This was a lucid dream, on my first attempt:
I woke up feeling quite powerful - these sorts of things are sometimes supposed to take months, of even years to master. The majority of the population are meant to have an average of two: in their lifetime, and I'd managed that in as many nights.
Even Christ, on his proverbial bicycle would have been knocked over, breaking a few teeth on the curb in the process.
The dream started strangely, as per the night before I was wandering my house also occupied with my mother - except this time it wasn't actually my house, and I only assumed her presence. A surreal, yet consistent layout, I'd been spending my time wandering around aimlessly in the depths of insomnia - rearranging a room full of junk, though to me they were fascinating impossible possessions.
As with the previous nights experience, I must have become aware at some point, if not before then, as the same pattern followed - in an entirely different setting of course. Oh yes, but that was before I found my house invaded my very good (fleshy) friend Ben. And his mates; whom to me weren't welcome at all, I explicitly remember yelling profanities towards one indicating to leave, which was returned by a look of disgust and aggressive intent. This part of the dream, however boring to read, was possibly the most personally revealing.
Anyway, the pattern: Sex.
The first thing I'm sure any freshly recruited lucid dreamer desires the most, and as I'd read here the previous day - the most difficult to achieve reasonably well. I recollected the advice later, which actually saved the dream from ending abruptly, but in the meantime I decided to chase my wish.
And I did just that - chase, into a supermarket which was magically adjoined to the previous setting, and became the dominant scene for the dream.
Thus ensued a rather tiring chase scene, through the supermarket crowds, causing much chaos in the process by way of dispersal, spillage and disrespect to those people. However, there did become a point where I was too fed up with playing games; games with my subconscious. After all, I had an entire lucid dream to explore, and plenty else to do!
One thing that had to be dealt with, and all lucid dreamers have to deal with is over excitement, or an abundance of emotion. You have to understand that this is the main cause for early termination of a dream. It's just like that condition that induces unconsciousness in such circumstances: cataplexy - only in reverse. You can feel it; your vision starts to grey out, and all the other senses fade as you start to wake. In one instance of this, I could actually feel my limbs and other external perceptions. And the amazing thing is, what with your reality seemingly entirely convincing, your entire view of the waking world is that of a dream, entirely blurring the distinction between the two. If it had all ended there, I would have not only been disappointed, but have little story to share. So I'd read here the previous day, there's a technique to save yourself from premature waking, and further your experience.
It was an advanced technique, and I was using it on my first attempt! Christ has a buckled wheel, and needs reconstructive surgery.
It was, and is the greatest piece of advice I'd ever read in regards to lucid dreaming. You spin. There is an exact explanation as to why this works already here, but this is all one has to do, and I'd thankfully remembered it. If you remember, when you get really really dizzy, the entire world loses it's coherency, and all you feel is yourself gently stepping on consecutive feet, while watching the blurred out, repetitive visuals.
Well you don't even have to spin, in your dream that is, you only have to recreate that exact feeling in your mind. It absolutely works, and so I found out later, the more you allow yourself into it the more vibrant the dream afterwards - yet completely reproducing the physical experience is greatly recommended, even though I only did this later.
I had fully sustained this dream world, the only one I knew at the time, I had retrieved myself from what feels in every way like blacking out from this alternate life.
From that point on I did lots. I've never had a flying dreams before, but I thought I'd attempt it. I had reasonable amount of success, floating over the the many rows of supermarket shelves, and the people perusing them. I haven't, however, mastered cornering - as I discovered, crashing sideways with my full weight into a shelf full of cosmetics, one of those specialised ones, scattering the various beautification products across the aisle.
It didn't hurt, it was an approximation of pain, the sort you imagine yourself feeling. It was still a crushing blow to the freedom I assumed I beheld. Something I'll definitely have to master, then, are my pre-expectations, which entire dictate the behaviour of such magical powers.
Just like the wonderful tramp enthused in Ghost, you have to believe in yourself, focus, and put your entire heart into it. Then, and only then, can one kick a can, and other such novelties. I could have done with him there, if only I'd thought of it at the time, eh. However, interestingly, it's been reported that querying characters in your dream for tuition in such things actually yields success for a great many people.
