i hear alot of distinctions between what a proper lucid dream is. you see, i had moments of lucidity before i had what i consider to be my 1st ld. i made this opinion because it lasted longer than previous moments of lucidity. if i considered even a split second of realization “proper” then i’ve had about close to 10 lds so far. what actually makes it proper?
In my opinion a “proper” Lucid Dream is ANY dream where you are lucid. Duration plays no part in it; a split second qualifies as proper. For the vast majority of people the first ones are usually short and the duration increases with experience. The important thing you recognized is that the duration got longer. GO Man GO!
I agree with Dust Mote. Please don’t start categorizing your LDs (as that diminishes them). I am thankful for every LD no matter how brief.
btw, most first LDs are brief but they are usually the most fantastic and generate the most joy (as they provide you with a glimpse of spectacular things to come)!
There’s controversy in this one, and I think being a natural LDer constitutes my brave opinion.(Heck, I don’t even know what WILD is and can LD) To me(and this is all it is, an opinion) a “Shin” lucid dream is to where the dream is so realistic, that other in than the fact you knew it was a dream(thus branding yourself lucid) you could by no other means distinguish the dream from reality. This is my lucid dream. Don’t kill me for saying this okay guys? 
Yes, any dream where you understand you’re dreaming must be counted to be proper lucid dream, like Dust Mote and Clairity said.
Dr. LaBerger’s lucidity.com introduces low level and high level lucid dreams.
Both of those can be entertaining, but what I’ve experienced, low level lucidity really isn’t nothing compared to high level lucidity.
When logging my LD’s, I rate them on a scale of lucidity from 1 to 10, with 1 being non-lucid and 10 being completely lucid. Three quarters of them are Class 10’s, so low-level LD’s don’t really play that much of a role.
The only reason I do this is because when LD’s become frequent enough, like anything else in your life, LD’s will be incorporated into dreams.
How do I tell the difference? Primarily two ways. The first is how it feels. You simply feel different when you are conscious than when you are not. I can think back and recall a dream where I said “this is a dream,” but I know that I wasn’t really conscious when I said that. The second way is by reviewing what I have done in the dream. Sometimes I will do Telekinesis or Levitation in a dream, even though I never planned in advance to do that; instead, I’ve done it out of habit.
It’s still possible, of course, that I will forget what I’ve planned, or I’ll disregard what I’ve planned. That’s when I go back to step one and I’ll always be able to tell the difference.
Usually this is not difficult, since I often wake up immediately from having an LD, so I’ll be conscious the whole way through. There may be a slight difficulty if the LD was inbetween a bunch of dreams, but usually it isn’t. And false awakenings are no problem: if I’ve had a false awakening, it’s an almost sure sign that I was really lucid.
this post was written while i was alot more wet behind the ears. i should’ve known lucid is lucid and thats that.
the biggest draw in about lucid dreaming seemed to be dream control to me, so i was equating a “proper” lucid dream where you actually get to control at least a minor aspect of it. that opinion in it self contradicted the very given name of “lucid dreaming”. while control is mostly what draws newbies in, they’ll come to realise that even the realization is quite fantastic.
That’s O.K. Probobo. We all knew you were just getting started. Glad you got those ears dried. 
well, thats the thing. at that point i’d actually been familiar with lucid dreaming for a while and by the description of what a proper ld was by another and i found myself better at this than i thought. i didn’t have an actual problem identifying lucidity i just was unfortunate enough to even look into what a proper ld was. i was mislead. i’ve actually been a poster and chatter on this site since the first forum, the one with the neverending list of topics not put under any co topic. if you even care i used to be drunken whino.
and thats another thing, maybe the posts i do make, make me sound like a newbie to the whole lucid dreaming idea. thats true even to life. the reason being is because i probably already got an answer of my own but want to see how common or uncommon my ideas are as others. plus it just gives a reason to talk about it anyway. while im not a major player here in the forum (which seems directly proportional to how good of a ld’er you seem to others) i think even my 2 second lds have cultivated enough where i can answer as honestly as others.
‘Proper lucid dream’ for me would have to be any dream where you are aware that you are dreaming and really take it in. This will manifest in some control, I’d argue usually meaning you stop whatever it was you were doing in the dream BECAUSE of your discovery.
I’d also argue that dream spinning is a must for a truly high-level lucid dream. Whenever I stop spinning the feeling of actually “being” there is highetened greatly (sometimes leading to a false awakening of course!)
Sorry Probobo, I hope I didn’t offend you. Yes, your original post made you sound like a beginner with 10 LDs of a few seconds each. You also said that you were “wet behind the ears” when you wrote it. QED, beginning.
I completely understand the confusion that can be created when you let someone else tell you what is proper. I’m glad you got over that.
I have been a VERY sporadic LDer for 30 years, have very little control, and love every minute of it. I haven’t been posting here for very long, so I should have been more cautious.
Hey, I remember Drunken Whino! 
it didn’t offend me. just wanted to clairify things.
im sure even stephen laberge can learn a little more about ld’ing himself. (not to say he needs to though)