Lucid dreaming

I one time watched the scariest film ever about lucid dreaming, which you may have heard of. It was Waking Life, and it was the scariest film ever, because the guy in it was having a lucid dream, and he kept wanting to wake up, but he couldn't. He kept waking up into more and more and more lucid dreaming. He could never, never, never wake up.

And that reminded me of one of the scariest ideas in all of the Sandman, which is that this one guy gets punished by being condemned to sleep forever, and while he is sleeping he has these incredibly horrific nightmares, and he keeps waking up into ever more horrible nightmares. And he, also, can never, never, never wake up. He must just carry on having nightmares forever.

However, I hear from other people that there are lucid dreams containing rather less death and destruction and rather more jollity and getting to decide what you dream about. They realize they're dreaming, these people, and they decide that they're going to fly about, or go to Egypt, or hang out with their dead family members, or whatever tickles their fancy. And that, obviously, sounds totally brilliant. I have flying dreams very rarely. I don't think I have ever had a dream about Egypt. I have had a few dreams with dead or incapacitated family members, but I often forget the crucial details and thus do not enjoy them as much as I might. Plus I have always always wanted to dream about meeting characters in my stories, and I never do. I never have. I long and long and long to have dreams like that.

But it never happens, and do you know why? It's because my subconscious is a big Nazi dictator. I have dreams where I spot that I'm dreaming sometimes. I think, "Oh sweet! I have noticed! Now the lucid dreaming fun can begin!" and my subconscious says, "Um, I believe that's a no," and I'm like, "Yes! That's a yes! I've noticed! Lucid dreaming is taking place RIGHT NOW!" and my subconscious is like, "Look, BITCH. You can either have your regularly scheduled dream as I have planned it for you, or else you can just wake up and have no dream at all." This either cows me into immediate submission or makes me rebellious.

If I submit, I have my regularly scheduled dream (and I must say that my subconscious is excellent and creative and doesn't often give me bullshit dreams but usually sends me dreams that contain symbolism and help me to consider aspects of life that might not have otherwise occurred to me, and very occasionally it tells the future. Like the time I bought Bonnie a car from this parking lot I had never seen before but I saw it the next day and it turned out to be the parking lot of the place where Anna had driving lessons; or the time right after the fourth Harry Potter book came out that I dreamed there was an article in the paper entitled CHO CHANG IS A BITCH, and that turned out to be quite true also, although before that dream I swear to God I had nothing against the girl); and if I get rebellious and say, "You can't stop me! I'm dreaming and it's going to be lucid!" then my subconscious says, "Let there be no confusion on this point! I am in charge here!", and I wake up instantly. All disappointed.

Nazi bastard subconscious.

P.S. I guess I have to label this as being unreasonable crankiness. I guess if it were reasonable to be cranky about this, my eminently sensible subconscious would not be doing it.