Perception.

How many flowers? Now cross your eyes. Now slowly uncross them and focus on the flower in the middle until it is the only one there. It's still the same image as before, but you can change the way your brain reads it. Neat, huh?

Perception is a funny thing, because while the dictionary definition is commonly accepted by most people, the personal definition is an entirely different item. My perception of you and your perception of me and our perception of "that" is entirely different from someone else's perception of us and someone else's perception of themselves. Accepting your perception of anything as static is such a limiting thing, I think. And I did it for so long. A change in perception happens more often than we notice. A double-take, for example. You see something, glance back, and realize you were mistaken. That is a change in your perception. If you say a word over and over again, it begins to lose its meaning and sound abstract. Try it. Say 'and' over and over again. "Andandandandand." It's hard to remember if you're saying it correctly and you wonder when this change happened, because you know you were saying a solid, correctly formed word when you began. This is a change in your perception.

I have always been intrigued and a bit terrified of lucid dreaming. I'm so drawn in by things like yoga, meditation, dreaming, as well as mental illnesses like schizophrenia or even OCD and ADHD. What makes you react to things differently than I do? What makes something important in your world - a certain tree in your back yard that you planted when you were three, which, to me, is just a tree like any other - so unimportant to me and so different to you? It all comes back to perception. The way we relate to things, each other, and ourselves. It can be such a tricky thing because I am always worried about how others are perceiving me and if I am perceiving them correctly.

Lucid dreaming, however, is something solely a part of yourself. Imagine going to sleep at night after a long day, and then you can control your dream world, too. Not only that, but it is better than the real world. You can fly. You can dance. You can yell at that girl who gives you mean looks. You can meet someone new and have a conversation about your deepest secrets. You can jump off of a building and land on your feet. You can make your own story with your own characters and be there, living it. And the best part of all of this is no one else has to know. I've had times between sleep and waking when I think "No, I was just asleep. I'm going back to sleep. Okay, I'm asleep. Now where was I? Oh yeah, this happened, let's pick up there," and that's the closest I've ever been to a lucid dream. Can I do it? Who knows.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy, busy day. I'm going to see all the people I care about, do something good for myself, as well as earn a bit of money. And that, my friends, is the definition of a good day.

If you really want to,
you can hear me say,
"Only if you want to
will you find a way."
If you really want to,
you can seize the day.
Only if you want to
will you fly away.