Ben over at Dreaming Life tagged me along with Hatter at Dreaming to Infinity, Kris at Reality Shifter, Sophia at Visions of the World, Zen at the Art of Dreaming, David at It’s All In My Head, Jacob at Reflections, Ideas, and Dreams, Neurosoup’s Video Blog , Breeze Debris and Darcy at Spiritual Blog Reviews, asking how we got into Lucid Dreaming.

Here’s my story:

I first heard about Lucid Dreaming one night in 1995. I was standing a roving security watch for the old Chief Petty Officer’s (CPO) barracks while stationed in Groton, CT for Submarine School. I was making a tour of their night club to make sure there were no safety hazards and all that. Lying on one of the tables was a magazine, which I think was Discover or OMNI. There was an article in there about Stephen LaBerge, the unofficial father and resident strong-man of Lucid Dreaming. I don’t remember anything specific about the article, other than it had a small picture of LaBerge looking at one of his DreamLight or NovaDreamer devices.

I was intrigued by the article’s main point of being able to be fully conscious while in a dream and being able to take control.

My first Lucid Dream didn’t occur until around the summer or early fall of 1996. I was on a Western Pacific deployment on board the USS Hawkbill, my first submarine. We were on a specific mission at that time that I could not perform my usual Electronics Technician duties due to my security clearance having some administrative issues (waiting for paperwork). Because of this, I was elected to wash laundry every day for 10 people, on a first-come, first-served basis. I usually had all the laundry done by anywhere from noon to 3pm each day. So, lucky me, I was able to get anywhere from 12-15 hours of sleep each day, which is usually unheard of in the US Navy Submarine Force.

So, one day, I was asleep and had My first lucid dream.

That is how I got into Lucid Dreaming.

Thanks for the shout-out Ben!