In your dreams

I've always been pretty fascinated with dreams. For the most part, it seems like I'm more in touch with my dreams than a lot of people. I have a lot of lucid dreams where I can control what I do, and I have a lot of dreams where I'm dying, and I wake up short of breath, sweating and clutching my chest... or punching walls.

In return, I also have a lot of stupid dreams. Last night I woke up probably 10-15 times imagining that there were bugs on me. Sometimes I was dreaming that they were coming after me, and sometimes I felt in real life like there was something itching my leg. Being Australia, the latter could be more true (especially the spot on my arm that started searing with pain and itchiness).

I was sick and tired of the dreams, and I was grumpy that we have to go to class early this morning, so I went downstairs and grabbed some orange juice, walked around and went back to bed.

When I did so, I remember having the most vivid dream. It's especially odd since it was the first thing I dreamt after going back to bed, and those are usually either gone in the morning or are about random things from the day before. This dream I had, it wasn't anything exciting, but it had me walking down a staircase at my old elementary school, both sides lined with people from my past. Many of the people I saw, I couldn't remember their names, but their faces were so clear to me. I would walk up to each person in turn and look them right in the eyes. I would look at the freckles on their cheeks. I would look at and feel their hair. It was as if I was looking at an exact photograph of them 10 or so years ago, with every single detail intact.

Then whenever I walked up to someone whose name I had forgotten, but now remembered their face, when I looked into their eyes, I would see in them all of the things that we used to do together. Most of them were in elementary school, just playing on the playground, but each person had something new that I had forgotten about with them.

I don't really know what the dream means, but it just baffles me that something like that can happen. I'm not saying I'm some sort of super genius, but if we DO usually only use 10% of our brains, and most of your brain mass is used for storing information and memories, then is your brain really just retaining every tiny bit of information you ever come across just incase?

And is it possible, via dreams or drugs or machines to tap into that part of the brain and either have the person recall it in an awake or dream state? Or can machines even learn to read the information, and create an exponentially large database of everything in the world, and thus take us over and kill us all like almost every science fiction movie ever made predicts?

Even with the grim possibilities of a total mecha-android takeover, I still offer this challenge: $25 to any man/woman/monkey that can build me a machine that can either a) let me delve into the depths of my mind every single night to recall vivid dreams of times past (instead of damn spiders) or b) let me record my dreams. I think the cash reward should be plenty, seems how I'm giving you the idea (which I actually came up with many many years ago) for free since I could never find enough money to patent it myself. If said work is done, comment back on this here blog with your contact information. Once photos of prototypes and schematics are exchanged, and successful test results mapped out on a willing human being, the $25 will be sent to you in a plain white envelope marked "MONEY".

Now, go out there and do your best, and let me know what you come up with. And remember: Keep dreaming.