I've given up on going by "days" for the prompt and will just stick with my own schedule for posting when I
remember am not lazy have time.
This prompt could be interpreted a few ways, but I'll go literal and ramble about my nightly subconscious adventures. My dreams are extremely fickle. They tend to be extremely realistic and vivid and include all five senses. Most of the time I don't realize I'm dreaming until I wake up extremely confused and disoriented. Sometimes I know what's going on couldn't possible be real (or is extremely unlikely) but take it for granted as being real anyway. Other times I realize I'm dreaming and try to control the events with varying levels of success. I believe this is called "lucid dreaming," although I've heard different definitions of the term.
Only once have I had definite control over a dream: the first time I was clearly aware that I was dreaming I was standing in front of a row of doors, perhaps at a motel or apartment complex. I remember the stucco wall was a harsh shade of coral or salmon and the doors were all teal with gold numbers. I remember being under the impression I was in the desert, and I think I remember thorny plants (perhaps strangled-looking roses?) along portions of the wall. Considering the door directly in front of me, wondering what I should want to be on the other side, I said to myself "when I open this I will wake up." And I did so, immediately and fully. I have never had that level of control again. Even when I am aware I am dreaming and have tried to control elements, they obey only grudgingly or not at all.
Something I find odd about my dreams is that many times I'll dream about a location or a person that I have never seen before in my waking life but I find it familiar (sometimes vaguely, sometimes extremely), as though I have been there or met them many times before. Perhaps I dreamed about them before but didn't remember upon waking? Or while dreaming a dream I will have the feeling I've dreamt it before and make guesses at what happens next. Whether or not I am actually recalling the dream or am shaping how it plays out I don't know.
When I was young I would have very frequent recurring dreams located at my old church/elementary school. (They were located at the same complex for my kindergarten and first grade years.) It was around Christmas time: we were all sitting at the lunch tables doing Christmas crafts in the evening just after sundown. We realize the jingle bell sounds we hear aren't from our crafts, but from something far away and drawing closer... Something bright is approaching us in the sky. Could it actually be Santa Claus coming to visit us? But something is wrong. It feels suddenly very dark and sinister. We try to take shelter under the canvas canopy above the tables but realize it offers no protection at all, and so run indoors to the nearest classroom. But it isn't a classroom at all: it's my living room and kitchen! I run into the kitchen and duck down to hide behind the breakfast bar, but as sometimes happens in dreams, something doesn't make sense: I am clearly behind the solid barrier of the bar but can still see through it to what is happening on the other side. Suddenly the roof smashes in and a rocket (much like the one pictured) descends into the room.
That's where I always woke up. I never could make sense of it. Then again I regard my years at that school (small private Lutheran school, kindergarten through eighth grade) as largely an ordeal I came out of with tougher skin and a jaded outlook on life; when I dream about that place (roughly five or six times a year) they are rarely pleasant dreams. Rarely are they outright nightmares... except the one time I dreamed deadly pizzas spiraled out of the sky and chased us off the playground trying to slice our heads off. Try and tackle THAT one, dream interpreters.
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