New dream milestone
I'm in the Garden District of New Orleans. Everything is overrun with vegetation, the houses are entwined with ivy. There's no other person around. I realize that they've all disappeared, possibly dead. I may be the only person left alive.
I realize this is too improbable to be real, so the lucid dream-state begins.
But wait - am I really lucid dreaming? I look at my surroundings, I look down the empty quiet streets, I move about and touch my arms. This is actually happening, I think; I can't control this environment. I'm not actually lucid dreaming.
So there it is: a lucid dream so convincing that you actually change your mind and think you're literally awake. How can I be so easily mistaken? How can I know I'm dreaming and then determine that I'm not? What does it mean when the faculty of reality-testing, which one uses without any confusion in daily waking-life, shows itself to be so fallible? One learns lucid dreaming in order to learn that one's dreams aren't real - and then one finds that they are?
There are implications here which are problematic and fascinating to me. Like any good dreamer worthy of the name, I want my dreams to be real and my life to be a dream.
I realize this is too improbable to be real, so the lucid dream-state begins.
But wait - am I really lucid dreaming? I look at my surroundings, I look down the empty quiet streets, I move about and touch my arms. This is actually happening, I think; I can't control this environment. I'm not actually lucid dreaming.
So there it is: a lucid dream so convincing that you actually change your mind and think you're literally awake. How can I be so easily mistaken? How can I know I'm dreaming and then determine that I'm not? What does it mean when the faculty of reality-testing, which one uses without any confusion in daily waking-life, shows itself to be so fallible? One learns lucid dreaming in order to learn that one's dreams aren't real - and then one finds that they are?
There are implications here which are problematic and fascinating to me. Like any good dreamer worthy of the name, I want my dreams to be real and my life to be a dream.