autosuggestion, repeat a line about your intentions, it will numb your mind and increase your chances of lucidity. Keep repeating something like "tonight I will wake in a dream and know I am dreaming".

[I_Have_A_Dream]

I agree, I do not believe it was a lucid dream because it was just black and I still knew I was lying in bed. I do remember having a dream but it was very fuzzy and short and I know I didn't have control or anything like that. Just normal dream that I usually have. I have a hard time thinking it was sleep paralysis considering I was able to move my hand or anything at any time with no problem. Maybe I was starting to enter sleep paralysis but didn't make it there yet? I will try your suggestion about autosuggestion.

[Freddy885]

[I_Have_A_Dream]

Thank you for your help. Don't get me wrong, I think this is all real and everything, just takes some getting used to.

Also, when I stopped and felt that my hands were sweating, I noticed that my muscles weren't relaxed anymore? I think my calfs were a little tense. Not too sure on this but I think I was doing something wrong if I was sweating. Was I just nervous or something? Haha, I can't wait to go to bed tonight. I'm gonna do some more experimenting. Gotta watch some more videos. Is there a part 1 to 101? I'm only seeing parts 2 to 12.