freedom said:
i've been trying like hell to master lucid dreaming, which is the act of controlling your dreams.
I'm one of those natural lucid dreamers, I have multiple dreams every night and all of them are as lucid as reality (I wake up with a raging headache though
). My advice is that you should not try to control your dreams at all, when you try to control a dream, they always seem to end shortly after. You have to let your dream flow on its own, very slowly and gradually get used to how they feel, you have to pay attention of where your attention is and focus on the smallest details. Imagine it like Alice in Wonderland, when you're inside a dream, just notice where you are, if you know you're lucid, just observe and pay attention to where you are and what's happening, you can still fully control yourself and do anything you want but the dream will last longer if you "go with the flow" and not try to control the dream itself.
Well maybe it's a personal preference, some people want to go inside a dream and control everything but I've noticed that for me, the lucid dreams that last the longest (I've spent real hours in them) are the ones that happen on their own, without me dramatically controlling the things around me.
A few times I lay in bed acting dead and I've noticed that it might actually sort of help prepare oneself for lucid dreaming (and astral projection but I'm not going to talk about that) what I do is lay in bed and "act dead". Just stay there, without moving an inch, breathing peacefully, looking at a wall, be blank blank blank. This can take 20+ minutes, when you slowly (very slowly) notice your body drifting to sleep, drift..drift...drift..drift...drift..you're drifting..continue to be motionless and relaxed and be blank..you can't think, you want to have a lucid dream so focus on that "want". You can't think, you can only want. Want. Want. Just want it until you fall asleep and you'll get it! xD
At least that's what worked for me, well I only ever did that 5 times but it does seem to have helped. *shrugs*
As for the original question, I'm the happiest in my dreams, I only had 2 dreams a few months ago where I was desperately lonely but later they turned out to be sweet. I have a lot of nightmares though, that's a whole other story but they still turn out okay in the end.