LUCID

CHAPTER 4

'And I find me, up on a mountain,

Down by a river, deep in the woods.

And I find me, close to the ocean,

Catching my breath with the ebb and the flood...'

I woke with one of my own songs in my head and the flavour of salt and sand in my mouth. I didn't open my eyes immediately.

My body felt heavy and spongy like I'd just woken from a long, deep sleep. My eyes felt like they were glued together. My head was pounding as I tried to fathom where I was, what day it was. I hadn't heard the alarm yet and I didn't hear noises on the street so I gathered it must be early still.

My inner-voice echoed my thoughts in the foggy depths of my mind:

'What the hell was I dreaming again? If I lie still a little longer I might remember – just make sure not to wake completely or it's gone for good. Something on a beach? No... it was a forest. Cold. Damp. Dark. I was trying to find my way somewhere but I was lost. Tripping over tree-roots. Scratching myself on the branches. No... the branches were moving and scratching at me, reaching out and trying to grab me, surrounding me, grasping at me, pulling me down onto the ground, into the ground. Deep, muddy, stifling. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see. I could taste the earth, could feel the soggy mud smothering and choking me. Sinking. (What day is it? Hope it's weekend, I don't feel like working today.) Wait, there was a desert. I was riding a motorbike. There were lizards... salamanders, some dead animal, and cats... big cats and they spoke. What did they say? I was drinking beer. People talking, crying... my family. They couldn't see me. There was a beeping sound. I was in bed, couldn't move, couldn't open my eyes, couldn't speak. And I was shopping. No, I was in a shopping mall. Smoking. (Got to write this all down when I get up but not just yet.) I was flying, sucked up into the air, spinning, faster and faster...the sea, an island, a beach, yes there was a beach. I was running. On the beach? I couldn't run, being chased... shadows, my shadow, no, my body being pulled away from me, I couldn't get to it, couldn't get back in, couldn't reach it. Beeping sound. That beeping sound. The ocean. The sound of waves. The taste of sand. Singing... one of my songs... and I find me, close to the ocean, catching my breath with the ebb and the flood, for that's where he stood...'

And then I was awake. Wide awake. As wide awake as you can be in a coma. For a moment there I'd thought I was going to open my eyes and find myself in my own bed having dreamt everything. But I was still in the Astral. Dreams within dreams within dreams.

I've had dreams in the past where I would lose my hair or my teeth, or something else devastating would happen like someone I love dying. They always seemed so real and I was so grateful to wake up out of them.

But sometimes I would have a false awakening, where I thought I'd woken but I was still dreaming and my hair or teeth would still be missing or the person would still be dead. I was even more grateful then to finally wake up for real.

And then there was a time when I'd broken a tooth in reality, but then dreamt that that was a dream and my teeth were actually fine. Only to wake for real and find that my tooth was broken. Not so good to wake up in that case.

There is a test that lucid-dreamers use to check if they're dreaming or awake – push a finger through the palm of your hand. You can do that quite easily in a lucid dream – not so easily in the 'real' world. It feels a bit creepy when you do it, but it's a reliable test.

I didn't need to do that test when I woke – I knew perfectly well I wasn't back in that 'real' world. And I was happy to admit to myself that I preferred to be where I was right then because I was sitting on a glorious, palm-fringed beach with the sun rising over a shimmering cyan ocean.