I have only recently become interested in lucid dreaming and luckily found this wealth of information. However, I have two questions that can hopefully be answered in the forums.

1. I don't quite understand the whole concept of testing you surroundings in your dream to convince yourself you are dreaming. How can you control your thought process during a dream in which you have no control in which to gain control? It hurts my head just thinking about it.

2. I have a fairly outrageous imagination, and am concerned in what type of horrific dreamscape my mind could put me into. Its kind of hard to explain what I mean. But, I lets say I become lucid and I tell myself not to dream of something that frightens me, will that cause it to happen? In an awakened state if I try to tell myself not to dwell on something that is exactly what I do. My idea of a good night sleep is not spending it in a pit of spiders listening Slim Whitman

Okay, answers:

1. I think that the theory is that if, during the day, you look at your watch or read something around you and it is strange, odd, or wrong, then you are dreaming. Obviously, in the waking world you will not be but the habit should eventually carry over to the dream world, and you will find that your dream self should look at it's watch which may trigger an LD.

Note: This has never worked properly for me, but many others have reported that this technique or one similar works.

2. In LDs when you have little control, it is common to think things like 'Hey, if this was a nightmare, there would be something behind that curtain. What the..? Oh, sh-'

But, with practice, it is easier to ignore those thoughts and concentrate on happier ones. Of course, with a really high level of control, there is no reason to be afriad of nightmare situations, and many dreamers use them effectively for theraputic (Heh) purposes.