Updated!

On lucid dreaming.

I'm out of practice, and it just showed. Either that, or my dreams have become too vivid.

I was dead. To the point that as I was communicating with my friends, I had asked one of the to google the morgue to see if I was there, and who had identified my body, which they did, and sure enough there I was, identified by my cousin, despite having barely seen her in the last 15 years. My friends were gathering and talking, my best friend, J, S, A, J, J, K, B, A(it's frustrating to name people when you aren't using names, so I'll give up here- let's just say that my close friends here in Chicago were represented). It was horrible. I was miserable. In the beginning was lamenting that I didn't get to do any of the things that I wanted to do. Finally, I found one of my friends, who were getting together anyways, and was able to communicate with them. More and more came. We were all outside, and I was saying goodbye to them, trying to substantiate enough to feel their hugs to the point that I started to think that I was actually alive. Of course, I had, in the dream, completely believed that I was dead, and honestly, I couldn't tell the difference. I had finally convinced my friend J that we needed to call my dad. I had to see if he could hear me over the cell phone, because I needed to say goodbye. It took some convincing, but I finally got her to do it.

(This is the point where I start to notice that something isn't right, and that I might be dreaming.) We're on Wellington Avenue near the intersection of Paulina, which is behind the big Jewel on Ashland, where there are now huge tracts of condos- in my dream, those condos were still under construction, like they were about 3 years ago. Secondly, my friend J is driving a red convertible, a car she has never owned and her cell phone isn't the same as the one she has now. We start to enter her car when I really start to let the idea and concept of being dead sink in. I become terrified. I then must talk to my father. I'm wailing that I need my dad. She opens her car door, and she's crying profusely, feeling my pain. She tells me to hold out my hand, which I do, and she starts dropping the change from her pocket in it. I look down, and that's when I realized I was dreaming, just like in posts I've made before. In an instant, I made the connection and told myself: "you seem to be dreaming this. Let's calm down, and see if we can't get ourselves out of this."

My consciousness jerks me back to reality. I'm in bed, on my side. It's a touch cold in my room because we've got the heat way down. My cat is curled up by my chest, in my arms. I blink a couple times. I pinch myself(for good measure really). I take a quick inventory of my surroundings(not too hard, as I was facing the wall), and I decide it's time to check the alarm clock. It says 2:23(I keep my alarm clock about 13 minutes fast or so). I get up, and here I am, blogging the most vivid nightmare I've had in a while.

I'll post more about this later, and add links and all that, but for now, I'm going pee and heading back to bed.