In Which I Take a Level in Dreaming Ability
I just had my first true lucid dream! I didn't really consciously decide to, but after almost two months of secretly hoping it would happen, it happened. I am SO excited and happy and proud! I didn't become lucid until partway through, but I'll make the demarcation point clear in my writing. As always when I write about dreams, the events of the dream are written in the present tense, and any commentary I made on them after I woke up is written in the past tense and is set off by square brackets.
I'm in the circular entry plaza of my local Universal Studios theme park. The circle is defined by curving buildings whose inside surfaces (facing the middle of the plaza) are covered with windows made up of green, rectangular panes. One enters the park by coming through the building on the (roughly) south side of the circle. Directly opposite the doors leading from that building into the circular plaza is the entrance to the wide walkway leading into the rest of the park. There are also two other exits (gaps between the buildings) facing roughly east and west. Walking out through the east one, I discover that there is another roughly circular plaza, defined by low, rectangular concrete blocks, and going out that way and turning left leads to the shopping and entertainment district outside of the park proper, but that there are no turnstiles separating the one from the other. Looking out of the main plaza through the west entrance, I can see the entrance plaza to the West Coast clone of Disney-MGM Studios a short walk away. [It's not just a land, as it is in reality, but an entire park.] It was deliberately designed to look almost identical to the Universal Studios entrance plaza I'm in - the same curving buildings with the same green glass, creating the aesthetic effect of each plaza continuing on into the other. The only obvious differences are the gray metal letters along the top of one of the buildings in the other plaza, spelling out “Disney-MGM Studios” [despite the fact that they stopped calling it that a year or two ago when that contract ran out], and the edges of the giant sorcerer hat visible in the distance through one of the exits [UGH].
I'm flying over a flat, very ordinary-looking suburban neighborhood [that looks like it's probably in Kentucky or somewhere back east]. It is at this point that I realize that I'm dreaming. I think to myself, Awesome, I love it when I can fly. I wonder if I can build, too. So I land on the street and try to make a small, gray concrete box with a gate on the front rise up out of the ground by looking at a spot on the ground and thinking about what I want to happen. Nothing happens. I try again, this time trying to make some kind of modification to an existing structure [and I can't remember what exactly it was now, sorry]. This time, Ramona Quimby, a six-year-old girl with short, brown hair and wearing denim overalls, arrives on the scene and sets about making the modification I was just thinking of.
When she's finished, I look at a nearby doghouse and think about making a red shingle roof appear on it. Ramona gets up on top of the doghouse and starts nailing red shingles onto it with a hammer. I think, Oh, right. I forgot that my builder can only put things together one piece at a time. [When I woke up and remembered this part, I actually said aloud, "Wait, what?" What a very mundane way of building. I are slightly disappoint.] By this point, a crowd of people have gathered around to watch the building process. They seem interested and appreciative [rather than hostile].
After all that is over, I start walking through the neighborhood, back toward the area I was in before, with the theme park entrances. Outside and to the south of those entrances, there is an old-fashioned-looking red brick building [it looks a lot like the ones at the University of Kentucky, actually]. As I'm passing it, I notice the bright afternoon sun and think, WTF? It shouldn't still be this light out over here. Oh, well, whatever.
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That was AWESOME. I really, really hope this happens again. If this is what almost two months of near-constant thinking about my new fandom does to my mind, I don't ever want to leave it. :-)
I'm in the circular entry plaza of my local Universal Studios theme park. The circle is defined by curving buildings whose inside surfaces (facing the middle of the plaza) are covered with windows made up of green, rectangular panes. One enters the park by coming through the building on the (roughly) south side of the circle. Directly opposite the doors leading from that building into the circular plaza is the entrance to the wide walkway leading into the rest of the park. There are also two other exits (gaps between the buildings) facing roughly east and west. Walking out through the east one, I discover that there is another roughly circular plaza, defined by low, rectangular concrete blocks, and going out that way and turning left leads to the shopping and entertainment district outside of the park proper, but that there are no turnstiles separating the one from the other. Looking out of the main plaza through the west entrance, I can see the entrance plaza to the West Coast clone of Disney-MGM Studios a short walk away. [It's not just a land, as it is in reality, but an entire park.] It was deliberately designed to look almost identical to the Universal Studios entrance plaza I'm in - the same curving buildings with the same green glass, creating the aesthetic effect of each plaza continuing on into the other. The only obvious differences are the gray metal letters along the top of one of the buildings in the other plaza, spelling out “Disney-MGM Studios” [despite the fact that they stopped calling it that a year or two ago when that contract ran out], and the edges of the giant sorcerer hat visible in the distance through one of the exits [UGH].
I'm flying over a flat, very ordinary-looking suburban neighborhood [that looks like it's probably in Kentucky or somewhere back east]. It is at this point that I realize that I'm dreaming. I think to myself, Awesome, I love it when I can fly. I wonder if I can build, too. So I land on the street and try to make a small, gray concrete box with a gate on the front rise up out of the ground by looking at a spot on the ground and thinking about what I want to happen. Nothing happens. I try again, this time trying to make some kind of modification to an existing structure [and I can't remember what exactly it was now, sorry]. This time, Ramona Quimby, a six-year-old girl with short, brown hair and wearing denim overalls, arrives on the scene and sets about making the modification I was just thinking of.
When she's finished, I look at a nearby doghouse and think about making a red shingle roof appear on it. Ramona gets up on top of the doghouse and starts nailing red shingles onto it with a hammer. I think, Oh, right. I forgot that my builder can only put things together one piece at a time. [When I woke up and remembered this part, I actually said aloud, "Wait, what?" What a very mundane way of building. I are slightly disappoint.] By this point, a crowd of people have gathered around to watch the building process. They seem interested and appreciative [rather than hostile].
After all that is over, I start walking through the neighborhood, back toward the area I was in before, with the theme park entrances. Outside and to the south of those entrances, there is an old-fashioned-looking red brick building [it looks a lot like the ones at the University of Kentucky, actually]. As I'm passing it, I notice the bright afternoon sun and think, WTF? It shouldn't still be this light out over here. Oh, well, whatever.
--------------------
That was AWESOME. I really, really hope this happens again. If this is what almost two months of near-constant thinking about my new fandom does to my mind, I don't ever want to leave it. :-)