My dream cheated me.
It was one of those dreams where each moment progresses normally, and rational things happen. I was there and then stuff happened in a normal way. Conversations, feelings, kisses. And then I went home and went to sleep in my own room. It was so vivid, and so real that when I woke up, I was completely convinced that it actually had happened. I got up thinking “I can’t wait to go to class, because then I’ll see him again.”
But then I found the rolled up taco-bell receipt in my jeans pocket and realized that no, it hadn’t. I had gone to taco-bell last night, and then had come home to work on my essay.
Stupid dreams. Evil evil dreams. They should come with disclaimers saying “this is fiction.”
li_kao | 31-Oct-03 at 12:48 am | Permalink
I’ve had that happen more than a few times. That feeling of disappointment when you realize it was only a dream can be colossal.
keokri | 31-Oct-03 at 3:11 am | Permalink
I got woken up last weekend at 5 am by my brothers alarm clock right in the middle of a great dream. That sucked majorly.
autarchex | 31-Oct-03 at 5:14 am | Permalink
I once dreamt I had learned how to fly.
It did not work as expected when I tried it out in the morning.
starladear6 | 31-Oct-03 at 5:58 am | Permalink
That happens to me often.
So often in fact that one time, I noticed that I was flying, and remembered how often I wake up and realize it is a dream… and I kinda “woke up” inside my dream and became conscious because I knew I couldn’t possibly be flying… Then I became a god. :)
Make sense? They call them lucid dreams. They are SOOOPER fun. But I’ve only had one or two. *whines*
li_kao | 31-Oct-03 at 6:23 am | Permalink
My friend Eddy was able to have regular lucid dreams after he began keeping a dream journal that he updated immediately after waking.
I can still vividly recall my first lucid dream, which also involved a flying realization. Perhaps that’s a very common experience for first-time lucid dreams?
autarchex | 31-Oct-03 at 8:21 am | Permalink
I’ve had a couple of those, but generally I wake up soon after noting that I am asleep.
A friend of mine at the country fair sells dreamweavers - nifty little devices that look a lot like overly bulky sleep masks. They use an IR beam reflected off your eyes to determine when you go into REM sleep, then it triggers a series of bright flashes. Most people can train themselves to recognize the flashes in their dreams - they get incorporated into the dream as lightning flashes, or blinking lightbulbs, or such - and then they enter a lucid state.
A cheaper technique, that doesn’t work as well, is to train yourself to check your (digital) watch, and then immediately check it again, very often. If you are lucky this habit will follow you into your dreams, and in your more “normal” dreams - those in which you aren’t being chased by evil monsters and such - you will check your watch, look away, and then look at it again. The time will almost certainly be different each time you look at the watch, or might spell out words or random symbols, if you are dreaming.