Lucid Dreaming

Recently I had a lucid dream, the first I've had in long time. It was different from the rest in a number of ways.

The part of the dream leading up to lucidity is a jumble. I remember travelling with several coworkers and one of them mocking me because I was wearing a mattress on my head that I kept forgetting to take off. Eventually I do and we wind up at a hotel where we’re supposed to meet up with a client. I get separated from them and get lost. I return to the lobby, and that’s where things get really weird.

Usually when I become lucid in a dream it’s because I notice something is off; there’s something happening that doesn't seem real and therefore I must be dreaming.

This time was completely different. I’m standing in the lobby when I suddenly feel like I’m falling. I’m standing still, solidly on the ground, but I feel like the sky’s rushing past me, I crash through a ceiling and land on the floor right where I’ve been standing the entire time. And I realize I’m in a dream.

So, just like every other time I become lucid in a dream, my first thought is to inflate someone. I look around the lobby sizing up potential targets as I think about the best way to go about this.

I’m checking out a rather cute woman as she's walking toward the elevators. I’m pondering how I could blow her up when she suddenly inflates. It happens extremely quickly. She barely has time to get out a brief scream before her lips swell shut. A couple of seconds later she’s a huge sphere slowly floating up toward the ceiling. She looks like she’s right on the verge of bursting. Judging by her muffled cries, it feels that way to her as well. I worry that bumping against the ceiling might be enough to set her off.

The rest of the people in the lobby are shocked and staring at the poor woman. I’m shocked as well. “Holy shit, did I do that?” I wonder. Even though it’s a dream, I’m a little freaked out by the possibility that I almost popped someone just by thinking about inflating her.

I turn my attention to a woman who’s gawking at the inflated woman. The first woman was a blur, I can hardly recall anything about her appearance. This one I can see clearly. She’s short and slender, with short blonde hair. She’s wearing jeans and a plaid flannel shirt.

She turns to me and asks, “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure.” I focus on her and think about her inflating, but slowly.

She starts to swell, not as quickly as the first, but I’d hardly call it slow. Her eyes go wide and she looks down at herself. Her body grows round, her arms and legs immediately forced out straight and thickening. Her cheeks and lips puff up. She’s blowing up all at once, rapidly becoming spherical. Only her hands and feet are unaffected. Her shirt rides up, exposing her midriff, her skin bulges into the growing gaps between her straining buttons. Her clothes stretch with her even as she expands into a sphere several feet taller than I am.

I’m concerned about how quickly she’s swelling. I stop willing her to inflate, worried that she might explode. Her growth gradually comes to a halt. She’s rocking gently, frantically wiggling her hands and feet. She glares at me accusingly, like she knows I’m somehow responsible for what’s happened.

I reach out and press my hand against her belly. Her skin is warm, and despite being huge she’s still quite soft. I’m amazed at how clear the dream is. I can make out the texture of her clothes, the soft sheen of her stretched skin. Then the world blurs and fades.

A couple of things about this dream stood out to me.

I’ve long known that, in theory, you could make anything happen in a dream just by willing it to happen. But this is the first time anything like that has actually happened. I’d thought it would be really cool to have that much power, but Dream Luther found it frightening at first.

And it doesn’t make sense for me to be concerned about popping people. It’s just a dream, and I’ve popped people in dreams before.

I suspect this has to do with me being accustomed to playing by the dream’s rules in order to be able to inflate someone. Who I inflated and how I inflated them have always been determined by the context of the dream. This time there didn’t seem to be any limitations, and I found it jarring.

Anyway, there’s probably more my subconscious is trying to tell me, but that’s all I have for now.