If you ever get killed by monster-aliens, please forgive me for standing by

My ongoing quest to have lucid dreams has been rather sad recently. During the first month or so, I could recall many of my dreams very well, which helps when you want to know whether you were able to realize you were in a dream while you were in it. But over the past couple of weeks, my dream recall has been hit-or-miss. That's why I was pleased this morning to awake from another slightly lucid dream. Actually, I was so pleased about how late I had slept in that I proceeded to make myself breakfast. Then I remembered that I had had a dream, and that I should write it down. Here's what I wrote.

It's kind of funny how aliens killing my friends didn't raise a red flag, but seeing a weird banknote did. That's the geeky notaphilist in me. Speaking of which, the "Relief" part of the series designation meant that the effect of the intaglio printing produced a greater amount of relief than normal. I don't know how I jumped to that assumption, though, because such bills don't exist. The "22TT" part probably comes from the practice of appending a letter to a series year to indicate a minor change to a bill's design. For example, Series 1935H bills were printed in 1963. This is still done, but the definition of "minor" has changed.

Anyway, those reality checks really help to determine whether you're dreaming. Doing them a few times a day when you're awake really does lead you to do them in dreams. Having a few lucid dreams, even if you don't have much control over them, is a great feeling. I hope I can reach a higher level of lucidity and control soon. Luckily, it's easy to practice. All you really have to do is write down your dreams, do some quick reality checks throughout the day, and sleep.

One great thing about dreaming is that it can give you the kind of inspiration that leads you to compose a hit song, create a revolutionary invention, write a timeless novel, or win the Nobel Prize. Here are twelve dreams with well-known consequences.

Here are some interesting facts about commonly used products. Maybe some of them are even true!

One year ago: "It's about a six-hour drive to the nearest hill."
Three years ago: "The World of Stuff has moved to its own domain name, and a new server to boot!"