So I had a very vivid hypnagogic image this week - I saw my own gravestone.

There was no date (which I was glad about, as that would have freaked me out), and I should say I don't think this was any sort of psychic vision, just a very strong message from deep inside me. It just had my name, and then underneath it said: "A Lucid Dreamer". And this symbol really crystallised something about this whole lucid quest: I want to achieve something really great, that I'd be proud to have as my epitaph.

I turned fifty this month - and earlier in the year, as you do with these big birthdays, got to thinking about what I had never risked doing in my life, what it was too late for and what there was still time for - and i remembered a conversation I had with a friend when I was twelve. He had just heard about lucid dreaming, we talked for a while about how amazing that would be - but there was no internet back then to find out more, so we just let the subject go. It was just a wistful: "wouldn't it be great to be one of the people who could do that".

And this year it suddenly bubbled back to the surface (triggered also by the lucid dreaming scene in Alan Moore's "Providence", now that I think about it) - and I knew I'd always wanted to learn, and never dared take the chance of disappointment.

Six months down the line, I'm starting to find my way, and have been amazed by my first few lucids. I look forward to our sharing our journeys together.