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A Night in the Life of a Lucid Dreamer
It’s probably different than you think
When you fall asleep watching Better Call Saul, perhaps it’s not a total shocker when you’re suddenly swept into a dreamy world and find yourself getting dessert with Mike Ehrmantraut, the notoriously stone-faced, fun-loathing side character that made his debut in Breaking Bad. If you’re like many people, these sorts of riotous incongruities may actually be common.
As in most dreams, the surreal situation didn’t strike me as odd. I took it at face value as the smell of freshly churned ice cream wafted through the air of the mom and pop shop and the immovable cinderblock of a man glowered toward me with glacial indifference.
Typically, lucid dreams — dreams where I’m aware that I’m dreaming and can exert a level of control over what’s taking place — begin as any other dream does. It’s when I take notice of the bizarre or impossible that I start piecing together that a dream is a dream.
Yet far more often than not, like most people, I remain oblivious to the fact that I’m dreaming each time I drift off into a new one. I struggle to attain lucidity. In non-lucid dreams, nothing will seem askew when dinosaurs roam the streets, the laws of physics are in flux, and the line between dead and living blurs. I’ll commune with the people and…
