Hey everyone!
I am new to this forum and discussing this topic in general. It has always occurred to me that the way I dreamt was different than most but it’s my first time reaching out to others who may experience the same thing. I am a lifelong lucid dreamer, since I can remember dreaming I always had some form of lucidity. I have one or more Iucid dreams a night. I have dream Control, dream recall, can reenter a dream and sometimes (more frequently now) dream in third person. I also can pull up scenarios in past dreams while currently in a present dream. when I was little it was more a defense mechanism, awaking myself from a bad dream. Now that I’m older I’m sort of like a director and Control the dream while maintaining that I’m in a dream. Sometimes I’m not even part of it, or am playing a different character, even gender. I even dream of people who have passed and as i speak to them i know they are deceased. Is there anyone else out there like this? It’s to the point that I prefer to have a normal dream as a reprieve. It can be mentally exhaustive. Sorry for long post.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
WOW! you’re a natural?
thats amazing!
i’m so jealous right now! 
one quick question,
was it the nightmares that caused you to become aware of the fact that you are dreaming so often?
Hi HaunteMess,
Objective answer:
Yes, we have naturals here.
Subjective answer:
I can speak for myself, that despite not reaching so many natural LDs per night, I can agree that some NDs are preferable.
NDs can be fun while not worrying about dream stabilization, LDs for me are like I have to manually control its stabilization in most times;
In LDs I have recall of real life events that may be stressful. I have had LDs in which I was wondering if I were late or that something bad was happening IRL and forced awakening.
one quick question,
was it the nightmares that caused you to become aware of the fact that you are dreaming so often?[/quote
Hi Leopold! Thanks for the response. I suppose I am a natural, I wasn’t even aware that you could induce LD’S until I started to explore this website.
To answer your question I had two reoccurring nightmares my entire childhood. Almost every night. So perhaps that could be what triggered my subconscious into realizing I had this dream already. Also I realized that every time I peed in my dream 
it was happening in real life so I learned to wake myself to avoid accidents. Also my nightmares were all chase dreams and it got crazy so I learned to have a safe word. I learned to fly away from the aggressors. I think it was accumulative but I realized early, like age 7, to rearrange events in the dream to avoid being caught or death.(even though the latter did occur in a dream around age 16) I rarely have nightmares now because I am most times fully aware in a dream, even if the situation isn’t ideal I am no longer affected by it. Hope that answers the question.
How did it happen for you?
[quote=“Tggtt”]
Hi HaunteMess,
Thank you tggt! This is all very interesting to me, I did not realize that so many people were dreaming like this, especially by choice. I’m learning so much on this site. I never put much thought into what all of them meant. I just knew that going to sleep would sometimes be stessful and I tried to avoid it. I used to envy people who just had normal dreams.
[quote=“HauteMess”]
one quick question,
was it the nightmares that caused you to become aware of the fact that you are dreaming so often?
[/quote
Hi Leopold! Thanks for the response. I suppose I am a natural, I wasn’t even aware that you could induce LD’S until I started to explore this website.
To answer your question I had two reoccurring nightmares my entire childhood. Almost every night. So perhaps that could be what triggered my subconscious into realizing I had this dream already. Also I realized that every time I peed in my dream it was happening in real life so I learned to wake myself to avoid accidents. Also my nightmares were all chase dreams and it got crazy so I learned to have a safe word. I learned to fly away from the aggressors. I think it was accumulative but I realized early, like age 7, to rearrange events in the dream to avoid being caught or death.(even though the latter did occur in a dream around age 16) I rarely have nightmares now because I am most times fully aware in a dream, even if the situation isn’t ideal I am no longer affected by it. Hope that answers the question.
How did it happen for you?[/quote]
wow
thank you for the quick response
it really did help. I’ve heard research about people with childhood recurring nightmares becoming lucid every night,
but never actually talked to one
to tell the truth,
i am almost the opposite of a natural
i struggle pretty hard to get lucid
but whatever i struggle with in real life
i make up for in being well researched 
but i am getting there
Hey I’m new too.
I only had a few Lucid’s as a child but when I first read about LDing I started having them all the time, after a couple of years I can now get them using the WILD method every morning I try.
I also had very bad nightmares when I was young, it probably didn’t help that I loved movies and used to watch pretty graphic horror films from a very young age.
This mixed with very vivid Dreams wasn’t the best mix, but it’s paid off as I’ve gotten older.
I also like you had a reoccurring nightmare for years when I was younger about being chased, this was by a massive tidal wave though.
I’d be on a beach somewhere often near a city and people would start running.
I’d look up and see a huge wave building out to sea, I’d then start to run looking for high ground.
