I used to have a dream theory, which stated that the instant you realize you are dreaming is the instant you begin to wake up. This made perfect sense, because as you begin to regain conciousness you become aware that you were dreaming, so I figured they were connected.
Well, it appears I was wrong. I learned yesterday about Lucid Dreams, which are dreams that you can control. This occurs when you’re dreaming and you realize you’re dreaming. You are then in control of your subconcious mind, allowing you to do virtually anything in your own little dream world! This idea really appeals to me, because I think it would be extremely cool to do anything I wanted and not be restrained by physics or laws or any other restraints in the physical world.
The Wikipedia article lists ways of having Lucid Dreams, such as reality tests. These involve doing things in the awake world which usually do not happen in the dream world, such as pinching youself and feeling pain, reading text properly, etc. The idea is that if you do these tests enough in real life (where they will always pass, you feel pain if you pinch yourself and text does not change by itself), you will eventually dream about yourself doing one of these tests, and of course the test will fail in your dream (where you feel no pain and text can change itself at will). When you see the test fail, you realize you are dreaming and are placed in control. Very cool.
To help myself try to become Lucid and have better dream recall, I have started a Dream Log to record any and all dreams I have in. Congratulations, you can now read my subconcious mind. Freud would have a field day 😛