adventures in lucid dreaming, redux (or, i've been trying to find time to write this post all day):
Those of you who've been around for awhile may remember the last time I made a post about a lucid dream; for those of you who are just joining us (and hello, by the way, lovely to meet you all :D), I...er. Well, sometimes I have dreams and realize that I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming, which is great, it's awesome, except for how I can't seem to put together any more than that. After last night's, I actually think my problem is an inability to recognize that I'm in control of my environment as well as myself, but that's not the point here.
The point is, I had a lucid dream last night, but in order to tell you that story, I have to tell you this story, which starts the same way most of my stories do: with the sentiment that my family is not particularly sane. You guys all know this already, but it bears repeating--constant repeating--because it is so deeply true. And sometimes, we get together and play a game we affectionately call Penalty Jeopardy.
Here's how Penalty Jeopardy works: you watch Jeopardy. When you get a question right, you get a high five. When you get a question wrong, you get a pinch. If you run a category, you get both (high fives for being awesome, pinches for being such a nerd).
Now, I should point out at this juncture that these aren't particularly painful pinches we're doling out. We're not coming out of this experience bruised or anything, barring that terrible week when Burrito, too young to understand the game or know his own strength, pinched the shit out of all of us indiscriminately for the whole half hour each night. It's a love-pinch, really, and is frankly nothing compared to the verbal abuse we fling at Alex Trebek, who, along with clowns (just, as a population), is the family nemesis.
So last night, we played Penalty Jeopardy, and it was the fucking Teen Tournament, and I ran a category that I can't remember the name of but was, essentially, "Give the meaning of these Spanish verbs."
Here, in case any of you are wondering, is my study history of languages other than English:
-Four years of high school Latin
-One year of high school French (things learned: "Je ne parle pas Francais" and "Je voudrais un sandwich")
-One quarter of college Italian (abandoned because I was just answering test questions in Latin)
-One day of college Chinese (which, okay, it was my first class on my first day of freshman year and I somehow ended up in an upper level course without realizing it, and when I went to do the homework that night there was this CD I had to play, and I turned it on and it said "*Five minutes of a language I don't speak at all*" followed immediately by "What did Joey have for dinner?" I DROPPED THAT CLASS LIKE IT WAS HOT, YOU GUYS. And then by the time I realized I'd been in the wrong level I was too freaked out by the experience to try again.)
So my family, naturally, was like HOW DID YOU DO THAT, and I was like IT'S BASIC VERBS FROM A ROMANCE LANGUAGE, THEY'RE ALL ROOTED IN LATIN, and then my father told me I need to stop indulging my Matilda complex, and I told him that the fact that he chooses to compare himself to Danny Devito in any capacity is not my issue, and then Alex Trebek snickered at someone like the asshole he is and we all yelled SHUT UP ALEX and went on with our game. Later, I watched the new 5-0 (oh my god oh my god etc), wrote a post-ep, and went to bed.
AND ALL OF THAT is, I think, why I blinked asleep in a dream featuring Danny Williams, Steve McGarrett, and 12 people speaking Latin.
Here's the thing about lucid dreaming, for me--it's not as exciting as it could be, really, because I totally waste it like an asshole every time. I look around, think, "Oh! I'm dreaming," check by flipping a light switch, and then go back to whatever I was doing before. It never occurs to me that if I'm dreaming, I'm in control of everything, not just myself; I never think "Oh, you know, what I should do is have a wild orgy with JGL, THard, and Cumberbutt, and then maybe fly around the world like a boss."
It's a personal failing. I'm working on it.
So, look, guys, look, the point of this ENTIRE STORY is that I was in this room, right, in the dream, and it was the ugliest room ever, hideous wood paneling and weird brown curtains with flowers on them and this giant maroon couch sitting in the middle. And idling around were all these people people dressed in black tie attire and speaking in Latin.
I don't know how I knew it was Latin. KNOWLEDGE IS DIFFERENT IN DREAMS.
"I don't speak Latin," I told one of them, when he tried to talk to me. "I took it in high school--I can read it, kind of, but I can't speak it."
"Cogito ergo sum," he said.
"Well obviously you don't speak it either," I said, "you're just pretending," which, I think, made sense to me at the time. Anyway, he stormed off in a huff and all the people glared at me together like an angry besuited mob.
And then Danny Williams sidled up next to me and said, "Don't mind them, they've been like this all night, it's better not to try."
Did it occur to me to change the room out for a hotel suite with a large bed? No. Did it occur to me to make him say "Oh hello, perhaps now I will ravish you, yes, there's a plan?" No. Did it occur to me to at least put us in the goddamn Camero instead of A WEIRD UGLY ROOM WITH BAD CURTAINS FULL OF HOSTILE PEOPLE IN TUXEDOS AND COCKTAIL DRESSES GLARING AT US?
No, no it did not.
LOOK, THIS STORY IS TOO LONG ALREADY, and anyway what Danny and I talked about is not really important. Mostly we ranted about things that pissed us off, bad drivers and people who touch all the fruit at the grocery store and then leave it bruised like assholes and the word "moist." It was very freeing, though I was kind of uncomfortable with the, you know, increased volume of the Latin being thrown at us, and then I realized there was no door in the room and Danny shot out a window, which we didn't leave out of for some reason, I think because we were yelling our agreement on the topic of toast being unacceptable past a certain shade of brown.
AND THEN, OKAY, AND THIS IS WHY I AM TELLING YOU THIS STORY:
Then Steve McGarrett walked into the room (through a door that just APPEARED, I don't even know), shoved over three of the dudes in the tuxes, yelled "STEP AWAY FROM MY MAN" AND PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE.
