Lucid Dreaming

I've had lucid dreams many times in the past, but this morning I had the most vivid. I was with my brother, living in some big house somewhere and we shared the house with some other people, most of whom were either Hispanic or Asian. I don't know why we were living there, in reality, my brother has a wife and 2 kids. A lot of random things went on in the dream, most of which are unremarkable and ordinary, but at some point when I was laying in bed in the dream, suddenly, I knew I was dreaming. I can't remember what event sparked it.

But, at the moment I realized I was dreaming, I jumped up out of bed and said, "I'm going to explore this place." At that moment, I suddenly had the sensation of being in a simulation-type program...as if I was moving my waking body to navigate the dream world. I was so aware of it, that I stood still, afraid that my focusing on it would make the real world come through. And as I turned my head to look around, the environment would sort of shimmer for a moment and I could barely make out my waking world bedroom. But, just for a second...then my dream environment would come back into focus. I felt like I had some control over this. At some point, I began to doubt that it was, in fact, a dream, so I decided to test the theory and somehow, I forced myself awake, but I was not standing up as I was in the dream...I was still in bed.

The strange thing about lucid dreaming for me is...even though I know I'm dreaming, I'm not at all aware of what my waking world looks like. Except for this latest dream. Weird. Also, almost all of my lucid dreaming occurs after I have awoken in the morning and then decide to go back to sleep. I have my most vivid dreams at those times.

Care to share your lucid dream experiences?