Have you ever had a dream that had something that stuck out as being strange? So strange that you couldn't help but realize that you were dreaming? Afterwards did you try to fly, or make someone you like appear? If so you have experienced lucidity in a dream or have had a lucid dream.
I was never very aware of this type of thing but I do realize now that as a child I always had the ability to pull myself out of a dream whenever I felt it was getting too scary for me. I remember I could also make myself fly, but I could only fly if I believed I could fly. Any shred of doubt would sending me falling out of the sky.
I first had a taste of full lucidity about two years ago. My best friend had recently passed away and I was have a lot of wild dreams. One of these nights I dreamt that I was at a house with a huge plot of land. It felt somewhat like a farm. I was sitting on the front steps of the porch to the house. It was a bright sunny day out and my little cousins were off to the right playing tag with each other. I remember while sitting there my friend, who was dead, come up and sat next to me. He looked at me and smiled. I felt as if I was in a haze, or a trace and couldn't say anything to him. I could only stare. After a bit he said to me "Well aren't you gonna say hi?". Still I sat there frozen to the steps. He says to me "You know you can speak right?" in an attempt to coax me out of my state of paralysis. I didn't and so my friend began taunting me to break out of my spell. (Oddly enough that would be something he would have actually done in order to get me to do something) Finally after sometime of feeling irritated at the badgering I shout "FINE! THERE, YOU HAPPY?!" I felt completely different. My vision was crystal clear and the sensations were all flooding in. I could feel the sun on my skin, I could feel the steps I was sitting on, and I could see my deceased friend clear as day. I knew that this wasn't reality, that my body was fast asleep in bed, and that this guy in front of me didn't exist in reality. I conversed with him for some time and in doing so I observed his mannerisms and his way of speaking. Everything was spot on, from the clothes he had on, to the sound of his voice. From the mannerisms he had, to that very distinctive mole on his cheek. We spoke for some time and I eventually asked the one question we all would ask if given the chance, "What happens after I die?" And as expected he couldn't tell me. Soon after I woke up back in my bed completely exhilarated from what I had just experienced. I went back to sleep with the intentions of going back into that dream and sure enough I became lucid again. This time around I willed him to appear in my dream again.
To this day I'm not sure if my friend came to me from the afterlife in a dream, or if I simply manifested him from the beginning. What I do know is that since that day I have had several lucid dreams. What I can say about them is that the excitement isn't necessarily from the visuals. More so its the feeling of it all. Knowing that the environment around you doesn't actually exist, and then being able to manipulate you're surroundings in incredible. Even the simplest things are fascinating. Being able to pick up a handful of dirt and feeling every granule slip through your fingers. Or laying flat on a bed of grass and being able to pick out every single blade of grass. I shows that your mind can truly create incredible things and it's really fun being able to experience it for yourself. So far I've been able to levitate in a dream, punch through a wall, and even bring someone who was dead in my dream back to life.
It really becomes a virtual reality that you have control over and I definitely look forward to falling asleep because of it.
If you find this kind of thing interesting and you want to give it a try here's a link to a website that talks about lucid dreams and the different ways of achieving lucidity.
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/
