In one of her blog entries, 宝茹 mentioned lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream in which you're aware that you're dreaming. It's something that I've desperately wanted to experience for a long time now.

Some people use lucid dreaming as a tool for overcoming nightmares. Others see it as a way to explore fantasies. I'm interested in neither. For me, it's really a matter of life and death. Let me explain....

Earlier today, I was having lunch in a nice Japanese restaurant. The buffet table was loaded with all kinds of sushi. Yay! I love sushi. I was going back and forth, piling food on my plate and quickly wolfing them down. Fun! But after five rounds or so, I realized that I was still hungry. What the hell? So I kept eating, but all the nice-looking food somehow felt empty to me.

Finally, I woke up. What a horrible dream! It was 2 PM, and I had missed both breakfast and lunch! Crap. I did have my alarm clocks (yes, two of them) set to 11 AM. Unfortunately, I have the wonderful ability to shut off alarms without waking up. Yeah, I know. Worstest superhero power ever.

And things seem to be getting worse. For the last few weeks, I've been regularly having these realistic dreams about all sorts of food, causing me to miss quite a few meals. I think it's a dirty trick that my lazy subconscious mind is using to keep me asleep for as long as possible. One of these days, I would probably starve to death in my sleep. And that would be so sad, right?

That's why I need to learn lucid dreaming quick. It's important for me to know if the food I'm eating is real or imaginary, because dream food doesn't have much nutritional value you know. Like I said, it's a matter of life and death.

I had the weirdest dream I've had in a long time when I took a nap earlier this afternoon.

In this dream, I was sitting in front of the PC when I saw a little green alien jumped in through the window. Before I could react, the creature shouted "Home base!" and began peeing in a corner.

He was soon joined by a mob of his little green friends. All of them seemed to have the same bladder control problem and utter disregard for civilized behavior. They peed on my keyboard. They peed on my pizza. They peed all over the floor while shouting "Home base!" nonstop.

Soon, the room started turning radioactive green from all the alien pee. I figured that they were marking their territory with urine the way some animals do. Of course, I wasn't particularly pleased that they were claiming my room as their "home base", but there was nothing I can do--telling them to "piss off" probably wouldn't do any good. So I ran outside.

Oops, I shouldn't have. All the city streets were crowded with little green aliens jumping around and peeing everywhere. And all of them were saying, "Home base! Home base! Home base!" Holy crap! It's an alien invasion! Could this be the Apocalypse as foretold in the Book of Urination? God help us!

I woke up with the high-pitched chants of "Home base! Home base!" still ringing in my head.

Note to self: don't drink too much water before taking a nap next time.

No no no, not that kind of wet dream....

Before I went to sleep at 5 AM, I set my alarm clocks for 8:30. I wanted to catch Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

I was worried (with good reason) that I wouldn't be able to get up on time, so I decided to try something: I drank two glasses of water, hoping that the need to pee would force me to get out of bed. Did it work? Here's what happened....

Wow, I woke up on time! Yay! I walked out to the street court where the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks were warming up for the big game. Wait, why are they playing on a street court? Well, who cares. I'm just happy to be watching the game.

But just as the game was about to start, I had a strong urge to pee. So I made my way to the restroom and peed. And peed. And peed. The water just kept streaming out. Holy crap! I shouldn't have drank that much water! Good thing the restroom had a big window, and I was still able to see the game. So I just stood there, peeing and watching the game. It was very strange.

Of course, it was just a dream. I woke up halfway through the weird gravity-defying streetball NBA game. And even though I had been peeing for at least 20 minutes straight in my dream, my bladder was still actually full of water. God, it was painful. I limped to the bathroom, emptied my bladder, and hurried to the TV.

Fortunately, I didn't missed much--there was a minute left in the first quarter. Still, I couldn't help but feel a bit, um, pissed about how my little "wet" dream almost made me miss the game.

I was sitting in front of my PC when I saw a gray furry thing scurrying across the wall beside me.

My God! Is that a mouse? It can't be! Why is there a mouse in my room? And I didn't know that mice can walk on a wall like Jet Lee and not fall off. Hmm, how strange.

I looked up and....

What the hell? The whole ceiling is crawling with mice! Where did they come from?

I stared in disbelief. This must be my dose of bad Karma. Two years ago, I tortured had a little fun with a mouse that we caught in the office. I didn't get to do too much damage though. An officemate stepped on the little thing a bit too hard, causing its beady little eyes (and maybe some of its brain) to pop out and thus ending our fun. Ah, good times.

By now, mice were pouring in from the windows and dropping from the ceiling. I'm usually not afraid of small animals, but it's a different deal when there are thousands of them all around me. I was absolutely terrified.

Then I woke up.

Was it just a dream? I cautiously looked around. Phew, all clear. But it all seemed so real! Of course, the gravity-defying mice should have been a clue, heh.

Dreams are cool. No matter how bad things get in a dream, all you have to do is wake up, and everything is instantly back to normal....

Unless you wake up to a burning house, which is probably, uh, not very cool.

That was what the piece of paper I pulled out read. "Piece of cake," I thought to myself. OK, first word. I made the thumbs-up sign. She said, "Good!" Good. (I dunno why I left out "A")

Alright, second word. I brought my hand to my ear, *sounds like*, then I pointed at my shoe. "Shoe!" Nope! I rubbed my shoe. "Leather!" Good! *Sounds like* *sounds like* "Leader?" *THUMBS-UP*

Third word. Hmmm... I pointed down trying to act out the word 'this.' "Here?" Nope. *point point* "Now?" Nope! *point point* *point there* *point here* "This?" *Thumbs-up* then *right palm out* (wait).