I’d be running up roads and hills trying to get higher and when I’d get inside the city, the wave hits and it flows around all the tall buildings like a huge water flume with massive power!
I’d just keep running for high ground and it never got me luckily, I always got away lol.
Funny, I haven’t thought about that Dream for years.
to tell the truth,
i am almost the opposite of a natural
i struggle pretty hard to get lucid
but whatever i struggle with in real life
i make up for in being well researched
but i am getting there
[/quote]
Hiya. I know this may be an off question, but what is the appeal to lucid dreaming? Why is it something people strive for? Just trying to understand all angles. It was more of a defense mechanism for me when I was a child in order to survive in my dream. I always described it as Me vs my Brain. 
my brain always pitted me against my fears and I had to our maneuver it. Thank you for the informative dialog. It’s such a help!
Hi legion, great to see someone else that had similar experiences. I too watched a lot of horror movies so one of my reoccurring dreams were zombies lol. To this day they get stuck in my dreams after seeing anything zombie related. But now I’m fully lucid and see it more as a third person and not so personally. If that makes sense.
BTW what Is the WILD method exactly?
Hiya. I know this may be an off question, but what is the appeal to lucid dreaming? Why is it something people strive for? Just trying to understand all angles. It was more of a defense mechanism for me when I was a child in order to survive in my dream. I always described it as Me vs my Brain. my brain always pitted me against my fears and I had to our maneuver it. Thank you for the informative dialog. It’s such a help!
[/quote]
i can understand why you would ask that.
The simple answer is that the possibilities are endless.
In real life we are restricted by our class, money, age, by our government’s laws, and even by nature’s nature’s laws. In a dream, we can literally do whatever we want. It is a whole new world at our fingertips. The possibilities are amazing.
at least,
that’s why i do it
The WILD method stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream.
It’s a technique where you can fall to sleep but hold on to your consciousness as you do so.
When you hit a REM period you will see a Dream form around you and become fully immersed inside it.
It’s actually pretty hard to do at first but I was lucky with it and over time, figured how to do it well and very reliably.
The reason I love to LD is similar to Leopold.
Not only having highly detailed and completely realistic Worlds, but entire Universes to explore.
Knowing you can’t be hurt or die, so you can do anything without fear and with no boundaries.
Knowing your imagination is your only true limit and the possibilities are endless.
To me that’s complete freedom and pure exploration.
What are both your LD’s like?
Do you have good control over what you do, test things out and explore, or do you more go along with Dream scenarios?
Thanks for the WILD insight. That sometimes happens to me, but not on purpose. I think a lot at night and it ends up crossing over. To answer your question I’ve always been aware I was dreaming, but control was something I had to practice. It took a few years to master and to eliminate the fear that came along with constantly being pitted against all my anxieties. Most of my dreams could be considered a nightmare at some point, even if it starts out lovely it always turned bad. 
So I learned to be creative and evade the problem. I cannot swim in real life so in the beginning water was an obstacle. I first flew over large bodies of water, now I can swim in my dream because I know the water isn’t real. Now however my dreams play out more like movies. With a beginning and end. I’m somewhat playing a character. I direct the dream and control the players. I’m sometimes not even involved directly. The only thing I’m not the greatest at is creating the original Scenario. I have to change and adjust once I’m already in it. Kind of like a video game.
Sorry for the long reply hope you understood.
I’m also a frequent lucid dreamer, every night in fact without fail. Fascinates me.
I remember the first lucid dream when I was a teenager, I was watching my dream in third person like I always did and I suddenly thought to myself ‘let’s try and move around the room’ and I moved to where I was standing (I was watching me and a mate talk) and then I was in my dream body. After that I walked around the unfamiliar house, then outside, then down a cliff to a boat and I woke up.
I only get one dream a night, before I wake and can re enter it if I’m having a lie in at the weekend because they are so enjoyable (the dreams…and the lie in).
The weird thing is, it’s always in the same place, a sort of mish mash of familiar and unfamiliar. It’s so detailed. I can pick magazines and films off shelves and read them, eat food that tastes of something, feel water, wind etc. It’s very populated and people just seem to be doing their own thing. I can talk to people though they usually are busy.
I’ve been there so many times I actually started to draw the layout of the town when I was bored at work, I seem to be good at remembering dreams.
I noticed I couldn’t die as well, I jump off buildings and just land or wake up, swim underwater with a coldness in my lungs but won’t drown etc.
Recently I’ve been trying to go further away from the town, there’s a train line that runs away into the distance (my dream town seems to be the end/start of the line). Unfortunately the furthest I got before waking was far enough away from town I couldn’t see it, but not near enough to explore anywhere else, just fields and hills.
So much more info but I’m typing this on a phone so it’s a bit long.
Great forum here as well!