30 days? It's a 30 minute read. Total rubbish. Picked it up out of curiosity, got a chuckle, did a little googling on the mumbo jumbo of "lucid dreaming" - wiki says it's documented to be true (Did you know you were dreaming? Yes. Okay. As we can't really verify that, we'll take your word for it). Psychological BS (yes, that's redundant...), but then what do you expect from a guy who has another book on out of body experiences (spoiler alert: that's at the end of the 30 days...I guess he couldn't resist.) ( )

So, Days 1 and 2 are pretty basic. You get yourself a


Easy, right?

Day 1

Had a dream that I was in Detroit with my family. We were in a part of town somewhere between gentrification and desolation. I remember seeing some big brick factory-like building. I was chewing some sort of "organic" gum, which was, of course, shit-brown in color. I blew a bubble with it and it got on my mustache/beard (but mostly mustache). As I started to pull at it, it clung to my poor face such that it pulled out a bunch of the hair. I ended up having the right side of my upper lip look like some half-assed Hitler thing. My daughter commented on it.

ANALYSIS:

I've been having anxiety about hair loss lately and read a book about fascism last week. I've never been to Detroit, but one of my good friends was born there. It's also pretty much the epicenter for the decline of the country, at least in my mind's eye, and my 401k is taking a beating right now.

ADDENDUM:

The memory of this dream was triggered by my daughter jumping into my lap and giving me my morning kiss. I didn't remember it initially as I awakened; however, when I did awaken, the word 'heliotropic' was bouncing around in my head.

Day 2

Nothing to report. Am I regressing already?

Day 3 "Temple of Dreams"

This day is all about dream incubation, which, according to the book, is "a potent tool for solving problems, changing bad habits, boosting your immune system, and getting to know your deepest self and give you a bigger penis." I just added that last part about the penis because who doesn't want a bigger penis? Even girls have penis envy, right? That's straight up Freud and he practically INVENTED dreams!

To catch the dream incubation train, you're supposed to shape your environment. Make a little dream nest, as it were. The book asks me to analyze where I sleep: Is it cluttered with paperwork from the office? No, but there is a laundry basket filled with clean laundry that I should probably fold. Is it noisy? No. Temperate? Comfortable? Yes and yes. Hell, I even got me one of them Tempurpedic beds which are supposedly like sleeping on the freshly shaven buttocks of Jesus.

So. The bedroom is a go. Now that I have my "dream sanctuary," I'm supposed to sit in this "consecrated spot and focus on a matter of personal concern about which you would like to dream." Personal concern? Like, winning the lottery? No, no, says the book: a "situation over which you have direct influence." Hmm. The only thing that has been on my mind lately is whether or not to send that wedding gift to Alfonso.



Those are my -- surprise, surprise -- Captain America underwear. I've, um, outgrown them and otherwise pretty much gotten everything I can out of 'em; it's time they found a new home. But where? I can't very well give them to Goodwill, can I? Who the fuck wakes up in the morning and says to himself, "I think I'll go down to the Goodwill and get some underwear today!" No, that'll never do. But I just can't bring myself to trash 'em. Solution? Alfonso. They can jazz up his honeymoon or something. That means I need to dream about Alfonso as Captain America.

I put the underwear on top of my head and repeat the phrase "Alfonso is Captain America" over and over to myself before I go to sleep.

I wake up to find my daughter laughing at me from the side of the bed and my first thought is "Do the guys that made that song 'Hot Blooded' ever hear it come on the radio and get embarrassed?" I don't know what that thought has to do with anything, but I bet they don't get embarrassed, so neither will I. I pledge to carry on my experiments despite not conjuring the Alfonso Captain America.

That fucker's still getting the underwear, tho'.

Day 4 "Vision Quest"

"This time you will focus on inducing a dream that taps your creative abilities, helping you come up with a new idea or an innovative approach to life...Allow your experience, knowledge, and creative energy to merge in a moment of intuitive vision that expresses itself in a dream."

I don't know what they hell this book is yapping about now, but I'm supposed to surround my bed with objects that remind me of the "issue at hand." I don't have any goddamn issues, none that can't be handled by my pills, booze, and fucking relaxing meditation, but I have been thinking about throwing away my vote by leaving the spineless Democratic Party and joining the powerless Green Party. I mean, why succumb to death by a thousand cuts when I can just commit hara-kiri, right? It seems almost ethical.

So. I go to sleep with the Green Party on my mind. Instead, I dream about teaching my one little class at the community college. The class is overflowing with people, many of whom are old high school classmates, all of whom are separated by big bookcases because the class is being taught in a library. I had to shout and eventually get one of the students -- an old nemesis of mine from high school that I have had periodic contact with since, a guy I like to call "Silver Spoons" because he was born into money and is an unthinking Republican twat -- in a headlock to get control of the class.

ANALYSIS:

I should probably fuck up Silver Spoons the next time I see him and blame it on the Metropolitan Police of London. Or I'm just anxious about my upcoming class and regret (?) not going to my high school reunion.

