This morning I had the most wonderful lucid dream!

We were running through the city, through the neighborhood in St. Paul where I used to walk my dog, then we were in the doorway of an enormous sandstone church--constructed along the lines of Minneapolis' old city hall, which was called "Olivet Lutheran Baptist" which I knew because there was a van outside. I huddled in the green doorway looking up at the stone arch thinking "Lutheran Baptist?" Then I ran around the corner and was in north Minneapolis, running to my home. I ran across the alleyway behind the church and into the yard. There I was hiding out, annoyed by the rain, looking at my tiny herb garden which I'd planted last night before going to bed. And all the sage was brown and dying! My plants! The compost was killing them.

Wait. Lutheran Baptists?!? I didn't plant this much sage! There's no way they'd die like this so quickly. Holy shit this is a dream. I fought for a second to stay asleep--and won by looking up and over my left shoulder. These are not my plants. This is not my yard. Task, baby! I had in hand a trowel and dug up the dying sage. I moved several feet to the right and planted some marigolds, safely out of reach of the extremely-nitrogen...uous soil (nitrogenic? nitrogenuflect?). I spent a lot of time making sure I didn't get caught. As I ran away the two blocks to my house to check on my own herb garden (safely still green and with much more basil than sage) I stared hard at the van and it resolved itself back to a more sensible Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church and I turned my back in slow motion, like the cool ending of a movie with the tough guy hero kinda shrugging and walking away like 'my work is done.' I thought about trying to figure out how I'd get credit, not being in Biome, just as I started waking up.

Notes on technique:

One of the foundational experiences I've had and heard about is that sometimes lucid dreams can be provoked just by talking about having them. It certainly happened to me, and I've seen evidence--I guess anecdotal accounts--that people often have a lucid dream shortly after learning about the concept the first time, which I did in 2000 or so. My wife and I were talking about her lucid dreams last night (she's a natural lucid dreamer, it's amazing) and I suggested the idea of her using the kicks from the baby as a reminder to do reality checks and that if she played the game, she could do lucid dreams to get points. Then blammo, I had my lucid dream! So, players, if you haven't ever had one, do some reading and think about it--it can happen!

Secondly, in the past I've found the technique of "spinning" to stay in a dream is very effective for me, and the quick turn I did to look up (at overhanging wet branches, if I recall correctly) was enough of a change to establish for me a sense of control over my mental state and my world.