That's how I woke up today, you guys. Punched in the face by Steve McGarrett. I just wanted you to know.
The point is, I had a lucid dream last night, but in order to tell you that story, I have to tell you this story, which starts the same way most of my stories do: with the sentiment that my family is not particularly sane. You guys all know this already, but it bears repeating--constant repeating--because it is so deeply true. And sometimes, we get together and play a game we affectionately call Penalty Jeopardy.
Here's how Penalty Jeopardy works: you watch Jeopardy. When you get a question right, you get a high five. When you get a question wrong, you get a pinch. If you run a category, you get both (high fives for being awesome, pinches for being such a nerd).
Now, I should point out at this juncture that these aren't particularly painful pinches we're doling out. We're not coming out of this experience bruised or anything, barring that terrible week when Burrito, too young to understand the game or know his own strength, pinched the shit out of all of us indiscriminately for the whole half hour each night. It's a love-pinch, really, and is frankly nothing compared to the verbal abuse we fling at Alex Trebek, who, along with clowns (just, as a population), is the family nemesis.
So last night, we played Penalty Jeopardy, and it was the fucking Teen Tournament, and I ran a category that I can't remember the name of but was, essentially, "Give the meaning of these Spanish verbs."
Here, in case any of you are wondering, is my study history of languages other than English:
-Four years of high school Latin
-One year of high school French (things learned: "Je ne parle pas Francais" and "Je voudrais un sandwich")
-One quarter of college Italian (abandoned because I was just answering test questions in Latin)
-One day of college Chinese (which, okay, it was my first class on my first day of freshman year and I somehow ended up in an upper level course without realizing it, and when I went to do the homework that night there was this CD I had to play, and I turned it on and it said "*Five minutes of a language I don't speak at all*" followed immediately by "What did Joey have for dinner?" I DROPPED THAT CLASS LIKE IT WAS HOT, YOU GUYS. And then by the time I realized I'd been in the wrong level I was too freaked out by the experience to try again.)
So my family, naturally, was like HOW DID YOU DO THAT, and I was like IT'S BASIC VERBS FROM A ROMANCE LANGUAGE, THEY'RE ALL ROOTED IN LATIN, and then my father told me I need to stop indulging my Matilda complex, and I told him that the fact that he chooses to compare himself to Danny Devito in any capacity is not my issue, and then Alex Trebek snickered at someone like the asshole he is and we all yelled SHUT UP ALEX and went on with our game. Later, I watched the new 5-0 (oh my god oh my god etc), wrote a post-ep, and went to bed.
AND ALL OF THAT is, I think, why I blinked asleep in a dream featuring Danny Williams, Steve McGarrett, and 12 people speaking Latin.
Here's the thing about lucid dreaming, for me--it's not as exciting as it could be, really, because I totally waste it like an asshole every time. I look around, think, "Oh! I'm dreaming," check by flipping a light switch, and then go back to whatever I was doing before. It never occurs to me that if I'm dreaming, I'm in control of everything, not just myself; I never think "Oh, you know, what I should do is have a wild orgy with JGL, THard, and Cumberbutt, and then maybe fly around the world like a boss."
It's a personal failing. I'm working on it.
So, look, guys, look, the point of this ENTIRE STORY is that I was in this room, right, in the dream, and it was the ugliest room ever, hideous wood paneling and weird brown curtains with flowers on them and this giant maroon couch sitting in the middle. And idling around were all these people people dressed in black tie attire and speaking in Latin.
I don't know how I knew it was Latin. KNOWLEDGE IS DIFFERENT IN DREAMS.
"I don't speak Latin," I told one of them, when he tried to talk to me. "I took it in high school--I can read it, kind of, but I can't speak it."
"Cogito ergo sum," he said.
"Well obviously you don't speak it either," I said, "you're just pretending," which, I think, made sense to me at the time. Anyway, he stormed off in a huff and all the people glared at me together like an angry besuited mob.
And then Danny Williams sidled up next to me and said, "Don't mind them, they've been like this all night, it's better not to try."
Did it occur to me to change the room out for a hotel suite with a large bed? No. Did it occur to me to make him say "Oh hello, perhaps now I will ravish you, yes, there's a plan?" No. Did it occur to me to at least put us in the goddamn Camero instead of A WEIRD UGLY ROOM WITH BAD CURTAINS FULL OF HOSTILE PEOPLE IN TUXEDOS AND COCKTAIL DRESSES GLARING AT US?
No, no it did not.
LOOK, THIS STORY IS TOO LONG ALREADY, and anyway what Danny and I talked about is not really important. Mostly we ranted about things that pissed us off, bad drivers and people who touch all the fruit at the grocery store and then leave it bruised like assholes and the word "moist." It was very freeing, though I was kind of uncomfortable with the, you know, increased volume of the Latin being thrown at us, and then I realized there was no door in the room and Danny shot out a window, which we didn't leave out of for some reason, I think because we were yelling our agreement on the topic of toast being unacceptable past a certain shade of brown.
AND THEN, OKAY, AND THIS IS WHY I AM TELLING YOU THIS STORY:
Then Steve McGarrett walked into the room (through a door that just APPEARED, I don't even know), shoved over three of the dudes in the tuxes, yelled "STEP AWAY FROM MY MAN" AND PUNCHED ME IN THE FACE.
That's how I woke up today, you guys. Punched in the face by Steve McGarrett. I just wanted you to know.