Moonwatcher

[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.