GETTING IT ON IN LUCID DREAMS
What a Daredevil!

I’m about 150 pages into “Insomnia.” Took me a while to get going on it. I couldn’t see where King was going with the story or why I should care.

Now I’m at the part where the dream expert is talking about REM and lucid dreaming, which is something I know quite a bit about, having experienced dreams many times in which I knew I was dreaming. I get very brave in lucid dreams.

One time in a prison I got in a knife fight. What happened was, we were all milling about in the courtyard. There was a prisoner with a knife and he was looking at me. Somehow I knew I was supposed to fight him.

Even though I knew I was dreaming it was still pretty scary. Somebody passed me a shiv and I walked out and took the guy on. Don’t remember how it came out or who won. I must have been unable to face the reality, dreaming or not.

In another lucid dream I was standing on the rim of Half Dome, or El Capitan while wondering what would happen if I jumped off into space. What the hell, i don’t often get a chance to be a daredevil.

So I jumped off the cliff. What a disappointment! All I did was float, didn’t fall to the canyon floor.

When I was younger I used to be able to sit down in a chair with my eyes closed during the day and watch movies in my mind. The movies were set in places I had never been to -- and I could watch events I had never seen before.

I would still be wide awake, mind you, still know that I was sitting in a chair watching these movies that appeared out of nowhere right in front of me. Brilliant technicolor, the whole deal.

One time I was standing on a balcony in a palace, watching two 18th century dudes in a sword fight. It was all happening below me. The two duelists were really going at it with clashing swords. An amazing performance. All for my benefit.

The room they were fighting in had a marble floor and a very high ceiling. There were portraits of old guys in period costumes on the wall, and tapestries too. All very real. Like I said, a palace. Seemed to be in France.

Suddenly one of the guys got stabbed in the neck and at the same instant I felt something poke me hard in the neck. I jumped out of my chair, thinking that someone had poked me with a finger. I looked all around. There was no one there. I was pretty shook up I can tell you.

That’s why Steven King's “Insomnia” is now getting so very personal and interesting.

THE DREAMER