Dream Journal:

 Lucidity is a state in dreams where you are fully conscious and are aware that what you are experiencing /is/ a dream. Maybe once or twice throughout your life-time, you've already had a lucid dream. According to its level of lucidity, this can be a wonderful experience and very exhilerating allowing you (for example) to fly above an amazing star-lit city dreamscape or whatever. The limit is your imagination.
There are actual techniques to improve the frequency of these lucid dreams and once an expert, you can have as many as 4 lucid dreams a night.
 After training myself (by reading books and websites on the subject), I prepare to have my first lucid dream.... but nothing much happens. Nor did I expect it to. But a couple of weeks later on......

22/23rd November
Throughout today, I tried the "looking-at-digital-watch-at-random-intervals-to-see-if-it-changes" method. Apparently, if you're dreaming and you check your watch, the time isn't stable, and as soon as you look away and back at your watch again, the time will (probably) dramatically change. (It definitely is supposed to change with repeated viewings btw).

Of course, throughout the day, the time was always stable. Anyway, the reason for all this is to prepare me to do the same (check my watch) when I'm actually asleep but /think I'm awake/ thus giving the tell-tale sign I'm actually having a lucid dream!

Incredibly, I had a shock that night. I've indeed always been fairly sceptical of the idea of feeling awake and moving around, hearing sounds, seeing stuff - when I'm actually still asleep in bed, but...

The next morning, I 'woke up' as usual and performed the 'ritual' of checking my watch again. To be honest, I was very tired and I was /so/ convinced I /was/ awake, that I almost didn't bother. I 'walked' over to the far end of my bedroom, where a digital clock apparently was and did the usual reality check.
Something weird happened.
The time was changing as I was looking at it! This isn't what was supposed to happening when I'm awake /or/ dreaming. (Usually when you're dreaming, the time is only meant to change when you look away and then look back at it).
My eyes were a bit blurry, and I was still so convinced I was awake, that I put it down to a faulty battery (despite all my preparation for all this!). I was still suspecting the possibility of being lucid though, so I checked another digital watch near my bed (don't ask why I didn't check this nearer watch first). Once again, the time was changing dramatically (on average - every 1-2 seconds) before my eyes. I thought I might be dreaming after all, but I still wasn't totally convinced and my eyes will still blurry and tired, so it was hard to take in the enormity of what I'd just achieved.

Despite this, I sat on the bed and tried to 'float'. I thought "yeah - like in my dreams". Haha, joking aside, I was only sitting in that position for what must've been five seconds before I instantly awoke and was lying in my bed in the same position I had gone to sleep in! It had to be a (semi at least) lucid dream! I've had various lucid dreams when I was younger, but nothing like this for /years/.

One thing's for sure - you can /never/ be sure you are really are awake or asleep.

Journal ratings:
Lucidity: 8/10
Exhileration: 4/10 (add 2 points for for when I woke afterwards for /real/)
Scenery/aural aesthetic value: 2/10
Overall 16/30


OK, now gives my chance to describe these dream factors.

Lucidity is how /real/ the dream feels. 10/10 is 100% awake (many people describe feeling more awake /in the dream/ sometimes than in real life). 0/10 is what a dream usually feels like to 99% of people (i.e. boring, and you most probably won't even remember it).

Exhileration: On the realisation that you have suddenly lept into the dream world while still being fully concious, this factor tends to high. Other factors affect this though, depending on how tired one is when 'fully conscious', how aesthetic the dream is, how used one is to waking up in the dream world and generally if there's an exciting element to the dream.

Scenery/aural aesthetic rating: This one should need no describing. Is there amazing music you can hear in the dream? What's the scenery like? Is there a panaramic surrounding paradise-like scape with a glorified STUN runner-esque tube over there?

23/24th November
Great expectations for this night, considering what happened last night. In actual fact, I did have what appeared to be a lucid-ish dream at first (I couldn't have been that lucid, otherwise I would've been a lot more excited). But anyways, I was flying in this one. I've generally had quite a few flying dreams over the years, but this one seemed a bit more real than usual (not surprising, considering it was kinda a lucid dream). Suffice to say, there was a 'kingdom' in the sky inhabited by these weird small creatures. I'm not going to make myself look stupid by going any further (and I can't remember much anyway), so I'll stop there I think :P Oh yeah, I seem to remember trying to fly higher and higher (i.e. out into space), but there seemed a limit to how high I could go (always the way).

Journal ratings:
Lucidity: 6/10 at first, dipping down to 4/10 during the dream.
Exhileration: 3/10 (more relaxing I guess than anything)
Scenery/aural aesthetic value: 4/10
Overall: 12/30

10/11th December

At last, another 'lucid' dream. Fairly similar to the first one, except this time I go downstairs (at which point my eyes are bleary and everything sort of fades to white and back again) and into the lounge. It's morning as usual and since I'm aware it's a dream, I say to my mum and dad (who happen to be there), "did you know, you're not real - you're just part of my dream" - they give me a blank expression back :) I then go outside for a spot of flying before waking up very shortly after that.
So far, it seems as though it's very difficult to create an ideal fantasy land scenario which I kinda hoped for, but next time, I'll do my best.

Journal ratings:
Lucidity: 7/10
Exhileration: 3/10
Scenery/aural aesthetic value: 2/10
Overall 16/30

I've given the whole thing a break for the time being. I'm soon going to dedicate my time a bit more to it in the future as it really seems interesting - and the possibilities are immense.
Check back later for more.