Lucid

Lucid dreams have always interested me, because I feel like they can give unparalleled insight into how my mind works. When I would have a lucid dream (and when I could stay in it for any length of time without giving in to the temptation to open my eyes and blink the world around me out of existence just because I've realized that I can) I would become obsessed with the seemingly impossible complexity of the world that my mind has crafted.

I remember walking through a mundane parking lot in a lucid dream and becoming moved almost to tears by how beautifully perfect and complex the gravel at my feet was as I kicked it and ran my fingers through it.

I was in denial. My mind wasn't capable of infinite creativity. If I suck at improvised acting, then I have to eventually suck at imagining every last little detail of a dream world. To see through the illusion, I was going to find direct evidence of the limitations of my mind by making rapid-fire discoveries all around me until I couldn't conjure up any more new random things. I'd open doors to rooms, open drawers, look through books, talk to people as fast as I could, and I never experienced the "thought throttling" that I thought I would. This gives me no reason not to think that my only actual limitation is in discerning when I'm dreaming and when I'm not. Maybe I'm still asleep.

And what does this say about my waking versus dreaming mind? I can't ever hope for my waking mind to tap into 1% of the spontaneous, complex, vivid imagination of my dreaming mind. Are there ways to put myself into a controlled version of this state of mind and use it to my benefit? For the benefit of my community? For the benefit of my species?