I had a dream in which...

.... I found myself in a Victorian study, with dark wooden panelling and book shelves with leather bound volumes and two men were discussing my skull and it was 200 years after I died...

This one had been at least fifteen years ago, and technically speaking, it was a hypnogogic vision - you know, one of those very vivid dreams that occur before you are fully asleep.

When I was much younger I had a series of 'Alien invasion' type dreams, in which I'd find myself threatened by this little aliens ('Grays'), but the real freaky thing about those were, I knew, inside the dream that it was a dream and always managed to escape by willfully waking myself up out of it. Then, a fresh twist came. One night, I dreamt I was practicing to fly. That must have been hands down the most enjoyable dream I've ever had. Swooping and diving and whirling through the air without a single thing to hold me back. The thing is, some time after the flying dream, I had another of the 'Alien invasion' type dreams, but instead of waking myself up, I reasoned, wait, you know how to fly now, you can just fly away. And I did.

A Chinese poet called Zhuang Zi wrote, "Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. "

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zhuangzi

So, what DO we know about our dreams and about our waking... ?

This morning, first thing, my inner muse said... try this, tell something from your life, something that makes you feel sad and worthless, as if it was a only a dream from which you've woken up, so I did... and some things hurt a little less when you do this, and some things even make you smile...

I had a dream in which.... I lived in a place I hated and all I wanted was to leave and never never come back, but the more I wanted it, the more things went wrong and I could never come close to getting the money for a plane ticket... you know those dreams where you are in a supermarket and you know you don't have any money, but you can't leave and you can't stop piling things into your trolley.... well, it was exactly the same, except on a larger scale... (a snapshot from my twenties)

I had a dream in which... I had a million notebooks full of stories, and I was always telling myself start one, start one.... but whenever I tried to grasp one, it would shatter into a million pieces, that just became new story ideas....

The dreams themselves can explore fears, repressed emotions or even alternate perceptions...

I had a dream in which.... God gave me this cool body change, but then my Mommy didn't know me anymore...

I had a dream in which... I created this brilliant music, but when I woke I could remember only tiny bits of it... just receding snatches, nothing I was able to write down...

I had a dream in which... someone came to me and woke me up...