Generally, I don't put too much stock into dreams or dream interpretations. Not that I don't find it interesting, I just think some put a bit too much faith into those neural firings getting stirred up by your brain deciding which short term memories to jettison from your day and which ones to lay down as permanent memories.
A lot of my dreams are so quotidian that, if I remember them, I think they are simply memories of an actual day's event. One time (years ago) I dreamed I was exploring the edge of the school property and there was a gate with a lock on it in front of a path that was a short-cut to my house. After several weeks of avoiding that particular path, I went to check out the path to see if someone had removed the lock. Turns out there never was a gate, much less a lock. "Idiot!"*
Over the years, I've had a few lucid dreams but the only really long and intense ones were in my teenage years (which I think is a common experience). If I start to have one these days I pretty much wake myself up right away and spoil it.
This vacation week I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of movie watching. So, unremarkably, I've had dreams in which I am reading and dreams in which I am watching movies. Remarkably, I've had two lucid dreams this week involving these mundane activities.
Lucid Dream #1: a few nights ago I was dreaming that I was reading a book. I became somewhat self-aware and thought "Hmmm... I wonder if my brain would fill in actual text if I concentrate on the book". So I did and I started to read a book in my dream that my brain was making up the plot and dialogue for. It was some kind of murder mystery and the protagonist was starting a conversation with a housemate in order to get some clues as to whether they could be the murderer. I got so excited by the fact that my mind was making up a story to read to itself in a dream that I was aware I was having that I woke myself up.
Lucid Dream #2: last night I had a dream that I was watching tv from my bed. Not my actual bed of course, but some other bed in a house we had recently moved into that was suspiciously similar to my actual bedroom but different. You know, dream world stuff. Anyway, I realized I was dreaming and decided to actually watch the movie carefully to see what my brain made up. The movie was getting crazier and crazier so when the protagonist was trying to run over the head of the evil biker gang sent to kill him with the motorcycle he stole by pushing one of the other gang members off of it (a sudden fog had descended to give him a fighting chance!) and the gang leader reacted by pulled out a gun and calmly shooting at him after declaring "I'd like to see you try" and then the protagonist turned into a werewolf as he was being shot on the stolen motorcycle as he was bearing straight onwards towards the gang leader... I woke myself up with the thought "this movie is ridiculous". Hmmm...
For the record, no movies this week about motorcycle gangs or werewolves and none of the books have been murder mysteries. I guess it's complicated up in the old KR noggin when the dream state descends...
Other people be like: Chris Nolan films be, like, whack, dude.
Me: Don't you have dreams just like his movies?
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* Recently showed the kids "Napoleon Dynamite" in case you couldn't tell.
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