Did I have a lucid dream or did I dream the whole thing?

Hi, ya’ll. I’m TOTALLY new to this - in fact today is the first time I came across your website and learned more about lucid dreams than what I saw on Inception or Wikipedia. I’ll tell why I’m here, though. Yesterday, I saw this post on Tumblr:

I have no idea who wrote it of if it’s accurate (after reading some stuff on your website now, though, I see some similarities to WILD), but some of the comments were “I do this everynight, it’s great!”, and I was just about to go to sleep, so I thought what the hell - the worst that could happen was me falling asleep.

So I laid there for what must have been 30 minutos, but of course it didn’t work. At one point I thought I felt the lights they’re talking about, but I’m not sure. After a while I accidentally moved my arm and just gave up.

But then, here’s what happened: It took me some time to fall asleep, as always, and I started having a dream. This sounds stupid as hell, but my dream was like a Tumblr dashboard, even though there were people talking to me. I always have bizarre and weird dreams and they NEVER make any sense (at least not as far as I know). Anyway, in the dream, someone said something like “well, I saw something happened to her (referring to me), and I think she’s ready for it”. I can’t remember exactly what happen then, but I remember waking up.

At least I think I did. This is where it starts to get messy, cause I was really sleepy, and I’m never 100% sure about what I do when I’m like that. But I remember everything, which is unusual to me.

So I woke up, and it FELT like it hadn’t been much time since I was awake. Let’s say I gave up on the WILD thing around 1am, and I thought I had woken up again around 1.30am, for some reason. So I decided to try again, and this time, being much sleepier, it was easier not to get distracted and to not move at all. It seemed like I waited much less than 30 minutes, and I saw the lights, whatever they were. I instantly thought “it’s happening”, and managed to remain calm so I woudn’t wake up. Then suddenly I was in my bed, but it was weird, it was like I was… on top of me, in my bed. Or as if I was out of my body, but still lying in the same place. I tried to remain calm, and thought “is this it? am I dreaming?” So I remembered the pinching your nose thing, and I did it. And I could still breathe. So I thought I had done it, I was finally lucid dreaming, but then that thought made me a little uneasy. I didn’t panic, but I felt weird. I even tried to move or do something, but eventually I woke up. It was really fast.

I even pinched my nose again to be sure. I thought about trying to do it again, but the idea scared me a little bit (the feeling of being out of my body was kind of weird). Eventually I checked the time to see how early it was - and that’s when I got reallly freaked: it was exactly 4.30am, 4 hours after I first tried it.

Anyway, here’s my question: it felt like lucid dreaming, for that one moment, but I’m not sure. Is there any way I could have dreamt the whole thing? Or was it something like involuntary MILD?

Sorry about the giant post, but I’m really curious about this. I’m thinking of trying to do it again, maybe after some study this time. Thanks for any help!

I think you had a OOBE. It’s when you see your body, while you’re out of your body . Then you can have a lucid dream from then on. OOBE feel very much like RL but it’s simply just in your head. I think it counts as a LD as well, so congrats lucyinthesky!

When you WILD sometimes they can end up as OOBE, but theres not a lot of difference from those two. You’re still entering a dream.

Exactly, OOBE, when you have the sensation of being outside your physical body (Some people believe you actually are o.O) - A lot of LD’ers have this as a “cue”. Whenever they experience this, they simply “Roll out” and into a dream. I believe however when you experience this you’re already dreaming, but the rolling technique seems to work well for actually getting a physical body (within your dream) instead of being this “Ghost”.

wow, really? I thought about it, but I didn’t find much info on it to be sure it was a possibility. I’m gonna try to look more into it.

It did feel like that, and I guess that’s why I freaked out and woke up. I remember I thought about rolling out of bed, but I felt a little weird about it. Then I tried to levitate, but it didn’t work. (If I ever get the hang of this thing, though, it’s one of the things I’m mostly looking forward to)

If I start another OOBE, like I had, does it mean I’m gonna be “stuck” as my body during the whole dream? Or is there any way of imagining other things and getting into an “actual” dream?

