Dreams are funny little things, aren't they?

I think Kate's blogged on this before, but there's a certain stigma attached to dreams - particularly telling people about them.
Many times have I thought to tell someone of a bizarre dream I've had only to start telling it and realise midway through that it actually isn't all that interesting to them at all.

But someone told me a story the other day that changed all that.

I've always been fascinated inthe concept that people can control their dreams. It's happened to me a few times, where I've realised mid-dream that I am actually dreaming, and once that happens, if you can avoid waking up, the possibilities are endless.

Anyway this friend of mine told me quite a messed up but ultimately satisfying dream.

In it, an unknown guy walks up behind her, puts a knife to her throat and tells her to get down on the ground. She is fully aware that his intention is to rape her. (Bear with me) But rather than allow that to happen, she kicks him in the groin, grabs his knife, stabs him in the eye (!) and then she wakes up.

"Awesome," I said. "You showed him."

But no - she wasn't content with that ending. She wanted to make the guy understand what he had tried to do.

So she goes back to sleep trying to re-imagine the scene again, in the hope she can enter the same dream again.
Amazingly, she does.

So she's in the same position again - guy grabs her, knife round her throat, telling her to get on the ground. She gets down on the ground slowly and he pins her wrists. Discreetly, she lets his hand slip a little before grabbing it and the knife, throwing him off her and jumping on his back.

She then holds the knife to his throat and successfully lectures him on what he is doing and how it makes him feel now that the tables have turned.

Mission accomplished, and she wakes up.

Apart from the fact that it's pretty messed up to have that dream in the first place, isn't the fact that she was able to go back into it awesome?
I can't count the number of times I've tried to go back into dreams after waking up and failed miserably.

Anyways, I thought I'd share that story with you.
And, if you got to the end of this post without falling asleep or dying a slow painful death - thank you.