Only in dreams

My dreams are so mundane it’s frightening. I haven’t had a nightmare for as long as I can remember; although that may say more about how easily scared I am than how scary my dreams are. My dreams actually involve supernatural / paranormal phenomena on a regular basis, but I’m always more entertained than scared. And the otherworldly elements always blend seamlessly with the otherwise boring dream narrative.

Between waking up for my first class yesterday, setting my alarm for two hours later, and waking up again, I had the most intense dream – I can only describe it as a fairly straightforward mix of Poltergeist and The OC. It was entertaining, but so real that, when awoken in the middle of it, I couldn’t remember anything about my real life or why my alarm had gone off – or, for that matter, whether I was actually dating a blonde emo-pixie named Anna.

That was an exception, though. My most common dream is waking up, looking at my clock, and realizing that I’m two hours late for something. This causes me to wake up in actuality, look at the clock, and realize I don’t have to get up for another two hours. What’s worse, I dream about programming on a fairly regular basis – although, with my current schedule, I’ve lately been dreaming of reading novels in bed. The strange thing about that is how lucid and flowing the spontaneously invented prose is, as if I’m actually reading passages of Faulkner or Hemingway.

I hardly ever dream about people I know personally, and I’ve never had a dream about a current girlfriend. The exception to this rule is prospective girlfriends, about whom I dream more than I would like.

Last night, Kelly dreamed that she slit the throats of ten people seated in a circle. I asked her if she was having difficulties at work.

Ever since watching Waking Life I’ve made a semi-concerted effort at lucid dreaming, with limited success. It’s happened a few times, though. What’s interesting about lucid dreams is that, unlike regular dreams, there is an implied amount of responsibility for one’s actions. If you dream of having a *cough* romantic liaison with a friend’s significant other, it’s no big deal – unless it was a lucid dream. In the latter case, you chose her consciously, not as some buried part of your id. Obviously, you can’t tell your friend about either dream, but you probably don’t want to tell anyone about the latter. Likewise, if someone tells me we had fabulous sex in their dream, it’s not such a big deal – unless it was a lucid dream, in which case: whoa, hold on, let’s talk about this some more, let me get a notepad, describe exactly what happened down to the smallest detail.

I tried recording my dreams for a while, but they made so little sense in the morning that I kind of started hating my subconscious. So I stopped.