Apparently thread duplication is a greater sin than Necromancy. Oh well.
So, as you all may have noticed from chat, I have some serious problems with sleep. My terrible nightmares make me hatehatehatehate sleeping. I often won't go to bed when upset out of fear of causing them, because when I go to bed angry, I have nightmares. These nightmares include a lot of things I would rather not talk about and I think I've only told one of you even close to how bad they really are.
Well, I was furious last night when I got home, but I was also wiped out from a week of sleep deprivation (largely from anger). Plus I had a killer headache. So I lay down angry, and started to have nightmares.
I don't remember the content very well, but I was having a very bad nightmare about driving. I think that I was lost trying to get somewhere, or trying to get away from someone, but I remember being very frightened. I woke up for a second and fell back asleep, and realized that I was dreaming.
This is the first lucid dream I've had in about six years. A lucid dream, for those who don't know, is a dream where you realize that you're dreaming (lucid meaning aware of what's happening to you, generally). Now, having read all that I have on lucid dreams, I knew that I could change my lucid dreams. In fact, every time I've had a lucid dream, having the knowledge that I did, I changed something.
My first lucid dream, when I was twelve, was also a nightmare that turned into a good dream as I became a superhero-werewolf, and after I saved the day and got the boy, I woke myself up. That dream was only semi-lucid, I wasn't really thinking straight or I would have stayed in it and had more adventures. My next lucid dream was when I was 14 and I was stuck in 8th grade again, so I made my crush come to my classroom, but I woke up before he got there from focusing too hard. My next lucid dream, when I was 16, was a nightmare about failing art (which I had passed the previous year), and when I became lucid I realized I was cold because my legs were uncovered in the waking world, so I tried to pull up my covers without waking up. It didn't quite work, but it almost did.
Right, so back to the present. I was driving along some kind of messed up highway, I think I-75 or I-675, and I realized that I was dreaming--I'd just been in bed and if I were anywhere on 75 or 675 I'd know where I was going. Then I realized that I was lucid dreaming, for the first time in a long time. I thought to myself, "This is a rare opportunity, I have to do something awesome."
So I managed for the first time to change my dream into something I wanted.
And I made my biggest dream in the whole wide world come true. To the point where I'm tearing up as I write this.
I drove to Green Hill Zone and ran through Act One.
I lost visual halfway through as I was waking up but I still remember that freedom, zipping through the landscape, finally living the dream I've had for 18 years. The details escape me now, except for one--bouncing on the spring, flying into the air, feeling the wind through my hair (spines?), the stretch of my leg as my toes pointed toward the ground as if I were dancing, the pull of my shoulders as I reached toward the sun.
I am finally having a good week.