I then pulled out 4 fingers, *one-two-three-four* trying to assign each letter of 'this' to each finger. "This 4?" *Shake head* I was holding up 4 fingers then pointing at the last 2 fingers. "Two?" Nope. Time's running out.

Change tactics. Third word. OK, 'is' is a linking verb. I made two interlocking circles with my thumbs and index fingers. "Chain?" *Keep going* *keep going* "Uhh... rubberbands?" (Back in school, the rubberband vendor displays his rubberbands in a chain.) I wonder how she knew that, we didn't go to school together. *Keep going* *keep going*

TIMES UP! *POOF* Then I woke up. I began to think, how in the hell do you act out the word 'is' in a game of charade?!! For a two-letter word, it's pretty tough! There should be a rule not to include this word in the game! If joyfulchicken had LSS, I got IS-S. It sure got me thinking the whole day.

That was actually one of my realistic dreams. I would have done the same things in real life. Well, maybe I would have gone on to the next word. But still, it made me realize I was quite intelligent in that dream. Unlike the other dreams where I take a test and not know one single answer! If only I didn't have to dream up a crappy sentence to guess...

I had a strange dream this morning.

No, it was not retarded-strange like the one about robots hitting patients with baseball bats. This one was strange in a mundane way.

In this one, I was eating french fries. There was nothing else--no aliens, no robots, no dinosaurs--just me sitting there and eating. And eating. And eating. I know this sounds like the most boring dream ever, but damn, those fries tasted really good! And I don't even like french fries.

I soon woke up with an intense craving for... you guessed it... french fries. Must get french fries! I glanced at the clock. 9 AM. Too early. Must get more sleep!

At that moment, I was torn between two things that I love: sleeping and eating. Should I take the 10-minute walk to the nearest fast-food joint? Nah, that would take too much effort. I should just go back to sleep. But I am so hungry! And french fries are so tasty! What to do? What to do?

Unfortunately, I fell asleep before I can make an intelligent decision.

While channel surfing a few nights ago, I came across this story about a fake plastic surgeon who performed surgery without anesthesia. Surgery without anesthesia? God, that sounds painful. Imagine someone slowly sticking a knife into your guts while you're fully awake... *shudder*

Last night, a solution to that horrible scenario came to me in a dream. When I woke up, I decided to make a rough sketch of the system and share it with everyone.

Let me explain how it works. The patient sits on an electric wheelchair that goes around a rail track. A robot whacks the back of the patient's head with a baseball bat as the wheelchair passes by. This is repeated until the patient is unconscious, at which point the doctor can step in and perform the surgery.

It's all so simple, no? Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

You rich bastards in first world countries may prefer expensive anesthetic drugs, but this technology can save millions of lives in third world countries where people don't have money to buy those stupid stuff.

What? What do you mean by "where do they find the money to buy the robots"? Shut up! I can't be expected to solve all the world's problems in one day, can I?

A few months ago, I found out that I have a strange inability to spell words properly when I'm dreaming. Last night, I discovered one more thing that I can't do properly.

I dreamt that I was about to play basketball, and I was doing some warm-up exercises. I started to stretch one leg, but I somehow couldn't keep my balance. I fell flat on my face. There was blood everywhere, and soon, rats came out and started licking my blood... but that's not important. The important thing here is that I can't do simple stretching exercises in my dreams.

People like to associate the word "dreams" with visions of great achievement and success. People are idiots. It's either that, or I'm destined to be a loser, because in my dreams, I'm an incompetent moron who can't do stretching without falling over.

Look, I may be an incompetent moron when I'm awake, but I can do stretching without falling over, damn it! At least I think I can. I don't know for sure because I never stretch before playing basketball. I think stretching is a waste of time. I just want to play! People have warned me about getting seriously injured, but I don't listen.

I guess I'm really a moron--a lazy hardheaded incompetent moron.

I dreamed that I am in school and about to take an important exam. As soon as my pen touch the paper, I realize that I haven't studied nor can I remember the answers to the questions. The anxiety and tension of the situation seemed so real that I felt I was in high school again.

I have had these dreams on a number of occasions during college. Fortunately, as time passed by, I don't dream of it as much anymore. Even so, I still found it weird that I had such dreams, so I asked a few of my high school classmates about it. I found out that I was not alone. Some of them had similar dreams.

Knowing that there were people with the same experience that I have, I felt a burden was removed from me. I wrote this so that other people who have had such dreams can let go of this burden and move on. I call on you fellow nerds to let go of your scarred high school existence and live in the present.

Tuesday* - I invented a time machine. I went back one day earlier and decided to bet on the lottery since I already knew the results. But I ended up betting for the lottery of tomorrow. Sometimes I'm stupid in my dreams.

Thursday - I dreamt about her. Maybe because we talked on the phone earlier. I dreamt that she said good night. Because she forgot to in real life and I had trouble sleeping and my day didn't feel complete.

Friday - Night. Lots of running. Lots of crawling on tall grass. Fighting bad guys. Then a sudden change of scenery. I'm in school having a test. The teacher is Mr. Weatherbee.

I can't recall my dreams for the other nights. But we are supposed to have dreams every night.

* I always sleep past 12 midnight. It's actually Monday. Same goes for the rest of the days. You get the picture.