Moonwatcher

INT. CHILDHOOD LIVING ROOM - DAY

Another storm. I see downtown Dallas, Texas out the window. It is closer than in reality, perhaps by half the distance. All at once, the lights in every building blink on. Some of the lights resemble the mercury vapour lamps in the unfinished towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Also, one or two of the buildings are being hoisted up and down, pivoted on their corners, by giant cranes. These strange sights downtown alert me to my conscious state: Dream!

As usual when lucid, I can think very fast and efficiently. I instantly remember the course of action I had planned when awake for my next dream. First, I rub my hands together and demand, "Clarity now! Stability now!" For the first time in a dream I can actually see my hands because I'm concentrating on them. I also attempt to spin around, which is supposed to aid in stabilizing a lucid dream and prevent waking up. But my dream body is unresponsive and does not rotate. Then I remember that my main goal was to try to persuade a dream character that she or he is dreaming too.

I turn to my mother, sitting next to me on the couch. "Look, Mom! We're dreaming! We're in a lucid dream! Did you know you're dreaming?" She gazes at me with a quizzical expression.

Unfortunately the demand for clarity does not seem to have changed anything, nor the wish for stability: I'm waking up. "Mom," I say to her with a hurried hug, "I'll love you and Dad forever." Then I find myself slowly emerging into the reality of my bedroom, four thousand kilometres away.

EXT. DALIESQUE LANDSCAPE - DAY

A squall of storm clouds. A formation of large, metal cubes comes streaking across the sky, toward me and to my left by about 30 degrees. Altitude: perhaps 1000 feet. They are dun-coloured and look like shipping containers oriented the tall way, with proportions of approximately 1:2:3. They moan or hum as they streak overhead, followed by conventional jet aircraft. The cubes and jets are cooperating and not hostile to each other. Perhaps they are all man-made.

I become lucid. "It's a dream!" I cry. "Clarity, now!" I demand. But the dream does not increase in clarity. Nevertheless, I continue in lucidity by repeatedly reminding myself of my conscious state ("It's a dream, it's a dream.") I attempt to realize some dream goals I've been planning, but to no avail.

Someone tells me that the scene playing out overhead is of a prophetic nature.

I turn to look behind me where the ufos went. Red and blue searchlights rake the clouds in the distance. The red lights are lasers; I can see red dots dancing among the clouds. The searchlights are looking for alien ufo invaders.

[I had this dream < 2 weeks ago.]

INT. CHILDHOOD HOME - DAY

I dreamt I was in the living room of my childhood home. It was an overcast day.
Prehistoric, Ice Age creatures were walking on the sidewalks outside a large window
(day residue from a book I’m reading). A police officer was in the room with me. I
described the animals to him, speculating that one shaggy, tawny species resembled a
cross between a lion and a marsupial. The strangeness of this analysis led me to
consider my conscious state and triggered lucidity. I immediately recalled an experimental
task I have been planning and set to work constructing a square in dreamspace.

Since the cop was standing in the room, I chose to place him in the centre of my square.
Starting with a “westward” first segment and facing the cop, I floated my body to the left.
I felt my dangling feet lightly scrape the floor, and found it difficult to maintain altitude.

On the second segment (“northward”), I chose to remain facing “north” (i.e., I did not
rotate my body). I felt resistance to my motion in space—a common experience in many
of my non-lucid dreams when I have attempted to walk or fly purposefully. The sensation
was similar to that felt when walking through a moving train car, or down the aisle of an
airliner in a turbulent flight (i.e., trying to overcome or resist inertia). I also noticed that I
had not provided sufficient space to make the second segment the same length as the
first: the wall was too close, so I had to cut the second segment short.

For the third segment (translating my body “eastward”), I maintained my “northern”
orientation as before. As I floated, I found to my dismay that the cop was going to be in
the way. When approaching him I glanced over my right shoulder at his face; he was
watching my experiment with a puzzled expression. I decided—this being a dream—
simply to move my body through his without stopping or navigating around him. (I have
made use of this ghostlike ability before in non-lucid dreams when attempting to evade
or escape law-enforcement or other authority figures whose presence I found
inconvenient.)

Unfortunately, as I slid my shoulder effortlessly through the confused officer’s chest—
and as I watched the look of helpless consternation on his face—I found myself waking
up. The scene blackened as I slowly slipped out of dream state. As I am relatively
inexperienced, I do not know if this is the “sparkling void” lucid dreamers refer to—it
may have simply been the darkness of my bedroom as I awoke—but there did seem to be
something sparkly about it in a sense.