Good excuse for being late?

[billvon 3,080]

Last weekend was a long one. 14 jumps in 2 days, with Harry's 'film festival' thrown in on Saturday night. I got home Sunday night around midnight.
Monday morning came way too soon, and I turned off the alarm and just laid there for a minute. Finally I got out of bed, drove my new Honda Civic to work, and sat through an interminable meeting with Mina, my old boss. I tried to listen, but for most of the time Mina sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, just going "Woh woh woh."
When I finally got back to my office, someone had packed up my computer to move it, and it was a mess. Empty boxes were in a pile in the middle of the office, presumably waiting for me to fill them up with books. There were a bunch of bags thumb-tacked to the wall, and in each bag was an old Pringle's can, with bits of candy inside each one.
Things weren't making much sense. I don't _have_ a Honda Civic. I haven't worked for Mina in two years. And why were there Pringle's cans on my walls? I did my usual test - picked up a piece of paper and tried to read what was on it. The first time the title was "Zooropa" and the text beneath it made no sense. The second time I read it the title was "Candy cans." Aha! I thought. I'm still asleep.
I tend to have two kinds of lucid dreams - fever dreams and regular lucid dreams. I can only have fever dreams during the day, usually when I'm sick or taking drugs or something. (Mefloquine did this to me a lot.) In fever dreams, I have 100% control over the dream, but things easily get out of hand. I have to be careful not to try to check what time it is, for example, because I'll usually open my eyes and turn my head to look at the clock, and then I'm awake again. Even during the dream, things are hard to keep a handle on. I can decide I'm about to make a jump, for example, but unless I concentrate things keep disappearing, like the other people in the plane. Then when I think about making people reappear, I discover I'm sitting in the Bomb Shelter instead of on the plane. It's a lot of work, especially when you're asleep.
This was the second kind of lucid dream, one where I'm aware that I'm dreaming but can't do much about it. Sometimes I can wake myself up, sometimes not. This time I figured I'd check out this setting. I have four or five "standard" dream settings, including college (good for the old 'finals-day-and-can't-find-the-test-room" anxiety dream) and my family's first house. This one was new. I looked out the window, but just saw the usual canyon behind our building. Boring. I looked into the hallway for someone to talk to, but the place was deserted. What to do? I pulled out my cellphone, thinking to call Amy - maybe I could get into a conversation with a sort of simulated girlfriend. But I couldn't rememeber her number, and when I tried to use the directory feature on the phone, the display just showed gibberish.
BTW, I've found there are two acid tests to see if you're dreaming or not. Do the light switches work? Do words on a page or a screen stay the same? If the answer to either is no, you're probably dreaming. I think both those tasks are just a little beyond your subconscious ability to simulate in a dream.
Anyway, I sat down at my desk and tried to use the PC, but it was unplugged and wrapped up, and I thought reconnecting a PC while asleep was just a little beyond my ability. I tried really hard to look at the time (my standard way of waking up) and it worked - I moved my head, saw the clock, and woke up for real.
Finally got to work about an hour late and there were a pile of moving boxes sitting on the floor, and a notice that they wanted me to change offices again. No suprise there.
-bill von

[GrumpySmurf 0]

Dude, whatever they spiked the punch with for you to have that vivid a dream, I want some!
Then again - the last dream I can remotely remember involved the Otter nose diving into the ground after take-off - I'm happy I don't remember it much.

[Shark 0]

Did you have some of Hottamaly's jello shots?

