Believing in lucid dreams

I was shopping at Fred Meyer one time with my daughter, when I had the most peculiar realization. I realized that I was not at Fred Meyer with my daughter. I realized that my daughter was at home, in bed. More importantly, so was I.

I was lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream in which you know the state you're in. You realize that everything around you is just dream scenery, and as far as restrictions, and consequences, you're pretty much off the radar. I've been lucid dreaming occasionally since I was a kid. Back then, my highest priority during these moments was trying to shoot fireballs out of my hands. At twenty-eight years old, I'm now past the fireball stage.

A lot of people have never had this experience, or perhaps they've had it once, and then never again. Some people have never had it, but they've got a half-dozen books about how to induce it. It is a great experience, and is not a waste of time, which is spent sleeping, either way.

Before the 1970s, lucid dreams were not recognized by science, because they could not be induced, and then tested, in a laboratory setting. A couple of people had a couple of clever ideas, though, and it turned out that they could be tested.

If I had been born before that time, though, I would have, as a lucid dreamer, been placed in the category of UFO abductees, telephone psychics, and seance mediums. I would have been either a liar, or ignorant, and people like James Randi would have been calling me the equivalent of a woo-woo. The lucid dream is an example of a fringe belief that was eventually accepted by science.

We have to wonder what fringe beliefs of today are the scientific realities of tomorrow. I know that if it's ever proven that people can communicate between minds, (and, for whatever reason, this ability was evolutionarily made very obscure and difficult to harness) it would be the beginning of a scientific revolution.

Unfortunately for the future of parapsychology, it seems that most of these hidden abilities also happen to be things (like shadow people, synchronicity, and dowsing) that would seem to happen even in a ghost-free God-free world. It could be that, while our minds are set up to be fooled into believing these things, these things are also, coincidentally, sometimes real. Or, it could be that our minds are set up to be fooled, and they just keep getting fooled.

If life after death, though, or the interconnectedness of minds, is ever proven, even if it's only proven to me, I am ready and willing (hopefully able) to jump over the fence and shove the truth down everyone's throat, with vigor and enthusiasm. Because these sorts of abilities, if they really were real, would have sweeping implications in all parts of life. In short, it would be a big deal.

Thanks for reading.