My Lucid Dreaming Experience

I was obsessed with lucid dreaming as a teenager. From the age of 13 or 14, I spent hours reading articles, watching videos, trying every method I could find. But no matter what I did, I could never achieve it. After a year of failures, I moved on with other things in life.

Then, at 20 years old, when I wasn’t even trying anymore, it finally happened...and no I was not under the influence of anything.

It was the most vivid dream I had ever experienced.

I don’t remember falling asleep—I just remember being there. One moment, I was unconscious. The next, I was stepping off my old school bus, standing in front of my 8th-grade school.

I hadn't seen that place or those people in six or seven years. Yet, everything was exactly as I remembered. The morning light hitting the old school building, students walking in and the faint smell agarbatti. It was all real.

Then, I looked down at myself.

I was wearing my 8th-grade school uniform. My 13-year-old hands moved when I willed them to, but my mind was still 20 years old. My heart started pounding. I was lucid.

I took a deep breath, and that’s when I noticed something bizarre.

My senses were heightened—too heightened.

The air smelled richer, thicker, like every molecule had a scent. When my friend shook my hand, I didn’t just feel his skin—I felt every pore, every ridge, every imperfection. It was overwhelming.

He noticed my hesitation. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, laughing.

I didn’t answer. I was too busy absorbing everything. The corridors, the students, the tiny details I hadn’t thought about in years. I knew every inch of that building, but somehow, it felt like I was experiencing it all for the first time.

Then, I saw my ex girlfriend.

My ex-girlfriend—or rather, 13-year-old version of my ex-girlfriend. She waved at me, smiling, completely unaware that I wasn’t her age anymore. She asked about homework, then tilted her head. “Why are you acting weird?”

Of course, I was acting weird because it was weird. I was a grown man but to the world I was 13. I did not want to engage in a conversation with a little girl. So I smiled, muttered something and walked away.

I sat in my old classroom, taking it all in, letting the moment stretch on. For a while, I forgot I was dreaming. It was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

I stepped out of the classroom, and suddenly, the hallway started closing in and an intense darkness spread through the building.

Something was coming.

I couldn't see it, but I could feel it.

A presence of something huge.

I ran.

The further I ran, the darker it got. My heart pounded in my chest, my breath came in ragged gasps, and still, it kept coming.

And just as it was about to reach me—

I woke up.

Or at least, I thought I did.

I was in my room, lying in my bed, but something was wrong.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out.

Tears streamed down my face as I struggled, completely paralyzed, my body drenched in sweat. Then I saw it.

The formless black creature from my dream was standing beside my bed.

Not moving. Not making a sound. Just watching me.

I don’t know how long it lasted. I just remember blacking out again.

When I woke up in the morning, I had no memory of any of it.

Not the dream. Not the paralysis. Not the creature.

Nothing.

Until—

I walked into the bathroom, still groggy, and splashed cold water on my face.

Then I looked in the mirror.

My face looked normal. But around my eyes, running down my cheeks, were stains of dried tears.

And in that instant—it all came flooding back.

Every single detail.

The dream. The school. The darkness. The thing that chased me. The thing in my room.

And for the first time in my life, I felt something I had never felt before. A mix of fear, excitement and surrealism.

I have not felt anything close to it ever since...

I would love to hear if you guys have had any surreal experiences like this.