Day 5 "Life Is But A Dream"

Today I explore "waking reality" (which implies an "unwaking reality," which is why I'm doing this, I guess). The book states, "Dream sleep and total wakefulness are just two of the states along the continuum of consciousness you experience every day."

I am reminded of Henry Miller, who wrote something about the unconscious being the deeper and truer reality...but Henry Miller was a thirteen-year-old boy with a thesaurus. (Me too! I just don't have the thesaurus.)

I am instructed to select a location that reminds me of some of the scenes in my dreams. Unfortunately, I don't dream about any of the mundane crap I deal with in my waking life -- thank you very much, book. What'd be the point of dreaming if I dreamt about dog shit on lawns, streetlights, and the price of a gallon of gas? Stupid authors.

I'm at work, so I go to the back entry. It's off an alley, behind a mom-and-pop burger joint (owned by very nice and clean Koreans who I like to fuck with by dropping Korean words around -- kamsahamnida!) and a pawn shop. I am supposed to ask myself the following question:

"What is it about this place that reminds me of my dreams?"

Um. The ambient and acrid smell of urine? The graffiti? Cockroaches? Dumpster full of trash? The defective neon signage?

Then I am to observe the other people in my immediate surroundings and say to myself, "Everybody here has dreams."

There isn't anybody around at the moment because it's eleven o'clock at night. On a Friday, however, you would see drunk people wandering up and down the sidewalk across the street as they bar hop.

I'm supposed to take it all in: the entirety of my surroundings as possible dream fodder. God forbid.

Day 6 "Dream Rehearsal"



Day 7 "Edge of Consciousness"

Today, I am to invite any negative images that have plagued me in previous dreams by placing imagery that reminds me of said negative images next to my bed and contemplating it before, and as, I fall asleep.

Well. I'm terrified of sharks, particularly Great White Sharks, for various reasons, and have been chased by them a couple of times in my dreams -- one was even a "lucid" dream of sorts where I was flying, knew I was flying in a dream, but then suddenly found myself about to be eaten by a ginormous great white as I plunged into an ocean (it kinda reminds me of that opening scene from the movie 8 1/2, which is probably why it enthralled me, even though I had the dream well before I ever watched the movie).

I'm not ready for confronting that shark. Not yet, anyway. So. Instead of putting my JAWS DVD on the nightstand, I get one of the kid's bath toys, an oversized plastic goldfish, and set it next to a replica saber-tooth cat tooth. Scary, but kinda cute too.

No shark. But I do dream about going through a McDonald's drive thru in a beat-up, mid-90s mini van with the alien monster from Predator in the passenger seat. I ask him why doesn't he super size his order and suddenly he's chasing me across some factory. I'm not aware of why he's chasing me, so I don't ask him or confront him like I was supposed to.

Lucid dream fail.

Day 8 "Reality Check"

I am supposed to stop and ask myself every thirty minutes or so throughout my "waking" day, "Is this a dream?" The book reminds me, "if you are flying on your own, if you are breathing underwater or in outer space without special equipment, if you find yourself lifting a Mack truck with your bare hands, or making wild, passionate love to a purple gnome, you are most likely dreaming."

Pffft. Yeah, right.

I tell myself that tonight's the night: I'm going to have a lucid dream. And I do. Sort of. I have a dream, but the only thing I remember about it is realizing that I'm in a dream, so I shout out, "I'M DREAMING!" Then I'm sitting in a darkened, empty movie theater and it's as if somebody has cut the reel. There's a flash of white and suddenly I'm awake.

Day 9

Today, I am supposed to learn how to turn the semiconscious post-dream state into a semiconscious lucid dream. Didn't work.

Day 10

Today, I am to select a "lucidity symbol" and place it in the room where I sleep. It can be anything I associate with the unconscious. I use this little Buddha statue just because. Then I tell myself throughout the day that I'm going to have a lucid dream. I am to be specific about the dream. Since I'm only doing this because I want to bang Pam Grier, I think about the 70s a lot and it's kinda depressing. Then I'm supposed to surround my "lucidity symbol" with "incubation objects" -- something that's reminds me of what I want to dream about. I pick my DVD four-pack of Pam Grier movies, Fox in a Box.

Instead, I end up dreaming that I'm a British soldier gone AWOL from the military circa 1700s. I save a little girl from being molested by some English "Lord" as I wander the countryside. The girl and I are pursued by said Lord and three soldiers. The girl and I find ourselves at some big estate. There is a pile of food outside that farm animals, one by one, are eating and which makes them grow to gigantic proportions. Eventually, some ragged little girl -- not the one I saved, who has disappeared -- eats the food too. I try to warn the servants at the estate about the giants, but nobody listens to me. I hid in the basement, which has running water and electricity.

When I wake up, the Pam Grier movies are still on the nightstand and my wife looks at me with a smirk as I silently drink my morning coffee.

She may be onto me.

Day 11 - Day 30

The days are running together. Everything's running together. I can't tell when I'm asleep or when I'm awake. I flew to work today and talked with Stimpson J. Cat about what an abject failure Barack Obama is. I don't think I'm cut out for lucid dreaming. Shoulda stuck with virtual reality. ( )