Mind you, Lucid dreaming has it’s cons. I’ve heard that being conscious as you are when awake, in a dream intruduces order and mundaneness (not a word I know) to the dream beyond the mind’s control. In an ordinary dream the docile mind is caught up in the wildly random creation of the, er, bit that makes the dreams. A conscious mind is, I suppose working on the creation in the same way it works on sensory input during the day. In an ordinary dream you’ve got one part of the mind authoring the dream. In a Lucid dream you’ve got two.
That’s all speculation of course. There’s still the HUGE thrill of being conscious of your dream experience.
I didn’t know there was a name for it. I’ve been “lucid dreaming” for years I guess. I almost always its a dream. Just this morning I had a dream where a car I was in drove off of a road and into a gully (probably a trace memory from the car accident recently that killed a local high school student). Anyway, as it happened, I sort of snapped my fingers to make it change—I essentially hit the rewind button and played the dream again more to my liking.
I dream vividly almost every night as well, and in color which I didn’t realize until I was an adult was a little uncommon. My husband always says I have thin boundries…whatever that means. Sometimes I can’t tell if I dreamed something or it really happened.
Huh. Recently I dreamt that aliens were attacking, but I had some sort of mechanized suit that would allow me to combat the aliens easily. The government took away the suit just when there was an unconscious alien in my house.
If I could have known I was dreaming, and controlled what happened - now that would have been cool. Could have gotten my suit back and fought some ailens and government agents all night long. Instead, I think the dream just went off on some boring tangent. Hrmph. I’ve got to read about this.
I almost always KNOW it’s a dream…
Sorry, must of dozed off there for a second…
That’s news to me. I dream in colour and sound.
Me too.
Yeah, I’ve heard it said that women dream in color, men dream in BW. No cite; just “heard it somewhere.”
Well I dream in full-on real-world color; always have, AFAIK.
I have a friend who, once he realizes he’s dreaming, can take total control of the dream, punch out the bad guys, and fly away into the clouds.
Not me. Like Ghanima, I can sometimes influence the dream, but I’m still bound by the parameters of the dream. I don’t know if this counts as lucid dreaming or not.
Let’s say I’m having one of those frustration dreams – I’m in school, I’m late for class, I wander the halls searching for the classroom, etc. etc. I sometimes realize that this is a dream. I can break the cycle of the dream, but it takes an act of intense concentration. I can’t just do whatever I want - it’s too hard - but I **can ** sometimes force myself to find the damn classroom, and once I get there the dream goes off in another, usually pleasanter direction.
I have never realized, while in the dream, that I graduated from college over ten years ago and the whole classroom dilemma is some sort of hold-over from the days of yore. That realization only comes when I truly wake up.
My 12-year-old daughter just bounced into the living room today and said to me, “Isn’t it fun when you know you are dreaming and you can just play around?” It floored me. I immediately thought of this thread and posted at the first opportunity.
I once slipped into a lucid dream and decided I’d eat the world’s biggest marshmallow.
The rest of the day is something I’d rather forget.
Check out The Lucidity Institute’s Lucid Dreaming FAQ. The only lucid dream I’ve had so far occurred the night I first read this FAQ.
I got interested in lucid dreaming after seeing the movie Waking Life, which explores the boundaries between dreaming and reality.
I read somewhere that if in your dreams you can will yourself to look at your hands, it can trigger a lucid dream. I have done it on occasion, but it never lasts more than a few moments. If I could do it longer, I’d conjure up Jennifer Aniston.
I conjured up Cindy Crawford once. She was just like I imagined. 
I’ve gone into lucid dreaming while in sleep paralysis. Usually during sleep paralysis I’m freaking out and trying to move, but if you can be brave and stay still it can take you into lucid dreaming. I’m too scared to do it most of the time, even though I know I’ll like it once I get into it.
I forgot about sleep Paralysis. I have never been brave enough.
Next time. I promise myself. Next time!
