Question What Inspired You To Do Lucid Dreaming

It just spontaneously happened. I think it was a result of keeping dream journals, which were a way to document what, at the time, I believed to be precognitive dreams (which I now believe is just limited perception of the actual nature of time/reality). Was freaky and a bit unwelcome, at first (especially the shitty "stuck in a time loop" ones), then I did some reading about it and got braver with playing with it, and now it's awesome. I kind of miss the surreal feeling that accompanied not understanding the experience (I equate this to the Fool card, in tarot), but the knowing is pretty great, too. Being able to feel totally awake while in a dreamworld is one of the coolest things ever. "Magic" is a lot easier to perform there, as I understand myself to be limitless.

When I was 12, around the age you get confirmed as a catholic, my parents decided instead to let me choose, encouraging me to study other religions and see which one was right for me. Through my studies, I eventually settled on none, taking a scientific approach to religion and understanding it's role and source within the brain. Eventually, I became fascinated with the idea that people who did things like astral project or visit mystical realms were actually just Lucid Dreaming. That was when I was about 18-19 (hard to pin down an exact time), and I've been interested in it ever since.

I discovered LDing when I was 14, found this on the internet and tried doing basic techniques like MILD but they didn't work for me plus I was still too lazy and overloaded with school so I couldn't do WBTB even if I knew about it, and so I gave up. I started having my first lucid dreams this year in August but they were uncontrollable. Now, since this month, I have one lucid dream a day, I have no reasons not to tell my parents about my dreams (but when the day\night for LD sex comes, I won't be that willing, you know) at all. I'm proud of what I can do within my dreams. btw, I'm 20

Answered a similar question before so here's copypasta Before I knew anything about lucid dreaming I once had a non-lucid dream so vivid and real that when I woke up I wasn't sure if the dream was my real life and my waking life was the dream I'm living while my other self dream. In that particular dream I lived a coherent flow of day to day stuff; relationship, family, etc. It felt hyper real, as if I was aware of everything that was around me, not just stuff in my field of vision. The colors were vivid, I especially remember the details and the extremely colorful green in blades of grass that I've never seen in waking life. When I woke up I still remembered how it felt, how realistic and impressionable it was. I even spent the whole afternoon writing a mini essay basically questioning existence. Had I become lucid in that dream, I'm sure it would've been even more incredible. That and one other lucid dream (which was not as hyper realistic but it felt just like waking life) were what got me into lucid dreaming.

I was born Buddhist but eventually considered myself atheist. Two years ago my mom, who is a more devout Buddhist but doesn't mind me not being one, invited me to go try a particular sect of Buddhist meditation course. I agreed because it was important to her and I always felt Buddhism had a lot of philosophical and ethical values. I went and found that the course pretty much 80% taught many of the foundations of lucid dreaming. It taught awareness, awareness of self, and awareness of awareness itself. It encouraged participants to fall asleep while counting. It taught the stages of advanced meditation, and signs that you have achieved those stages, which sounded like SP/ OBE/ hypnogogic imagery/ sleep atonia. I still found great value from the experience, but also came to the same conclusion as you did that many religious experiences are forms of LD.

20 yrs or so ago I was reading about AP and even listened to some of Monroe's cassette tapes. Never got to AP. Fast forward to present and thought I would try again but some videos had warnings of trying it. I heard LD was "easier" and started reading about it. Maybe I will see what AP is about whether it is something different altogether or another type of LD, but focusing on LD now was the best thing I could have decided. I've not LD yet, but I am shocked by the amount of changes I have made to my life for something I have yet to experience: stopped drinking caffeinated drinks/soda, no more coffee in the mornings, I stopped drinking beer every night, I don't play video games till 11-12 at night for distraction, I eat healthier, I am learning to meditate, performing reality checks which I am trying to evolve into mindfulness or awareness during the day.

I found this subreddit by chance a few months ago, and got interested in this "lucid dreaming" business. I spent at least an hour reading about it, and the rest is history. Why did i get interested in it? Well, my sleep cycle was an abomination before i started, and that wasn't really healthy. Lucid dreaming would force me to straighten that out. And i love to sleep. Like, LOVE to sleep. I'd sleep all day long if i could, but unfortunely my body doesn't want me to. And to have fun AND sleep? Hell yeah! The thought of having my own little universe where i could do whatever i wanted (i know it's all in my head, but still...) always amazed me. For example, just going out into the city in the middle of the night was always an exciting thought for me, but it's pretty dangerous so i can't do that IRL. But in dreams? Yeah, why not?

In college I started keeping a dream journal of sorts. I wasn't recording my dreams, but keeping track of what random song was stuck in my head upon waking. One night I had a particularly vivid dream recorded it and started looking up stuff about dreaming. I read about lucid dreams and realized I had them naturally a couple times a year. A couple years later, I saw lucid dreaming brought up on 4chan and how to have them. That's when I found out you could train your mind to have lucid dreams more often and started practicing and visiting dreamviews regularly. Lucid dreaming became my main hobby for a little over a year.