I did other things, I tried flying outside, up into the sky. Everything went black again, bollocks, and I had to spin myself back to surreality.
I tried something else also suggested; looking at your hand, and wiggling your fingers around. I found this amusing more than anything, and I can definitely confirm that your palm does look a little suspect, as they say. It didn't work quite as well as spinning, for me anyway, but was quite fun nevertheless.
I beat a man, with a wooden beam, just like that granny mentioned on daytime chatshow Kilroy the morning before. If only because there would be no consequences, i'd never done it before and because I could do so without any negative emotion. It released some frustration, anyway, in the same way as beating a pillow. While kicking in his stomach, I wondered if I should be seeing some blood, and because lucid dreams are almost entirely created from your thought processes - there it was. It wasn't entirely convincing, maybe I can't possibly imagine myself drawing blood from someone, in a literal sense? This bloke, he was a thuggish skinhead like character that I'd chosen, the sort that would likely repeat the same behaviour against me.
Don't worry kids, no one was hurt! He stood up again, after a number of blows to his face that is, and was perfectly fine. Not only that, but was actually laughing, because there wasn't any pain in this place, and in a sick (absurd!) sort of logic, my actions seemed somehow affectionate. He didn't mind, smiled, and went on his way.
Don't be under the impression that I hold such desires, as I was but testing the limits, and the scene turned out to be more my Jerry to his Tom. I will admit, mind you, that my own mentality throughout the experience was one of unfocused hysteria, testing the limits in end-of-the-world fashion, with a significantly lighthearted atmosphere.
More:
The windows to the building revealed it to be partly below ground-level. Myself and others seemed fascinated with the glass, indeed they seemed to copy my actions, which I thought nothing of. At this point I remembered a lucid-dream wish from the real world. Of all things, I really wanted to meet Tony Blair, and chat to him in an appropriately surreal environment.
This glass, anyway, was sort of liquid, in that you could easily put your arm through it without breakage. An awe-inspiring detail, though, would have been the sound, and artifacts around the positions of the penetration - which fully mimicked breaking glass, magically holding together around my wrist. Wrist waving made a dulled, glass breaking sound and the imperfections remained only around the area of my hands protrusion.
Thinking back to previous experiences, such as the flying ordeal, I'd now focus completely, and make a clean punch through the impossible material; satisfying resulting in completely breakage, which the other shoppers mimicked, to there own happiness. What else to do but crawl out, into the sun, and the grass and a main motorway.
May I just mention one potentially amusing fact? With my fly down, I was tossing off most of the time. Wandering around, amongst this crowd, looking people directly in the eye, sometimes even talking to them - pulling myself off, rather casually. It felt almost as liberating as flying, in its own socially disruptive way.
Later, I was spinning again, and a small thought has entered into my head; I was told that occasionally doing this would change the scene. Predictably, as happens with lucid dreams, that thought manifested itself.
I was riding horseback, on a railway line, surrounding by the largest selection of English trees my 'eyes' has ever seen. For a reason I'm unsure of, I was thrown (I might have jumped) off of the animal, and was flying downwards from, and towards a massive grass embankment. No pain - was what I reminded myself of, and agreeably the grass was soft, welcoming, I bounced my way down, laughing along.
Encouraged by this, I spent the next period of time trying to jump, really high. It wasn't to be though, as conditioned by gravity I couldn't quite let myself go to reach high enough, the predominant feeling was of being dragged down, than lifted up, and all I managed was an especially high but unsatisfying leap.
I started blanking out again, and curious, I let myself wake.
Feeling muggy, I looked at the clock. I'd only slept for a few hours in reality. My heart was racing, I felt liberated, this wasn't only an achievement but an amazing experience for me. Not entirely convinced I was awake, I undertook a couple of reality checks; I'd passed.
So I watched Chris Tarrant for a while, dreamt lots more, even talking about this experience with the characters in those ones - not everyone had seen Ghost - although none were lucid.
It was a fairly profound night for me. I at least plan to recreate it again, either planning ahead, or exhausting petty desires and move forward.