Lucidity - First in a while

I signed up to do a workshop for Professional Development (PD) Days ... a "fun" workshop, not related to teaching or stress or pedagogy or curricula.  I proposed to repeat a talk I gave some years ago on lucid dreaming.  It was a physics instructor-friend who talked me into the first presentation at Cafe Scientifique, a regular public session at a local bookstore.  I said no I'm not qualified, he said yes you are, I said no I'm not, he said yes you are, I said, I have two small children, I can't get away for an evening, he said I'll wait.  He waited, and eventually I gave the talk.

So I have done this once before, successfully, with a room full of people who actually wanted to hear me talk about dreaming and also wanted to share.  A lot of things.  Including, "I had an organ transplant and now I have the dreams of the original owner of the kidney."  Not kidding.  I was blown away by the amount of sharing.

Myself, I have always had a vivid dream life.  Always.  For as long as I have had memories, I have had dreams.  Sometimes I can control them, which makes them "lucid."  A lucid dream is vivid, crazy vivid, colorful, beautiful, fleeting, amazing, so amazing.  I have flown over the Masai Mara and into the stars.  Once I ate asparagus (why not?).

There are ways to "become lucid" on purpose, and I used to do this (or at least try this) regularly.  Getting ready for PD Days I'm trying again, and last night I was sooooo close to being successful.  So so close.

I had a dream where I was at the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and I saw a person in a costume.  The costume had a ribbon (like a bow) where the head should be.  I woke up and remembered the dream and thought, "That was a sign I was dreaming.  There's no way a person could have had that costume on, there was no room for their actual head."  As I drifted back to sleep, I concentrated on re-entering that dream, and I did.

I looked at the costume and said to myself, "That's not real, I'm dreaming."  And I became "lucid."  I told L and K that I was dreaming and they congratulated me.  I was trying to think of something to do, and I considered jumping out the window and flying away.  This is where it fails, completely.  I decided not to, because L and K would get upset if I jumped out the window.  Big time fail.  I did NOT recognize that L and K would not be upset because they were dream-people, not actual people.

Some sound woke me, and done.  I'm close, if not there, and I have a few weeks before the talk.  So here's to a night of lucidity, and patience from my husband as I ask him for the 100th time, "Am I dreaming?"