Lucid Dreaming

Amy and I watched The Waking Life the other night. There's a bit in it where the main character is talking to another guy about lucid dreaming, the idea that, if you know you're in a dream, you can control it. I've been hearing this for years. I think it's bullshit. I'm gonna tell you why.

Probably a year and a half ago I had a dream. This is when I was still working at Hank's, and I'd walked home dead drunk at around five a.m. and collapsed into the bed. I fell asleep immediately and suddenly I was walking home down the alley again. I thought it was strange, having to walk home twice in one night. Then I noticed that, though the alley was a perfect representation of my alley, it was very slightly too small, like it was a movie set that had been constructed to 7/8 scale. It was very nicely done, down to the trash in the gutters and all the broken glass, but it was just too small. And there was a guy following me, and a guy waiting for me at the end of the alley, and a guy coming towards me across the bus station parking lot. I figured they were gonna try to mug me. I wasn't worried, 'cause the guys were in 7/8 scale too. Figured I could take 'em.

Anyway, what with the repitition and the scale, it suddenly occured to me that I was dreaming. So I stopped under a light and said, "Okay, then, punk bitches, come on and get your Matrix-style ass-whuppin'" and they disappeared. So I thought, "Hey, awesome, this must be one of those lucid dreams where you can control what happens. I can do any cool thing I can imagine. So, what to do?"

So I thought for a while, about flying into space or burrowing to the center of the Earth or going back in time to hang out with Ben Franklin or Audrey Hepburn, and then finally decided, "You know what I need, though, is a blowjob. I haven't had a blowjob in forever."

I wasn't exactly sure of the procedure for this. "Now, what am I supposed to do? Just concentrate on fellatio? Okay." So I closed my eyes and thought REALLY REALLY hard about a blowjob, and then I opened 'em back up, but there was still no one in the alley.

"Well, when I threatened the bad guys they vanished. Maybe it's an aural thing. HEY, WHOEVER'S OUT THERE...MAN IN NEED OF BLOWJOB," I tried again, no luck.

"Well, shit," said I. "I might as well just wake up, then." And I looked around, expecting all the buildings to melt and fade away and my room to appear, but that didn't happen either. "Okay, fine, so what do I do now?" I thought. I couldn't decide on anything, so I just went the hell on home.

So, either there's a piece of my brain missing (and after the ungentle way I've treated myself over the years, that wouldn't surprise me) or this lucid dreaming thing is pure bullshit. When I'm dreaming, I almost always know it, and yet I'm just struggling to keep my head outta the water.