I have been lucid dreaming since I was a child of about seven years. I watched an episode of Blue's Clues that taught me not to be afraid of my nightmares because they weren't real, and that I could change them so they were silly instead of scary! It stuck with me, and while I didn't do exactly that, from then on, whenever something scary happened, I would realize it was a dream and simply force myself awake.

During my freshman year of college, I had this wall clock that would tick really loudly. It used to keep me awake at night until I eventually got used to it. One night, I heard it in my dream. I had been hiding and thought it was footsteps, and when it came to me that it was the clock in my room and that I was asleep, I made myself sprout wings and flew into the sky. Then I changed the plot of the dream so that I was on some kind of epic quest to find a map and deliver it to someone. I woke up pretty shortly after though.

In one of my psychology classes in college, I did a project on lucid dreaming and tried to train myself to have more frequent lucid dreams. I found that high pressure situations in my dreams (like being chased) tend to be what triggers my lucidity. Sometimes I could only change minor things, but most of the time I would end up giving myself magical powers like water-bending, earth-bending, and an invisibility cloak all in the same dream.

So have you ever had a lucid dream? More than once?
Have you used any tricks to make yourself realize you're asleep?
Have you noticed anything that triggers lucidity in your dreams?
Can you control the elements of your dreams and to what degree can you control them?
What do you usually do when you realize you're asleep? Tell us about your best lucid dreams!