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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/WPToss on 2024-10-07 11:43:15+00:00.

I’ve never been particularly good at anything. You know that feeling you get when you try something new and it just ‘clicks’, everything makes sense, you’ve got a real knack for it? Yeah, I’ve never really had that feeling. I’m unathletic, painfully average in my studies, not great at music or making friends or getting girls, nothing. 

If you’re sharp, or, I guess, nitpicky, you’ll be asking yourself “how does he know what it feels like to be a natural at something if he’s never experienced it?” Well, because for once in my life, three weeks ago, I finally did. It was so wonderful, I was elated. Now, though, I wish I never had that feeling. I wish I’d stayed in ignorance, blissful, blissful ignorance, I wouldn’t be cursed with knowing what I now know. 

Anyway, I should explain before I get carried away. 

Monday three weeks ago, I walk to school like it’s any old day. I’m struggling because I’ve been up playing playstation until 2 am as usual, so the lights are on upstairs but nobody’s home. I trudge into class and take some half-hearted notes, stare a bit at Elle Lamonte in front of me, when my friend, Ari, taps me on the shoulder and begins the conversation that will seal my fate. After seeing the bags under my eyes and recoiling a little, telling me I need to get more sleep, he says he read something interesting online: “Jamie, you’ve gotta try this,” he insists. He tells me that with a bit of practice and awareness, a normal person can experience lucid dreaming, which I’d always thought was some sci-fi thing, but he promises me it’s real, anybody can learn to ‘wake up’ inside their own dream, and do whatever they want. He tells me he’s not great at it yet, but he’s managed it once or twice. Not full awareness, he says. He realises he’s dreaming, but part of his brain is still sleeping, so he’s not really thinking logically or in any complex way, but still, he says the experience is really cool.

I take it with a grain of salt, to be honest. Ari has been known to tell a few tall tales, so my hopes aren’t particularly high, but still, I figure there’s no harm in looking it up when I get home that afternoon. My initial searches show me that there may have been truth to Ari’s words after all. I read up on some basic techniques, how to check if you’re in a dream, that you should never make the assumption that you’re in reality. I check if there are any serious risks, which apparently exist, but are rare. Sleep paralysis sounds kind of scary, and a few people complain of irritating headaches for a few days after they lucid dream, but I don’t come across anything too horrendous. 

Anyway, the websites all say not to expect results too quickly, and it’s a slow burn, so I rush through my homework, eat dinner and play playstation for a few hours before heading off to bed at 9, which my mum does think is a bit weird, but she doesn’t question it, just happy to see me getting a decent sleep for once, I guess. 

I know it said not to get my hopes up, but I admit, I did. Before long, I drift off to sleep, and then it happens. 

As if from nowhere, I awake. I’m at home, playing playstation like usual, but even without doing any tests or checks, I realise it: I’m in a dream. 

 I remember what Ari told me, and what I had read online: that it takes time to gain proper awareness in a lucid dream; at first it’s a sluggish train of thought, struggling against the brain’s natural inclination to shut itself down while asleep. I feel nothing like that, though. I feel incredible, more awake than when I’m actually awake. I look at my hand and marvel: my vision is crystal clear, my movements smooth and fluid, I stand up, feel infinite possibilities course through me and smile uncontrollably.

Remember that feeling I talked about? Of being a “natural”? Well, this was it. I knew this was finally it, something I was genuinely amazing at. I had full control of my dream. I snapped my fingers and my dingy room was at once replaced with a gorgeous sparkling beach, pearl-white sand and aquamarine ocean stretching out to the horizon. A banquet sprung up before me, covered in fried chicken, bacon-and-egg sandwiches, everything I could ever want. I looked behind me and there she was: Elle from class. 

Clad in a black two-piece that contrasted starkly to her seashell-pale skin, she grinned and pulled me into an embrace, closing her wonderful round, blue eyes wordlessly and kissed me. 

It was exactly how I had imagined it. Well, perhaps owing to the fact that I was imagining it, but still, it was so visceral, so real. I could feel her warmth, hear her voice exactly as she sounded in real life, it was uncanny. 

