I've been more or less immune to nightmares since age 12 thanks to my basically force-teaching myself to lucid dream in order to avoid them. Pretty damned impressive given that I neither knew it was possible nor even knew where to begin. I also learned how to control dreams without going into fully lucid dreaming, which makes for some pretty interesting experiences.
It's been rare for me to not have control over my dreams since then (only on rare occasions when I'm overly stressed do I have trouble with controlling them, in fact), though it is still fairly uncommon for me to go into full-fledged "awake yet asleep" lucid dreaming. That still only happens when I put an effort into it. Though when I do, I really am awake yet asleep: fully aware, fully in control, everything looks and feels real, yet I also know I'm dreaming too. It's easy to mistake the former for the latter when you've never experienced the latter, but once you do experience the latter, you'll never mix the two types up again.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
