What Lucid Dreaming Looks Like

Hi,

I am new to lucid dreaming. I think I may have had a lucid dream once before in my entire life, and that was when I was experimenting with OBE’s and managed to fly around my room and then out my window before waking up. I have long suspected that jolt you sometimes get when you wake up is from an OBE while sleeping.

Anyways, this experiment caught my eye and McSweeney’s book is helpful. I have been reading a bit each night for about a week and a half and trying to practice. I had not had any results, probably due to fatigue from my day job. Of course knowing the experiment was last night I dedoubled my efforts to at the very least get my password out there while sleeping. I visualized a scenario where I realized I was dreaming and I met another dreamwalker from the experiment and we exchanged passwords. I visualized this several times before falling asleep.

Anyways, in about my 2nd or 3rd REM cycle I did become lucid. Unfortunately, I was so excited my dream shifted right away and then I had to become lucid all over again. I did managed it but it was sort of shaky like trying to learn to ride a bicycle. I wasn’t able to stay lucid long.

The more interesting part was when I woke up. I have been using an app for iphone called Smart Alarm that records sleep sounds and movement to determine if you are in a deep sleep, a light sleep, or awake, so it can wake you up at a better sleep cycle and you don’t feel tired. I don’t feel the graphs it produces are always accurate of what state of sleep I am in but I do feel less tired when I wake up usually. My graph for last night showed the entire 3 hour window in which I had been lucid 2-3 times as me being awake, but I wasn’t. I am curious why it might have recorded it like that. Just food for thought!