How can I have lucid dreams and control them?

How do you control your dreams / have nightmares?

• Once i had this really confusing dream it was weird, crazy, and i could actually remember most of it. So i want to know (original question) "How do you control dreams and partially ignore them after you wake up?"(The dream was also some-what terrifying, maby it was a nightmare...) Ok change of question now the question is "How do you control your dreams / have nightmares?"

• Answer:

  You have to be aware that you're dreaming while you're dreaming, and then make a decision. I once had a dream that I was swimming underwater and couldn't break through the surface. I just decided that since it was only a dream, I could breathe water. I (fearfully) took a breath, and saw that I could indeed breathe water, and then was also able to break through the surface. Unfortunately, some dreams are just scary, and even realizing it's a dream doesn't make it less so, and sometimes your efforts to control the dream don't work as well as you might hope. Sometimes you can switch characters in your dream just by really watching one character closely--they you "become" that person. Sometimes, focusing on one detail will change the story (dreams actually can repeat over and over while you're dreaming.) As you realize you've seen this before the story will change. Hope this helps!