when I was young, around 7 or 8 or so, I had a reoccurring dream. I really don't know if it was just a regular dream, a lucid dream, an OBE to another plane, or what it was.

I would wake up, get a funny sense of loneliness. Not depressed loneliness but the feeling when you know you are in a home alone. I would go in to my parents room. Covers would be thrown back as if they had gotten out of bed as normal. No one would be in the home at all.

Early on I taught myself, just by experimenting and noticing things, how to tell if I was awake or dreaming. I always find dreams have a different feeling to them than when awake. Hard to explain the feeling I get.

When I would wake up and found no one was home I didn't get the dream feeling. If I bit myself it would hurt, unlike when I bit myself in a dream I didn't feel any pain. I tried making things change, like I would do in a dream and it wouldn't work.

I would usually go and lay down in front of the TV in the living room and fall back to sleep watching TV. I would usually awake when my parents walked through the living room. I'd always ask where they went. They would always be puzzled and tell me I must have been dreaming.

So, I decided to do a few tests. I would remember what channel the TV was on the night before I went to bed. When I would awake in the "dream" I would to and turn on the TV and change it to a different channel. When I would awake (in real life, I guess you would call it) I would check the channel on the TV. Sure enough it was the same channel I changed it to and not the channel it has been the night before.

What really puzzled me was one time I was determined to stay awake. I stayed awake once and was watching TV. All of a sudden my parents came walking down the hall in to the living room and I asked them where they has been they had told me the usual about dreaming. I told them it couldn't have been a dream because I never went back to sleep. I stayed awake the rest of that day so that, for me, ruled out being just a dream.

What was this? It couldn't have been a lucid dream because on that last instance I had checked all the rooms and no one was at home. No one in any rooms. Covers thrown back, and oddly, vehicle still parked in the driveway. Furthermore, on the last instance I stayed awake and didn't doze back off.

This has been on my mind off and on for a very long time.. I'm 30 now. I have been reading about lucid dreams, OBEs, and the sort for many years. I only recently came across Robert Bruce's Astral Dynamics (2009) and it really explains a lot compared to other books I have read. I really enjoy the detailed explanation of the mechanics of the realms, dimensions, etc.

One theory that came to mind was a possible alternate realm created by me or other. What confuses me, though, is how when I was watching TV my parents just came in the living room as if they came from their bedroom even though I knew I had thoroughly searched the home. It wasn't a big home so there was no chance of missing someone.