Lucid Dreams

Have you ever had a dream in which it finally dawned on you that it really WAS a dream, and that you had control over what happened in it? I think most all of us have had this experience of lucid dreaming, and some have expressed a kind of mastery over it, even going to the lengths of writing books and delivering speeches about how to have better lucid dreams.

I like the idea of having my own vivid “virtual” environment which I can manipulate at will. I guess most people do as well, which is why a lucid dream holds such a appeal. The problem for me is that, once I realize that I’m dreaming, the dream itself becomes unstable and I soon find myself waking up from it!

Most of my lucid dreams, which happen too seldom for my tastes, seem to involve the realization that I can fly. And although I enjoy the sensation of flight within a dream, I also find that it rarely occurs to me to attempt this. For most of my dreaming involves me in a rather “stupid” reactive mode to whatever events and imagery my mind produces. There is very little memory or initiative involved in my dreams. But I would like to encourage myself to have more lucid dreams.

The last lucid dream I had just recently happened and involved me standing on my back porch in the morning, helping my very old miniature poodle Taffy back into the house. As I was doing this, it occurred to me that this was 2008 and Taffy had died in 2006. I also thought at that moment something to the effect that 2006 had been a very significant year in a very profound way. So I knew then that I was dreaming. I soon woke up and realized that Taffy had died, but in 2007. I then tried to recall momentous events in my personal life, family life, and even events in the news that happened in 2006. But I couldn’t come up with anything that corresponded to the feeling that I had experienced in the dream. So there you go, another stupid dream!
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Yesterday’s Personal Stuff
--Running: I felt very under-the-weather in the morning, but I managed to later get myself down to the YMCA and run 1.5 miles on the treadmill with a 10:46 time. I need to get outside, though, and run longer distances.
--Reading: I’m nearly halfway through Stephenie Meyer’s famous novel-turned-movie Twilight. It is definitely aimed at girls, but is well written and enjoyable. I just began Black House, the sequel to The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub.
--Piano: My teacher says I need to read ahead in the music I’m playing and stop thinking “one note at a time”. I’ll be playing a short arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Bourrée in my recital in January.