Could a learned childhood trick slow my growth?

[Blackstream]

Sounds like you have one dreamsign you can react to on cue and turn into a normal dream.  Why not just try and expand your ways of becoming lucid by reality testing if you want other ways to become lucid?  Such as testing your watch or trying to make something float.  Do it throughout the day and pretty soon you'll do a test in a normal dream and become lucid.

Or you could also try the WILD method and go directly from consciousness to lucid dream (use interrupted sleep for that though).  That's also fun.

[cube]

The problem is that you don't know how to lucid unless you're in shocked into it by a nightmare?

You could try letting your bedroom get all nasty and dirty, and eat something really salty before bed so that you're all dried out and wake up with a headache.

Probably a better solution is to get in the habit of doing lucid tests during the day like Blackstream is saying.

[Omnigod0101]

Is it salty food that commonly induces nightmares? lol I know there IS something, just don't remember what it is.

Yea I'm trying the reality testing now as I'd recently read about it. I'm having a hard time because I do nearly everything in habit now simply because I've a severe case of ADD. (I have a 20 second short term memory. Not fun) Every time I do remember to though I try and make a habit to hit every light switch 3 times (on, off, on), and consistantly survey my surroundings. Do you supposed trying to make things float would work though? I don't know, I just assume if I made something float in my dream it would become another dynamic of my dream.

[Omnigod0101]

Hello,
My name is Jim and I'm 20 years old. Metaphysics, astral projection, and things of the liking have interested me since I was very young. I was however for years from the time I was very little into the dawn of my teenage years haunted by very bad nightmares as a result of my over-active and admittingly 'dark' imagination. My mother being very concerned for me as I had obviously not yet learned to grow out of the 'scared of the dark' stage yet had decided to teach me a trick. She informed me all she could about dreams including that dreams could easily be manipulated providing you can realize it is a dream. I took this as common-knowledge and simply expected everyone to know this so I saw no trouble in doing it myself. For all I can remember (this WAS a while back, and I only learned of what I was doing within the past couple years) I was instantly solving my nightmares by controlling them. This became habitual for me, and I in fact had a good run of nightly lucid dreams. I would stop the dream and it would suddenly transform into exactly as I wished and I would fly and visit my friends for the rest of the night.

To me at the age it seemed completely normal and innocent, and it got to the point I haven't had a nightmare since without somehow triggering it on purpose. (Which I have yet to have done) Doing so instantly kicks my old habit into play and I am again in control of my dreams, only now I know exactly what I'm doing, and attempt from there an OBE.

This would all be fine and dandy except I have not the slightest idea how I'm supposed to cause myself to have a nightmare. Even still I would really not have to force myself into one anyway because I could really do without the negative energy that it brings with it. I have yet to realize in an ordinary dream however that I am, in fact, dreaming. Is this because of the habit I developed as a child? If so can anyone offer me any help in breaking it?