I am not sure if I experienced hypnagogia or dreamt about it

So to make the story short, I have been trying to have a lucid dream for months, and this is the first time that I believe I “may” have succeeded - but I don’t know.

I set two alarms, one for 08:00 AM, and one for 08:03 AM. I wanted to be woken up, suggest to myself that the next time I hear the alarm I will become lucid, and then fall asleep again before the next alarm is activated three minutes later – fair enough.

I went to sleep. I was woken up by the alarm, and I shut it off, before going back to sleep. At this point I was too tired to even do the mental suggestion, I didn’t even care if I would lucid dream or not, I only wanted to continue sleeping!

And then as I close my eyes, I see this grey-ish “web” of spiral galaxies covering my entire field of vision, like, small spiral galaxies one next to the other, everywhere – and they’re all flying towards me, over and over again, infinitely, never getting there. I am confused here, because I always heard that I am supposed to see various colors and patterns, but I only see this very consistent pattern, and it’s grey-ish.

Anyway, while this is happening, I start hearing a dull “machine sound”, it was like a car engine. I then remember that it all went quiet and I went out of the bed only to find that I am dreaming, and I walked around the apartment and even summoned a character – I know that I felt fantastic because of how I acted in the dream, but I don’t feel that same excitement in the waking world. So I am starting to think that it may have been a dream of a lucid dream, where I didn’t actually become lucid.

Any ideas?
By the way, this is the first experience I have had, ever.

I have had this dream before but not on purpose. I can tell you its not LD… or at least my experience.

Im a little freaked out right now because I see everyone trying to have them and I get them without trying. It has almost overwehlmed me how much control I have. I have so much control I get excited and do what ever I want. I can eat any food, do anything I want, even terrible things. I have to steer the dream in the way I want it to go but essentially I can do almost anything I want. I can control other people in my dreams and meet with certain people of my past. I can also relive moments in my life. Problem is I was doing this with little control for 5 or so years. But then a few weeks ago I started doing this 2-3 times a week without trying. In complete control! Now when it happens im overwhelmed with excitement as I am 1st person playing a game in my sleep. But the problem is that after I feel guilty and almost cant remember what I did because I am spending what seems like days in my dream overnight. Its frightening that I am going what seems like days in my dream but I wake up hours later in reality. I have have always had night terrors, hypnigogic hallucinations, and sleep paralysis… but this is different. I can wake up have a sip of water and go back into it. It always starts with “im dreaming” then boom it feels like days have passed in 1 night. It sounds fun but its almost making me confused on everything. Any suggestions or maybe someone I can talk to? Its gotten almost to the point where I cant stop thinking about what I am doing tonight in my sleep. Its frightening…

Thoughts?

Congrats, this was your first lucid dream. Because you knew you were dreaming and even summoned a character!

There are people that only have LD and (almost) never have ND. The fact that your dreams feel like days is very interesting. During the long dreams are you still aware that you are dreaming or do you lose grip on reality? Are you using some kind of drug or medication?

You feel guilty because you did something immoral in the dream? Don’t be too hard on yourself, it is still just a dream. I think it’s not necessarily bad to do things you cannot do in real life without going to jail. Everyone has certain basic and basal emotional drives that you cannot act on in real-life society (with good reasons ofc). In dreams, you cannot harm real persons so I don’t think it’s bad persé. It can even release tension/stress. I would say don’t try to make it a habit otherwise you may be craving to do the thing in real-life as well.