I woke up having had the most amazing dream, I have ever had. It was an fantasy and science fiction conglomeration epic, that I knew would make billions at the box office. Like all dreams it quickly started to fade away. Sadly to this day the details that I told you are all that I can remember. I rarely have dreams, but when I do they are awesome. After this very first dream, I started doing a little research. I very quickly discovered something called lucid dreaming. Apparently some people have the state of mind that they are still conscious enough in their sleep that they can control their dreams. Of course I had to learn how to do this.

From all of my research, the trick to lucid dreaming is figuring out you are dreaming, while you are doing it. As Aristotle said: "often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream". A common tactic is to start remembering to do something every so often. Basically you need to develop a tick. One that I chose to do is start compulsively checking my watch. This is a good idea because most of the time you can’t read in dreams, so if you look at your watch and you can’t read it that is a very good sign that you are dreaming. As soon as you realize that you can start controlling it. There is always a risk though because if your mind becomes too active you just wake back up and the dream is over forever.

I have tried and tried and tried to induce lucid dreaming. I have worked at this for about three years. I still compulsively press my nail into my palm and check my watch to try and cause lucid dreaming. I have had three lucid dreams, but the first two were not a cause of my actions.  I was so excited during both of these that I caused them to prematurely end with my excitement.

I finally got my lucid dream just a few weeks ago. I was standing in a train station, in a group of people who were my friends in the dream but I could not recognize. We all went to go get tickets, but as I looked for a location I would like to visit, I realized that I could read it I excited looked at my watch noticing that I could read that either. Suppressing my emotion, not wanting to wake myself up I change the location. I try and go to an actual location. I put myself in my school, it was my school but simultaneously not my school. My ability began to fail however when I attempted to create living people. I tried to populate the school but as people were appearing I wake up.

One hundred percent of every possible idea has been dreamt of by a human, but less than point zero one percent of them have been remembered in the waking hours. I hold this idea very dear to my heart. I love to think that dreams are something more than they are. Now that I have had a lucid dream I only believe this more. I feel as if I have more control over my subconscious mind, and am more at peace with myself. I only hope that I can continue to improve in the future.