Kaleida brings up a great point in Lucid Dreaming, I forgot about that. The sleep paralysis aspect of it freaked me out after I had it happen. I witnessed another person freak out twice during sleep paralysis events years later while practicing Lucid Dreaming. Ever since then I just kind of crossed it off my list. But it is extremely interesting and may be something worth looking in to if you're interested in it. Personally I found sleep paralysis to be terrifying and not worth it but that's just me, a lot of people don't mind at all and say you get used to it and then don't really mind it.
I remember when Kaleida was made moderator. A great day for BL, I think she's an old shaman soul, or something.
Anyway, I've been lucid dreaming and having intense dreams as I was kid. For as long as I remember, dreams sort of invoke some intangible, incomprehensible mysticism in me. It has boggled my mind for years. I digress, just conveying how it's always been around in my 30+ years.
If you have a recurrence in a dream (a person, a place, an object), that exists in real life, try sticking a post-it to it, saying "remember me" or something of your liking. I used to dream about my room a lot, so I stuck a note to the doorframe. Whenever I passed the doorframe, I'd be reminded that I tend to dream a lot about my room. Like an anchor point between your dream state and waking state. (I'm not entirely sure that a person might cooperate, but whatever)
At first when you have a dream and the anchor is there, you'll feel a tinge in the back of your head that you're supposed to know something, but don't know what. Gradually, you'll gain more control. When you realize you're dreaming, that's where you can gain some control of your dream. Do this when life is OK. I had this happen to me as a kid, where I didn't realize I was dreaming. It felt very strange and that caused me to panic, which was just like flipping a switch and turning my dream topsy turvy like in Silent Hill and the hell world emerged. When I panic in my dream, I lose control and darkness sets in.
Of course, start a dream journal.
Ergo, lucid dreaming can be a powerful thing. It has a therapeutic effect on me. In some stages of life, when practicality and material worries overcome you, I lose touch with it and sometimes have to "find myself" again. Either way, I've had some fantastic dreams, that matched the greatest acid trips I've had. It's more fleeting, but that just kind of makes it more romantic to me, I guess