lovely for tuesday

i need to start waking up like this more.

i was curled up in my soft, warm, lovingly cushy bed with my soft pink jersey sheets (yay pink!) and feather pillow, amid the Shrine of Knowledgy Sci-Fantasy Goodness, and dreaming i could fly.

now, lots of people dream they can fly. what makes this special is that, for all my life, i've never been able to fly. either i hit a ceiling a few feet off the ground, or the air is thick as cold molasses, or i float an inch or two off the ground, or suddenly there's a chain around my wrist, or someone reaches up and pulls me down.

my entire life, i've always been totally and utterly grounded.

so there i was in my dream, in my old neighborhood where i grew up, standing in the street right outside the House of Oppression, smiling up at the clear southern california sky (and you know it had to be a dream because the sky is never a shade of blue like that)...and dove up into the sky. with long, lazy flaps of my arms, i floated up as if i were swimming in cerulean sky. i flew up above the rooftops, above my old voice teacher's huge tree in her front yard. higher than the telephone wire.

and i laughed. i laughed and thought to myself, "wow, i've never flown in a dream before." and just like that, quick as thought, i realized i was dreaming and still wide awake. "i'm dreaming," i said, feeling this giddy soft of laugh bubble up from below my belly button and all the way up and out the top of my head. "i'm dreaming, and i'm still here! i'm lucid dreaming."

so of course i had to test my theory. "yes, i'm flying so i'm definitely dreaming. but these are all my conscious thoughts." lucid dreaming, i remembered, is retaining all of your mental faculties and awareness while still in the dreamtime. "two plus two equals four, i moved this weekend, this is my old neighborhood--why must i always have my most vivid dreams in my old neighborhood, or in the House of Oppression?" i wanted to see other vistas, other places in my dreams! i looked over the rooftop of the House of Oppression and sure enough, there were the rising towers and sky-scapes of a strange land where the sun rose in the west. "ah, much better," i said.

now to test my theory. if i really was lucid dreaming, i should be able to consciously make things happen. "i want to see vines growing. great big creeping vines all the way up to the sky!" i looked down at the street, and suddenly it was covered in a carpet of thick, lush green grass, and there were little vines poking through the soil. one...two...six...a dozen, all growing because i had dreamed them there. i flew on, letting them grow as they would.

"y'know," i said, "a pegasus would be awesome. a gorgeous white horse with wings to ride on." suddenly there was a flicker in the corner of my vision, something in the sky moving closer on my left. i almost didn't want to look, afraid of being disappointed, but i knew that it had to be my flying horse because i had said it would be.

sure enough, there he was, flying closer, galloping on the air with magnificent wings like the horse on the Tri-Star Pictures logo. He had charcoal smudges on his nose and around his eyes. I hopped on and we flew over a funky vista that was part delena-funk meets salvador dali in vivid acrylic colors, and part delena's old neighborhood. the street was water, and my pegasus flew down to get a sip mid-flight. the street-water ended at an abrupt edge, and then there was nothing but turquoise-forget-me-not blue sky and salmon and pink and lilac clouds, with other lands floating on their own planes, with the sunrise coming from all directions and none.

just when i was thinking that, if i could have a way-cool pegasus, why not a dragon? i felt myself falling out of the dream. i opened my eyes to my pink sheets and double windows behind my television, and grinned. i flopped and curled on my other side, and instantly fell back into the dream. but...i thought i was still awake, because i was in my apartment.

it felt so real, too, that i was actually disappointed. except...i could still fly. maybe, with a bit more practice, i can make it into the drivetime...