Insert obvious MLKjr reference here...

So I was having the strangest dream. Like most of my dreams, it played out as if I were watching it in a movie theatre, but something struck me as odd experiencing this dream... and that was how fucking great a REAL film of this would be. I'm not going to lie, most of my best film ideas have come from dreams, some of which are literally scene for scene duplicates of the dream that inspired the script.

It's an odd thing being inspired but such events in the brain. Some of the ideas that come across in dreams are so perfect and pure that I know there is no way I would have come up with them consciously. I read an interesting study once on the research of dreams. It suggested that dreaming was absolutely necessarily to live a "normal" life... that dreams are actually scenarios our mind puts together so we can practice living while laying around idly. It's what's known as rehersal learning. So dreaming could very well be a survival mechanism. To test this theory, a rat was deprived the ability to dream for several nights, then put through a series of tests. Rats, like most animals, are born with instincts for survival. When deprived of sleep, simple basic insticts were severly retarded, causes the dream-deprived rats to fail each test. For more specifics, check this article out here: Psychology Today. Of course, rats do basically live on instinct and humans, well... humans lack any real instincts. Exept maybe the instinct to lie. And hurt each other. Though these are most likely due to a problem with our society, not ancient messages passed from generation to generation through genes on how to survive.

Anyway, I think I strayed from what I was talking about.

So I was having the strangest dream. I'll save you the details as it'll be much more interesting once I commit it to paper, but in any case... I'm having this dream and my alarm goes off. It's at this juncture I made the call to NOT go to work and finish the dream. What started as a regular dream quickly turned into a lucid dream as I struggled to get back to where I left off and I soon found myself making choices that actually affected events in the dream. Now, lucid dreaming is a state of dreaming in which the dreamer is aware that the dream is a dream and is able to take control of the dream. This is the artists playground. I used to have lucid dreams frequently but didn't take any kind of control... I just let it play out, but when I mastered how to induce lucid dreams (after countless hours of research and many months of practice) I have them most every night. Imagine being able to sculpt a complete reality and do anything you want to do (like... fly, for example)... but sculpting it consciously through the subconscious (because if you awake and become conscious, you are no longer in a R.E.M. state and then are running on imagination, not dream). It's pretty cool AND actually reinforces your ability to remember the dream (as lucid dreams, whether you make choices or not, are more ingrained in the memory as if it was a real event). If you are interested in reading more about lucid dreaming, the studies involved, and very interesting experiments where subjects in a controlled enviornment were asked to induce lucid dreams and do specific tasks (such as flipping a light switch should there be one, looking at a mirror, etc) and the surprising results, check this out: Lucid Dreaming.

Ok, I strayed again.

So two hours later, I awake completely refreshed and with a complete film in my brain to be written. It's great when your films come to you in dreams because you know exactly how it should look because it's as if you already watched the film in your head. It definitely makes it easier to work with. I often find inspiration in the strangest places.

David Lynch works in sort of the same way, only instead of dreams he bases his inspiration on images seen while transcending reality via transcendental meditation. This is a very unique form of meditation and one which I find the most effective for meditation purposes. Unfortunately you can't just read a faq or dummy's guide to perform this type of meditation (although I'm sure one could put themselves in that state without training). Transcendental meditation is something that is learned through another. Luckily I've had the opprotunity to train with a transcendental guru of sorts. It's definitely a unique experience and I highly suggest learning it if you are given the chance.

It's just so amazing at what the mind is able to produce when in a relaxed state, whether it be dreaming or meditation... or some other means of altering the state of mind. I'm curious to hear others' experiences dreaming.

For a really fantastic (albeit fictional) film regarding the mind and it's abilities to affect reality (and vice versa) should check out Altered States. While the events are purely science fiction, the basis is actually quite extraordinary and even based on real research.