Imagine you are dreaming...
and you are fully aware of it.

That hits the nail on the head. You are dreaming, but you know that you are, which usually you don't. This may not sound spectacular at first, but it discloses a whole new dimension with many aspects to explore. When you had a lucid dream, you will not doubt the extraordinary nature of that state. You cannot compare lucid dreams with what you believe to know about common dreaming. As the word "lucid" implies, not only are you aware of the situation, but the experience is no less realistic than waking life. Yes, I'm consciously avoiding to use the word "reality", but I'll get back to that at another place. Regarding the clarity of sensual perception, lucid dreams often exceed the vividness of the waking world and even for the advanced lucid dreamer it may be difficult at times to correctly assess the situation - or at least it would be without some simple tricks at our disposal, which are explained later.

Why aren't we always lucid in our dreams? Numerous unsatisfactory explanations, for example the deactivation of some sort of "critical instance" in the brain, have been attempted and I'm not going to add yet another. But let me tell you what I observed and judge from your own experience. I asked many different persons if they can recall a dream situation where they just relaxed. The unisonous answer was "no".

A common dream is a roller coaster ride through the full spectrum of human emotion, usually of high intensity. Sometimes the emotions can become so intense that you wake up. Does this sound familiar to you? As you may have experienced at many occasions, strong emotions leave no place for intellectual reflection. To sum it up, it seems likely that the emotional nature of dreaming causes you to hurry through the experience like a chased animal, never pausing to question what is actually going on. Often when I attain lucidity from within a dream, it is due to a brief moment of tranquility that allows me to assess the situation. If you're properly trained, a split second may already suffice.
 
It is often claimed that you can do anything in lucid dreams - or dreams in general. First of all, common dreams do you, not the other way round. And even if you have attained lucidity, your freedom of action is still limited. Granted, you appear to have a lot more freedom than in waking life, but sooner or later you will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. There are several tricks to accomplish tasks like teleportation, creating objects, summoning persons or to manipulate the course of events, but still some things cannot be done. Let me give you an example: You are going in a direction, trying to get or leave somewhere. Suddenly you are surrounded by fog you cannot pass. You simply can't. Your only options are to turn back, wake up or go someplace else.

Limitations or not, lucid dreams are the ultimate experience for most people that manage to induce them. Not only do they pose a great adventure, but a way to learn about reality and to realize that many - if not all - acquired knowledge one takes for granted, lack substance. No one knows what dreams are - neither do I, many claim to though. But we can experience it and by developing skills like the capacity for remembering, general awareness - both may be actually the same - and training a handful of basic techniques, it is possible to enter a state that no psychedelic or entheogenic substance can match.

On this web site I want to teach you all that I can about lucid dreaming and I try to avoid giving explanations which would be subjective and replaceable anyway - always. If you want a theoretical treatise dominated by science, pseudoscience, esotericism, mysticism etc., you will not find it here. You may find some conclusions that I draw from experiences, but those are merely opinions and I'm not claiming to know any truths. There simply are none. But I can give working methods that enable you to get your own picture. If you still need explanations then, there are many people that want to sell books on that topic. ;) I don't, but nevertheless it'll come at a price. It requires some serious motivation and dedication on your side, but it's worth the effort, promised.