I have always had a fascination with the dreamworld. I am always frustrated when I remember so little of my dreams upon waking. After all, you spend so much time asleep and dream experiences seem real…I hated missing out on my “dream life” so much. I want those experiences too.

In my teens I discovered books on “lucid dreaming”. Incredible stuff. I had to learn. This would allow me to live while I slept…if I could master it.

My teens were a very troubled time in my life. So my commitment to learning to lucid dream (or anything at all really) only had some minor success and it was fleeting.

It’s quite striking how your dreams seem incredibly real when you aren’t lucid in them.

I remember one silly dream I had. I must have been 16 or 17.

I was dreaming that I had won a lottery for a new Corvette. Weird. I have never been much of a car “guy” but I was excited! I had wheels! It was an amazing sports car.

I woke up still feeling very excited and it must have taken me 5 or 10 seconds to fully clear the cobwebs. Disappointment washed over me….damn. It was just a dream. Interesting that the realness of it all actually came with me into the waking world for a short spell.

I have also had moments where I was struck by the “weight” of a dream. The thought/feeling that “Wow. That meant something.”

One has stuck with me for decades now and not a clue what it means (if anything at all).

The apocalypse was upon us. I was in a darkened version of the lower floor of a Woodward’s department store in Richmond, BC. The world was ending. A man stood behind a counter and beckoned me with his index finger. He looked very serious but I sensed nothing malevolent and approached him without hesitation.

When I arrived at the counter he spoke no words at all but pointed skyward toward the ceiling compelling me silently to look.

My gaze turned up and to my left. This was a two floor department store and the ceiling and floor had evaporated. The world was dark but I was directed to observe the blue sky with a few clouds. For a second I was lucid and thought about a wheel (no idea why) and watched as some clouds formed into a massive wheel in the sky…like the kind from a horse-drawn carriage.

I felt the weight of this and, no longer lucid, looked to the man behind the counter. He just looked straight into my eyes knowingly as if to convey a message. This meant something… I was somehow important but had no idea how…or why.

I woke up.

So every once in a while I experience lucid dreaming, but like the wheel in the sky dream it is very momentary and easily lost.

I was lucid in a dream I had last night for a moment.

Somewhat like the wheel in the sky, I lack context for what built up to this dream moment.

I was suddenly in my downstairs bathroom, my gaze towards the floor. This makes sense as I usually avoid my reflection.

I looked up and saw a pretty woman. Not supermodel pretty but very pretty. Instantly it registered that this was me. I had obviously had Facial Feminization Surgery but my/her face wasn’t quite clear for me.

For any computer gaming nerds it was like the GPU was just too under-powered to draw it all quickly enough. I felt desperate. Suddenly I was lucid.

As I stared at the mirror the reflection quickly coalesced. I saw ME. I was so beautiful…so correct.

I’m in tears as I type this.

It was real. I was finally me! It worked! My God. I have never felt so much pure unadulterated joy in my entire life.

Then I woke up…and started sobbing. I was crushed. Like the Corvette I never won, this dream followed me into my waking world for a second or two.

I felt it.

Please God let me be in that dream forever. I never want to wake.

I have written a few things about experiencing feeling like an imposter. Delusional, mentally ill…far too surreal for any other explanation.

This dream and my reaction upon waking absolutely takes a 12-gauge (3″ magnum slug) to any feeling of being an imposter.

I want to say I felt the weight of it all. I’m not sure I did.

All at once I wished I was both back in the dream and that it had never happened at all.

Profound euphoria followed immediately by crippling, mind-bending dysphoria.

I hope this one meant something…

Alli xoxo