I’m not even sure what I’m talking about it, lol, I better go read some tutorials. But I’m definitely starting a dream journal NOW.

welcome and congrats! that’s some pretty good results

Anything is possible in dreams. You can have your body, or another body, or no body! You can morph and change into a dog, a snake or a coffee table! You can’t get stuck in any way.

The feeling can be a bit scary since it’s something we don’t experience in your daily waking lives. It’s just a matter of getting used to it, so just keep practicing and good luck

Yes, you are going to be stuck as your ‘‘ghost’’ but you will be able to do anything you want.

It is very similar to a lucid dream and you can really enjoy it.
A lot of people find it harder to get an OBE than a LD, so you were lucky, I’d say.
You’re doing well, continue dreaming.

YOu can also keep a dream journal.That is book in which you write all of your dreams (or fragments of dreams, if they are unclear). That way, your dreams will get more vivid and you will have better dream recall.

And don’t worry about your dreams not making much sense. When you become lucid, you’ll be able to add sense into them

I have another question, but I didn’t want to start another topic.

I’ve been trying to retrace my steps and to the same thing that got me that OBE everyday this week. I didn’t have anything like it until yesterday, but I did start a dream journal, and I’m now able to remember MOST of my dreams, which is very unusual for me. It used to be really hard for me to remember my dreams, now I feel like I got used to going through them everyday when I wake up. So yay, I’m sure gonna keep this up.

I’ve also been able to wake up in the middle of the night (just by suggesting that I should before going to sleep) to try MILD. The problem is sometimes I move too much before trying again and sometimes I’m too sleepy to consciently do it. I think that was the biggest problem with what happened last night:

I THINK I got an OBE again, but I’m worried it might have been a False Lucid Dream. So my question is: is there really any way of knowing if what you had was a FLD? I looked on the knowledge base and didn’t find anything specific.

It seemed much like the first time I described on the first post, except my memory of it now isn’t as vivid as then: I woke up in the middle of the night, told myself I was gonna try MILD, laid still for a few seconds and saw the lights (the transition, right?), then suddenly I was in the same place but felt somewhere else, and I remember thinking “Oh, there it is again. Close your nostrils and see if it’s a dream and don’t freak out this time” I remember doing the RC (which I’ve been doing during the day a couple of times) and then thinking “right, so next move is to roll out of bed”. Then it gets a little blurry and I only remember already being out of bed and trying to fly - which worked a little bit… I kept like, jumping and levitating a little bit, but it wasn’t reeally like flying, which was disappointing. Then I woke up. I can’t even remember where the dream was, apart from the part when I was stading near my bed.

I had like four normal dreams before and after that. One of them was, in fact, about going into the LD4all forum and reading about how I could “build” the world around me and not just be stuck in my own “ghost”. (The others involved actors I have total crushes on, why couldn’t I have become lucid in them? lol)

But still, my recolletion isn’t as vivid as the first one. The transition part felt REALLY real, and I remember it very well now, but the rest feels a little blurry. Could that be a sign that I went into dream state, but I wasn’t lucid?
Is it on of those things where you just know it?

On the other hand, the first time it happened I was so freaked out that I couldn’t even go back to sleep afterwards. This time I went back to sleep right afterwards and kept having (normal) dreams. My whole night is a little mashed together. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember everything that happened.

Thanks for any help, you guys are great. The previous answers are totally the reason I’ve decided to keep trying this.

Sometimes it can be very tricky to separate FLD’s from true LD’s. My guess would be that after you entered the dream you had low lucidity and later you had poor recall of it all. In my own experience, my FLD’s tend to be more “fun”. I do lots of things in them I’m far from being able to do in true LD’s. Since you had trouble flying and problems waking up and all I’d guess it was just a low lucid. I can’t be sure though…

Still some great results there!