TUESDAY: Lucid Dreaming

I've been trying for the past week to achieve lucid dreaming where during your dreams, you become aware that you are dreaming hopefully, learn to control the dream. It sounds like a very difficult thing to do and it is, even more so than I thought.

To learn how to achieve this, I looked around on some reliable scientific resources like Wikipedia and stuff. Remembering your dreams is the first step. The easiest way to do this is to have pen and paper next to your bed so you can write everything down before you forget it. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work because you tend to forget dreams the moment you move or open your eyes.

Most nights, this has worked and I've been able to write down at least one dream from every night since I started doing this. I've found that most of my dreams are in some way related to school. Either featuring people from school or having something to do with schoolwork which is kind of sad. Though there have been some more interesting dreams.

One time, I dreamt I was part of the Explosives Disposal team in the Hurt Locker except it was set in World War II. There was a pile of empty compressed air tanks and we were kicking them around. Suddenly we realised one of them was a bomb and we ran for cover. When the bomb exploded, a knife flew out and chopped the testicles off one of the soldiers. I also wrote down 'coolest thing I seen today'. I'd assume that means someone in my dream said that.

Another dream I had was that it was someone's birthday and we somehow managed to have all school lessons cancelled and had a three day sleepover at the school. That was a really dumb dream.

While I haven't found it hard remembering my dreams, the next step to lucid dreaming has proved to be much harder for me. You must be aware in your dreams that you are dreaming. The easiest way to do this is to constantly ask this question and perform reality checks while you're awake. Soon you'll be doing it out of habit and hopefully in your dreams. These reality checks are pretty simple things like squeezing your nose and closing your mouth and seeing if you can breathe.

So far, I have yet to have a dream where I knew I was dreaming. I've been trying out the stuff in the last paragraph for a while and it hasn't really worked out so it could all be a buncha bunk. These things probably take time and recording my dreams has turned out to be pretty interesting so I'll keep on going with this.

Just a note, my sudden fascination with dreams has nothing to do with Inception. I just happened to see some stuff on this topic on the internet and thought I'd try it out.

And finally, a special mention to Lorraine Li, because I really don't like the word 'shoutout'.