While dreaming one night in early January 2011, I was having one of my usual moderately controlled dreams. At one point, I was walking through a very large rustic cabin-style house. The inside of the house seemed very large. Much larger than what you expect to see for a cabin-style house. There was furniture all over the place. It almost seemed like too much furniture. Each room had too many couches and chairs and tables to be appropriate.

As I was walking, I noticed a couple of chairs very faintly sliding across the floor; almost like what you might see on a cruise ship if the waves were a little bit more than the ship could be stable for. Then a couple more pieces of furniture started to move, but just a very little bit. I found myself wondering if the house was tilting to one side. The moment this thought came into my mind, the house literally started to tilt. I wasn’t too surprised since your dreams are very easily affected by what you think about. However, now I had to quickly deal with lots of furniture sliding across the floor. I found myself skillfully dodging and jumping to avoid being hit.

The floor suddenly seemed quite expansive. I never saw the floor grow in size, it just seemed to go on further than I could see. I was still dodging furniture and trying to find a way out without getting smashed. At this point, the house seemed to be rolling slowly over the ground. I saw an open window and made my best efforts toward it. I managed to dive through the window… “Ahhh, safe”, I thought to myself. At least for a moment I felt safe.

I then found myself a little bit panic stricken. I almost felt like I was going a little mad. I don’t recall anything causing these feelings, I just suddenly felt that way. Things were a bit more out of control than in my normal dreams. In a bit of a frenzy to try to get back to normal, I had a fleeting thought that I should just do something shocking or jolting in order to wake up from the dream. In what felt like just a few seconds, I made up my mind and began to run down the road which was in a quaint little neighborhood. I don’t remember seeing anyone around outside. I decided I was going to find a house with someone home and just start yelling at them and maybe even get into a fight so that it would cause me to wake up. This logic seemed a bit flawed after I awoke and had time to think about it, but in the dream it made perfect sense.

What happened next was the best part of the dream because up to this point, I was only partially aware I was dreaming. I was making active choices, but there was still part of me that was at the whim of the dream. Just as I made it to the front step of my unsuspecting victim, I suddenly stopped. I thought to myself that this is my chance to try “it”. The “it” that I was thinking of was a technique I had read about that can be used to help realize that you are dreaming. I said out loud in my dream, “look at your hands”, but something kept me from looking. Staring wide-eyed at the door of the house in front of me, I repeated that phrase over and over a few times trying to convince myself to look. I couldn’t and still don’t fully understand why I was having so much trouble looking at them. However, I managed to slowly peer down at my hands and take a look. As I slowly tilted my head down, I raised my hands up to my face. My hands did not look like my hands, but this was enough for me to realize that I was dreaming.

The feeling is exhilarating as always when I realize I am in a dream. In my excitement, I backed away from the door and started making my way down the street. I was doing some sort of celebratory dance as I was shouting, “woo hoo, I am dreaming”. My very next thought was to fly up into the sky because I love the feeling of flying in my dreams. I got about 30 feet off the ground and then stopped myself. As I was floating myself back to the ground I found myself wanting to still find people and act crazy, but this time it was not to wake up, it was to see what would happen now that I am fully aware that I am dreaming.

I didn’t make it very far up the street before I noticed a dark silhouette of a large dog heading in my direction. I couldn’t make out what type of dog it was, but it looked like a cross between a wolf and a poodle and maybe a little bit of greyhound. Normally if I saw this in my dreams, I would be frightened, however, in this case I felt cocky and brave and decided to approach the dog menacingly in an attempt to scare it away. It worked at first, the dog was turning away from me and appeared to tuck its tail. Then I made the mistake of thinking about the situation too much and suddenly the dog-like creature turned into two and turned back towards me. Unfortunately, my adrenaline got flowing and though I wasn’t scared and was aware it was only a dream, the dream faded away and I woke up.

I am a little upset that I let the dream fade away like that, but I was glowing from this dream for most of that day. There is just nothing like the rush of a lucid dream.

Lucid Dreaming Notes for “Wolf Poodles”

In this dream I used two main techniques:

“Reality Check” — One of the ways I have read about and have tried is to look at your hands when dreaming. This seems to work as a cue for realizing the dream as the act of trying to prove you are dreaming is an indicator that you are dreaming. Plus, your hands in a dream do not tend to look like your hands which is also a good indicator of the dream state.

“Smile Technique” — I came up with this technique, but others may be using this or something similar. Smiling releases “feel good” chemicals into the body. Among them are endorphins and serotonin. This technique is useful for remaining in the dream state as it helps to keep you calm and counter act fear and excitement.