[2003.10.28 2051h]

   [movie] battle royale

some days ago, i had a dream in which i was trying to stop a runny nose by
stuffing small sticks and leaves up my left nostril.  i'm not sure why i
did that in my dream, but my assumption is that tissues were not readily
available to me in my dream, although apparently, sticks and leaves were.

eventually, the sticks and leaves got relatively uncomfortable, so i tried
removing them.  unfortunately, some of the small sticks were really stuck
up my nasal passages, so i tried hard to blow them out.  suddenly, i woke
up and found myself trying to blow out a tissue stuck up my left nostril.

is a dream considered a lucid dream if one eventually wakes from the lucid
dream, only to wake up again afterward and realize that one was still
dreaming after apparently waking up from the lucid dream?  it's difficult
to say if the lucid dream had always been within the context of the dream
world, but one had not realized it while the lucid dream was taking place,
or if one was actually lucid dreaming while the lucid dream was taking
place, but only when the process of waking up was internalized within the
dream was the lucid dream then framed in the context of the dream world.

anyway, i had such a dream recently.  i can't remember if it was today or
yesterday, but it hardly matters with my currently irregularly polyphasic
sleep times.  i can't even remember to try to eat every day anymore.

sadly, it seems as if i hardly ever have lucid dreams.  i believe i've
only woken up and recalled just having had a lucid dream maybe once or
twice.  apparently, many people, upon realizing that they are in a lucid
dream, would take actions within the dream that would normally lead to
some form of negative social repercussions.  however, it seems as if every
time i have had a lucid dream, i don't seem to desire to carry out any
actions within the dream different from what i would consider normal for
my character.

since i've noticed this some years ago, i had decided that the next time i
had a lucid dream, i would try to deliberately take actions contrary to my
character that i believed most people would enjoy if the actions were not
associated with negative social repercussions.  since i rarely have lucid
dreams, the opportunity hadn't presented itself until recently.  as stated
above, i'm not sure if this specific dream can be correctly classified as
a lucid dream, but i doubt it really matters in this dream experiment.

regardless, i found that i ended up taking actions contrary to my
character for only about one or two minutes within the lucid dream's time
frame, since apparently, i didn't exactly find the actions enjoyable.  
i'm still not sure what this means, but as i've been typing up this entry,
i've been trying to come up with suitable theories.

so far, the only one that i consider plausible is the idea that my moral
code is largely internalized.  i believe that, usually, significant
portions of a typical person's moral code is determined largely by
external factors, such as organized religion or social ideals and
pressures.  so when a typical person is lucid dreaming, it seems possible
for the dreamer to believe that the basis of certain portions of the moral
code that the dreamer follows is now defunct, and as a result, the dreamer
is then able to enjoy performing actions contrary to the now irrelevant
portions of the dreamer's moral code.

on the other hand, my moral code is largely based on my own ideas, with a
few tweaks to accommodate whatever ideas are currently hegemonic in my
immediate society.  as a result, whenever i am lucid dreaming, my moral
code comes along with me, largely intact, as since, within the dream, i
still exist, along with my own ideas, and acting contrary to my moral code
would be similar to acting contrary to myself and my own ideas, which,
apparently, is not very enjoyable.