Free as a Bird

Guess WHAT? The night after I realized I was dreaming and woke up from the bad dream, I again recognized that I was dreaming and had, uh, “quality time” with Johnny Depp, which is on my lengthy list of things to do when lucidly dreaming.

(When I told my mother, she said, “He’s mine! Are you trying to tell me he cheated on me with you?”)

I was dreaming that I was back at the house I grew up in, which I dream about very often, probably four times a week, decade after decade, and there was Johnny Depp in the study with two other people, a major clue that I was dreaming, AND I remembered my previously formulated goal (Johnny seemed amenable—OK, go ahead and say it: “In your dreams”), AND I even remembered that rubbing one’s dream hands together is a way to prolong lucidity.

Now, the quality of the “quality time” was not actually amazing; it wasn’t tremendously vivid and didn't feel all that real, but that I realized I was dreaming and was able to do something from my list is a major step forward in this project.

But there was considerably more, actually the best part: When I left the house on my bicycle, I felt UNBELIEVABLY good. I felt completely and utterly free (free as a bird, as Mily says), like, wow, I’m AWAKE! And I can DO ANYTHING I WANT! I can ride my bike HERE. I can ride my bike THERE. And I was indeed riding my bike here and there, and so I felt like the absolute ruler of the universe, and two hours later, I still felt that exact same way.

(A very stressful situation at work managed to quell some of the good feeling, but didn't entirely remove it.)

So it’s as if dreaming and being awake reinforce and elevate each other: being awake is even better when it’s like a lucid dream, and a dream is even better when it’s like being awake!

I’m going to take my big book about Iraq back to the library, because for the time being, I’m only going to read books about lucid dreaming. I have one in progress (Stephen LaBerge’s first), four more on the shelf, and will acquire two more soon. I am obsessed. (Looks like I don’t have to get a tattoo, either, which is just as well.)

Stephen LaBerge, uncharacteristically indulging in italics, says this about how to decide what to do in lucid dreams: “I have found from experience that the feelings I am left with after a lucid dream reliably indicate my intuitive evaluation of my behavior in that dream. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that 'if it feels good, it is good.' What I am saying is that 'if it feels good afterward, it was good.' … If I do something in a lucid dream that I feel good about later, I do it in future lucid dreams. If I feel bad about what I have done, I avoid that action in later lucid dreams. Following this policy, of course, leads to increasingly good feelings in my lucid dreams.”

Sounds like a pretty good prescription for the rest of life, too.

He also writes this: “I believe the habit of flexibility to be well worth developing in lucid dreams. In addition to being highly effective in the dream world, it is also generally applicable in the waking world. Indeed, it may at times be the only course of action open to you. In most situations, it would be unrealistic to expect other people to change in the way you want them to. You cannot always, or even often, get others to do what you want; you may not even be able to prevent them from doing exactly what you don't want. Nonetheless, at every moment, whether dreaming or waking, you have the power to reframe the way you see the circumstances you find yourself in.”

This made me think of grilling. Regarding that, I have vowed not to fight with my neighbors henceforth—not about smoke, not about grilling, not about noise, not about anything that is not truly actionable. Of course, it’s easier to say now that there pretty much is none of those things (for which I’m grateful). But I think I did learn from the situation.

Or would I do the exact same things again? Maybe I would. Anyway, at THIS point, I will not fight with my neighbors. I was talking to someone who is about to sue two different people in small claims court, and thought that if it were I in either situation, I wouldn’t bother. It wouldn’t be worth the cost in peace of mind.

In my previous building, I also had conflict with neighbors, but in that case I compromised, and compromised some more, and compromised some more, so I guess I have now tried both extremes and found both wanting.

Yesterday I took the bus to Novato to see Carol Joy, and we had our usual fabulous visit. We had lunch at a P.F. Chang’s, and then we saw The Time Traveler’s Wife and Adam, both of which we both liked. The first has some logical flaws, but Eric Bana is great and it is a poignant meditation on love and its costs. The second is about a young man with Asperger’s whose neighbor develops a romantic interest in him.

After the second movie, we had dinner at Vasco in Mill Valley, which is really nice, and at every opportunity during the day, we whipped out the cards and played a hand or two of Sneaky Pete (“Deal ‘em!”)

This morning we had breakfast at Toast, played another few hands of Sneaky Pete, and then I came home on the bus and spent the afternoon cooking.