Dreams a little dream

I'm one of those lucky people that remember his dreams in great detail, even having lucid dreams. I'm a bit unique as while my childhood is a bit blurry, my dreams aren't.

When I was about three, I went to see my grandfather in Texas. I live in California, and my dad couldn't get away, so instead of driving, my mom flew herself, my brother, and I out to visit her father. I don't remember much of the visit, except their living room, which I remember as being huge. Although, since I was three, it was probably normal sized. My brother, even though he was six months old, described in detail various things about the house. My mom was quite shocked.

But all I really remember about it was the return trip home. I remember the plane turning on its side, so we could look down and wave good-bye to my grandparents, whom I never saw again, actually. Now, for many years, it seemed perfectly reasonable that the plane would fly over my grandparents house, and then turn sideways so three people on a plane of about 100 could wave at some relatives. One day, I'm not sure how many years later, I realized the error in my thinking, and also realized that had to be the first dream I could recall.

It's kind of strange to think of dreams I had as a small child. I knew I dreamed, of course, but to actually recall one, some 44 years later in detail - it just blows my mind away every time I think of it.

The next dream I recall was when I was in the fifth grade. It was a much more complicated dream, with dinosaurs and time travel and cyrogenics, but it really caught my attention, and I wrote it down. That started me on the journey of writing my dreams. At first, I didn't keep them, and only the ones that really made an impression stayed with me. But, when I was 19, I started writing every dream I could remember, and every detail I could remember. It took a lot of time, as I wrote by hand, not having a computer in those days.

And the more I wrote down, the more I realized I could remember dreams, and the more lucid they became. In a dream, I'd hug a friend, and I'd wake up, still feeling like that person was in my arms. So I started experimenting, and found that I could actually control my dreams to some degree. After a while, I found I didn't like doing that as much as I thought I would. Taking the random out of dreams kind of ruins the fun. So, I only did it if things started going bad.

Oh, yes, bad dreams. I've had a few. But I'm going to stop here for a moment, and continue tomorrow, explaining what I'm getting at with all this dream talk.