I pushed her away for a moment, smiling slyly, and conjured up with a mere notion, Richard Wrenn. I haven’t mentioned Richard until now because, well, he’s fundamentally quite unimportant, but just trust me on this: he’s a dick. And so, I took great satisfaction in directing him to stand ten metres from me, levelling my arm at him, and transforming my arm into a plasma cannon that proceeded to blast a two-foot-diameter hole in his torso. You might think this was a little cruel, and yes, maybe it was, but it wasn’t like he was real. He was just in my imagination. If he’d made me suffer a whole bunch in real life, I figured a little dream revenge that couldn’t actually hurt him wasn’t so bad in return. 

After watching him suffer for a moment, I vanished his burning corpse, and returned to my banquet, and to Elle.

I won’t bore you with the details of the next few hours, but just take this for my word: It was genuinely the most fun I’d ever had. Any wish that occurred to me, whatever I wanted, it was instantly granted. 

The only thing that bothered me was… this little feeling. The best way I can describe it is: sometimes when I’m playing playstation and my mum isn’t home, I feel this sensation like she’s watching me from behind, and I turn around, even though I know she’s out and can’t possibly be there. It was a bit like that, like even though I was totally alone, like there were eyes burning into the back of my head. 

It was a little thing, though, and I only felt it briefly, once or twice, so I just ignored it. Eventually, I felt the dream start to fade as my sleep cycle naturally ended, and I woke up to a new day. 

It was an odd concoction of emotions: on one hand I felt incredibly well-rested. Most mornings I could barely drag myself out of bed, but today I felt revitalised, energetic, totally ready-to-do-it. I attributed this partly to actually getting a good night’s sleep for once, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the lucid dream had something to do with it as well. Not only was it a great time, but it seemed to be like super-sleep, I was totally refreshed. 

Anyway, I walked to school more peppily than ever before, even having a little swagger in my step for a change. It felt odd seeing Elle in real life after my dream, but I played it cool and waved to her as I walked in, and to my surprise she gave me a big smile and waved back. It wasn’t uncommon for her to just blank me, so this was actually pretty big. It wasn’t making out on the beach, but still, a nice bonus to my already great morning. 

I couldn’t help but tell Ari how great I was doing, and how amazing my lucid dream was after I sat down beside him in class. 

“Well, that makes one of us,” he grimaced back at me. 

He told me he’d had another sort-of half lucid dream last night, but now he had a splitting headache. I nodded and told him I’d read that could happen, he must’ve got unlucky. He seemed kind of jealous when I told him how incredible my dream had been, but I think he wasn’t entirely sure I was telling the truth, which I thought was a bit rich coming from him. 

Anyway, the next few days were sort of a fuzzy blur. I won’t go through every little thing, but I’ll give you the highlights. In short: they were awesome. Every night I had an amazing, full awareness lucid dream: I hung out with Ari, with Elle, feasted, explored the world and even the galaxy, it was genuinely too perfect to describe. In real life, too, I can’t fully explain it, but I think because I knew I could get whatever I wanted in my dream, I stopped worrying so much about the little things in day-to-day life, and so it all just flowed more easily. I was bursting with energy every day, I started talking to Elle for real, having lunch with her a couple of times. I even ran into Richard Wrenn in the corridor one day, and he just sort of winced and walked off without even hurling an insult at me! Everyone told me I was looking great, the bags under my eyes were gone, I even aced a maths test that I’d thought I’d be lucky to escape with a C. It was all coming up roses. 

There were little niggles, though. That feeling… The one of eyes burning into the back of my head, it didn’t really go away. Every night, I’d feel it for a little while, before it went away. I considered that I was imagining it, but part of me thought it stayed a little longer each night. 

I looked it up on the forums, but nobody else ever described anything like it. One thing I noticed, weirdly, though, was that a lot of people were complaining of severe headaches after lucid dreaming, just like Ari had. I searched old posts, and it turns out that these complaints had only started up in the past few months. At first, it was a few obscure mentions of mild headaches, but now there were multiple every day ab…

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