Lucid Dreams Waking Within the Dream - The First One
When I realized it was a dream, I tried to remember...
Oh yeah:
Test your senses.
I ran to the kitchen and opened the fridge. I see a jar of mustard. It's yellow.
Pick it up: it's cold.
Open it: it smells like mustard.
Dip a finger: it tastes like mustard.
And, in an unintentional verification of the fifth sense, I hear myself shout while jumping up and down:
It's mustard! It's mustard! It's real!
So ended the first lucid dream, having awakened myself in jubilation. I wrote it down on the pad next to the bed. (If I don't write it down, how can I be sure it really happened?)
A few weeks earlier, from a newly established point and frame of reference, I had reasoned:
Some dreams seem as real as life itself
I'd realized I was dreaming -- while dreaming -- in the past
Therefore, I should be able to "wake up" inside another dream
The other experiments I'd begun after this event were progressing nicely, but this was the first real victory.
There's nothing scientific about my methods. For all of this stuff it's more like, "See for yourself. Here's how." If you're interested in the how, I'll be getting to that next. It's just like juggling. It's not hard, you just have to keep trying the same simple steps over and over until it clicks. And after you set up the guidelines, the dream experiment takes a minute or two a day: a minute or so when you head's on the pillow, and the first thirty seconds first thing in the morning (a bit longer if you choose to write down details as they occur to you).
Not much of an investment to reclaim a third (or so) of your life. Disneyland has never had a ride this good. I've documented hundreds of these lucid dreams. In doing so, I've become more familiar with "ordinary" dreams as well.
Pretty cool stuff happens when we sleep. It's a shame to miss out on all the fun.