[billvon 3,080]

>Dude, whatever they spiked the punch with for you to have that vivid a dream, I
> want some!
Oh, I have them all the time. They don't even creep me out any more. Occasionally (once a year) I'll have a dream, and talk to a friend of mine, and discover that they had exactly the same dream, down to the color of the sled or the flight arrival time of their flight. Now that's creepy.
-bill von

[ChromeBoy 0]

Generally when something good is about to happen in my dreams I either wake up to the alarm clock or the dreams turns into a different setting completely. Example: I will be dreaming about flying in a plane. I have my rig on and I am about ready to jump when my dream turns into something back from childhood and there is not a plane or anything to do with skydiving in the childhood dream. The turn of events happen so fast that I don't really notice it. Also, why when dreams are going well, the way I want them too, do they change into something bad. Another example: I am about to sleep with a woman and when the time comes there is always a setback like she was born without a vagina or something. I know this sounds weird but I have this stuff happen all the time. Do you think this is actually two dreams and I can only remember parts of both when I wake up or that I maybe have some type of ADD and my mind loses one dream and just begins a new one without completing the other? Do you think dreams are capable of being completed?

[AggieDave 6]

I do that with my dreams all the time too, if I'll try to read something and it makes no sense. Those are usually dreams about my days as an engineering major... No, seriously, though, when I have really real feeling dreams the give away is always reading for me, I always seem to make myself try when I'm dreaming.
Aerials
So up high
When you free your lives (the) eternal prize

[Lindsey 0]

I heard that really smart people have dreams like that.....I don't have 'em....and that would correlate with how STUPID I feel today.....ever feel plain dumb?
some days it's just not worth gnawing through the straps

[Jessica 0]

Sometimes I can read stuff during lucid dreams. Sometimes it's frocking brilliant. But then I always forget what it says and when I try to read it again it's something else entirely.
Last night I dreamed I had a double malfunction. When I pitched my main, a large sign instead of a parachute appeared over my head, informing me that the main was not working and I should pull my reserve. So I did that, and it was baglocked.
But then someone pointed out to me later that reserves don't generally baglock. I felt better. Also, I remembered that we usually don't do CReW with hot-air balloons, and bodies still in freefall, which I was managing in the dream. It was actually a pretty cool dream.

[dove 0]

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BTW, I've found there are two acid tests to see if you're dreaming or not. Do the light switches work? Do words on a page or a screen stay the same? If the answer to either is no, you're probably dreaming. I think both those tasks are just a little beyond your subconscious ability to simulate in a dream.

If you're wondering at all if it is a dream, it probably is.

[GrumpySmurf 0]

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reserves don't generally baglock.

Well that's reassuring to hear - don't GENERALLY baglock

[Tee 0]

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I'll have a dream, and talk to a friend of mine, and discover that they had exactly the same dream, down to the color of the sled or the flight arrival time of their flight. Now that's creepy.

My sweetie and I will have the same dreams at times. TOO CREEPY! tee

[Skyrose7 0]

Last week I had a dream that two out of three of my brothers died--in a car crash. It was freakish. I kept saying, this has to be a dream. Then, I would wake up(or so I thought) and ask if I was dreaming or if they really died. THis kept on happening. Probably about 3 or 4 times. It was so frustrating. I woke up crying and got up to make sure I was actually awake. My brothers were thankfully alive and healty. The mind is like a parachute--it works better when it is open. JUMP.

[hisgoofyness 0]

I am really suprised to see so many of us often dream lucidly...
Funny thing is... When first starting college my ambition was to be a dream psychologist (not a shrink) but more so in the research field. I believe that our dreaming mind (i.e. subconscious) is the key to unlocking the 85% of our brain capacity that we don't use. I feel that if a person were able to explore their subconscious in a somewhat conscious method, such as lucid dreaming, we could unlock some of our hidden potential.
Anyway, I want ramble on about that too much, but I have read several books on the topic and it continues to entice me to follow my original "dream job". Have any of you ever heard of Dr. Stephen LaBerge? He runs the Lucidity Institute in Palo Alto, CA. He wrote a book called "Lucid Dreaming" as well as many others on the topic. He is a very interesting man to learn about.
Check out his website http://www.lucidity.com/
I will quit rambling now...
hisgoofyness
"kind of like a cloud, i was up.. way up in the sky..." nine inch nails