ALL JUST A DREAM...

     You always get the best kind of sleep when you're trying not to sleep. I don't know why that is because it's really annoying. On the plus side, my dreams become especially vivid in this state.

      I'm lying in bed periodically texting a girl I've been talking to off OKCupid (I really like this one by the way, so I'm rooting for myself here). I'm lying on my back because it's difficult for me to sleep in this position. Eventually between a long lull (she was still at work, only texting when she could), I fell into a simple dream.

      I was with my brother in my maternal grandparent's house, a place I hadn't been since 2005. He was listening to music on a stereo when he decided to blast this particular song. I was trying to talk to him and now I couldn't hear what he was saying so I yelled at him to turn it down...or at least I tried.
      I was making the yelling noise, but it wasn't projecting. There was no power behind it. You can do this now yourself. Scream in your mind...your own scream, not your memory of another person's scream. It feels weird, doesn't it? For me it feels like hearing the written equivalent of "AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!" - it's so artificial.

      I tried several times to yell to him to turn the music down but he never heard me, to my frustration, because I could not project my voice. I guess that's a good thing because if I ever actually slept with someone, I could only imagine me screaming out of nowhere in my sleep would scare the shit out of her :-)

      The experience reminded me of a Batman: the Animated Series episode in which the Mad Hatter gave Batman a lifelike dream in which he led a normal life. His parents were still alive; he was an executive at Wayne Enterprises; etc. Also, there was still a Batman, but it wasn't him. For a while Bruce Wayne did not know what was going on until he tried reading something and found he could not. Anything in newspapers and books looked just like scribbles. That's how he knew he was dreaming.
       If I am lucky, I will be able to take this lesson with me into another dream. If I cannot scream, then I will know I am dreaming and maybe this time I can enjoy some lucidity rather than what usually happens when I realize I'm dreaming which is...I wake up.