dreams - or, what in hell is wrong with me?

[shortline99]

i have very odd dreams. so does most everyone, i know.

in my dreams, i am almost always 99% in control. this has been happening since i was about ten. i was dreaming i was on a field trip with my friends when i suddenly realized i was really 4000 miles away, across the atlantic and the red sea, sleeping at my cousin's house. i started talking to people in my dream. "you know this is a dream, right?" "what are you talking about?" and i lay down on the grass and woke myself up. ever since then, i've had an uncanny capacity for conscious thought while dreaming. i am aware that i am dreaming, but there are no laws of space or time. it's like living in a matrix construct. i can phase in and out of control. if i don't feel like choosing my own path, i can manually shut down and have my dream take me somewhere, then pick up control again without waking up. i can usually wake up on command.

so, when i wake up, i remember about 1/3 of my dreams, but i always remember having been in control. i have a journal keeping them ever since i was 16, which is about when i realized that not everyone dreams like this. they're mostly just scratched out thoughts, but they are very powerful and the images the words i scribble out evoke are very real. i feel like i live two separate lives, one while i'm conscious and walking around and talking with friends and playing poker, and a dreamy life where i'm completely alone but have ultimate control over all circumstances, including people i meet and what they do. obviously it's very difficult to talk to anyone about that life, but there's days where it definitely seems more real than... well, real life. which creates a very weird schism in my consciousness. it's very hollywood: there are long periods of time at the beginning of the day where i honestly don't know where i am. my personality seems the same in my dreams, just a little bit... freer. i don't ever have to pretend to be anything i'm not.

so, in other words, i just woke up from a nap and i don't really know if i'm really writing this, so here are some responses i'd theoretically like to help me understand this:

1) similar experiences
2) vague philosophical questions
3) what's on page x of the journal
4) pokerstars transfers in return for me acting out your whatif scenarios in my dreams then reporting back


i don't know if there's a better place for this, but again, for all i know i'm not really writing this.