I can’t control what happens in my dreams, but I’m lucid enough to be able to relax and enjoy it. For example, I’m being chased through a complicated building by shadowy figures out to get me and I can enjoy being able to run up 10 flights of stairs and not be out of breath at the end.
Recently, my being chased and powerless dreams have turned into facing my enemy and beating them at their own game dreams.
I wake up happy. 
Count me in as another one with limited control within the dreams’ parameters. I can choose what I do within a dream, but not what happens. For instance, I could know that something bad is going to happen if I continue walking in the direction I’m going, so I decide to go somewhere else instead. I can’t control what’s waiting for me there; it could even be worse than the other situation, but I can choose how I react to it. And I can’t do anything supernatural or whatnot unless the dream is already in that context (like, there was one time I was some kind of superpowered defender of the Earth, and I could do cool stuff then, but I can’t if my dream is reliving a school day or something).
And I’ve always dreamt in color and sound. I’m baffled as to how anyone wouldn’t.
I’ve done this for years, and you can even do it if you’ve been drinking or high on pot, but it’s more difficult, cause of the depressent effect on your consciousness.
First time it was spontaneous (I was meditating a lot back then, and regular meditation is always an assist for any mind exploration), then I started the 'looking at your hands in a dream" technique, by simply telling myself, when in meditation, or as I’m falling alseep that: “while I am dreaming, I will look at my hands and become conscious in my dream.” It takes some practice.
I also discovered that instead of flying around enjoying fantasies, I could go and visit other people who were asleep and dreaming. I could travel OOB, and contact other people. I started visiting someone I met online, and it turned into a sexual thing that we independently documented and verified.
I’ve gotten to the point where I can also enter lucid dreaming from meditation. You dream and meditate both in the same brainwave frequency (Alpha), so it’s just a matter of getting deep enough that you are no longer aware of your physical surroundings, and the dream space takes over.
I lost interest over the years though; “been there, done that” took over. If I could find additional applications, I’d do it more.
BTW: ggrl encourage your daughter. Talk to her about her dreams, make it a fun thing for her to do, a fun thing to share with you, and tell her to never be afraid, since it’s her dream, nothing can ever hurt her. That’s true.
I’ve lucid dreamed since I was a kid. I used to get them all the time in elementary school – I’d be dreaming and suddenly: “wow! I’m dreaming! Cool!” and just start flying around, jumping on top of buildings, teleporting someplace.
I have found, at least for me, that it seems to take an act of will to continue to be lucid during a given dream – sometimes the dream takes control back from you. It’s almost as if you have to continuously believe in your state of disbelief in the dream. If that slips, lucidity drifts away and you’re not in control any longer.
I still lucid dream, very occassionally, as an adult. Perhaps once or twice a year.
This morning I became conscious. The wife and kid had headed off to school and work, and I was alone to catch up on lost Zzzzzs.
I felt some waves in the waterbed, like someone pushing and masking waves to get my attention. It wasn’t the cat, too strong, too regular. I started to come out, and oops! the waterbed wasn’t moving. So I went back in. Waves were back, in my dream. So was someone, stroking my back. Mmmmmm. I couldn’t see who it was before they were gone, so I said, “Neat! What to do?”
I’ve had my share of dream fantasy, so I decided to go and check up on the people I knew who I cared about. They were all awake and busy, so I doubt anyone felt my presence, but I left a token of my love and played around with testing my dreaming/awareness/ability to become aware of the physical and go back to the dream, till the phone rang.
Thanks, Lobsang for planting the seed of lucid dreaming again. You helped it happen.
SnakeSpirit
I have lucid dreams pretty often. I also dream in color and sound, and can’t imagine what it would be like not to do so. I have never tried to induce lucid dreams. I have had a certain kind of dream a few times, where I am in some unpleasant situation, and then I realize that I’m dreaming and I tell myself to wake up. I “wake up,” but I’m still dreaming. It’s like one of those pictures where the same thing is repeated, getting smaller and smaller.