Lucid dreaming, within a dream, within my dream?

Hi everyone,

I appologize in advance - can feel this will be a little long.

I am a little stuck as to wether or not I sucessfully managed to have a lucid dream i terms of what happened and the way in which it happened. I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to give me a second opinion.

Background info to the dream follows

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I had been trying to have lucid dreams for some time. Although I used to have them all the time as a child, I seemed to lose the knack during my teenage years. Through using many techniques and failing, I pretty much gave up trying to lucidly dream thinking it was somthing that I just didn’t have the ability to do any more. The only thing that I do anymore is say sarcasticly to myself when I wake up - ‘Oh look, im awake.’

For a few weeks now I have seemed to be having a recuring to theme to my dreams - not that they were all the same - they were all just very devistating to be in. These have been ranging from drowning right up to being burnt alive on a stake. I guess you’ve allready figured out the theme.

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This dream started out with my going about everyday dream business - not really paying attention to the occasional decapitating or exploding petrol stations. I then ended up waliking into what can only be described as a building site. The poeple there didnt seem to know what they were doing to the extent that the building was falling down around me. After the building had fell I was somehow blamed for it and was told that I would be made to do somthing in the morning.

I went home to the house that conveniently appeared around me to find my cousin smoking a spliff that made hussains cigars look like matchsticks and for some reason payed no attention to it and just went to bed. No it isn’t pointless information - I’m getting to it.

I started dreaming inside of the dream and saw the building that had just been destroyed - the one that fell on me - in perfect condition. Noticing that this was wrong I convinced myself that I was dreaing and became lucid.

Inside this lucid dreaming I had a particular task that I had set myself to do. (Go visit an old friend - I chose this as it was somthing I couldn’t achieve in real life and thought it would help remember if it happened). No matter how hard I tried and how much logic I put behind it, I just couldn’t get there - more of a sense of being lost than an inability to do it.

I lost my lucidity and woke up from the dream within the dream but landed smack bang, what I thought was in the middle of the other dream. I can remember flying down to my cousin’s position and thinking that I was sleep walking because of the shock of waking up walking in the middle of this living room.

I said to my cousin ‘Oh man, was i sleep walking?’ to which he replied ‘No, you just flew in.’ Not being sure if it was just him that was stoned of this huge spliff or me that was deaming I took it of him and smoked it. I breathed out and ash covered the whole room - hard to explain what I mean but it would have been a nice trick to do in real life. (I actually realised that I was dreaming before I did the ash thing, I actually did it for fun. - I dont smoke and the spliff didn’t bother me so I kind of allready knew.) Anyway I once again realized that I was dreaming. This time I tried to get where I was going only to be mentally ignored. I seemed to be an unwilling passenger to my dream, realizing that it was a dream all along.

After a while the dream finished and i really awoke in the dream within the dream. Once again forgetting that i had been lucid I did my usual routine - the sarcastic ‘Oh look, I’m awake.’ Except this time I realised that this wasnt where I live and once again became lucid. This time I was able to go to where I wanted and after I had lost it awoke to my real self and seemed to have a perfect recolection of the whole dream.

Little sidenote for anyone who was really interested… I went back to sleep and got clubed to death by a load of brickies for knocking down there building.

Once again I applogise for making it so long…

My questions are:

1. Which parts were lucid? - taking for granted that the final part definitly was.

2. Has anyone else ever had anything like that?

3. Is there any way to make sure that you can control a lucid dream once you realise that you are dreaming? (Watching youself as a backseat passenger doing things you dont want to do is pretty freaky - even for a dream.)

Man, Im too tired to read the whole post but I think I know what you had in mind.

If you go to sleep in a dream, you actually start a whole new dream, and your not in your old dream anymore dreaming of the dream you see now. Those where you “wake up” inside a dream are called false awakenings and are very common among lucid dreamers. So when you dreamed of going to sleep in some place, you will “wake up”, having a false awakening, in the same place where you wen’t to sleep in the dream, or in your bed.

Answers for your questions:

1. Every part within you knew and understood it was a dream were lucid.

2. Yes, I have false awakenings very often if Im afraid in the lucid dream that I might wake up soon, and so I do “wake up”.

3. Did you see yourself in 3rd person? If so, it’s very hard to control the dream because youre not on 1st person to control “yourself”. IF youre 2rd person you just have to understand what does it mean that youre in a dream: you can do what ever you like without worries.

I’m new here, so my opinions are prob’ly not as profound as the “veterans”, but that sounds like a pretty cool dream. I’ve seldom experienced a “dream within a dream”, and never recollected with such detail.

I’ll leave any detailed analysis to the experts, but just want to let you know I think that was a neat dream.