so i watched waking life last night. that was a good (but definitely strange) movie. i should probably watch it again, and really pay attention this time. it really makes you think though, about how do you know what's a dream and what's reality? i mean, when i'm awake i'm positive it's reality, but i rarely question whether i'm dreaming or not while i am dreaming. i had a few minutes of lucidity last night, but i don't remember whether i was able to do anything with it or not. the premise of the movie is that this guy is dreaming, and he keeps waking up - into another dream - and he seems to get stuck in a loop like that. false awakening after false awakening. i've been there before, but it's usually the same dream over and over, not different scenes like it was in the movie. it's pretty torturous, especially once you figure out what's happening.

so while we were watching the movie i came up with the idea of collective dreaming - where people that aren't necessarily geographically together come together during their dreams and dream the same thing. i know that's a theme from most new age philosophy and stuff, astral projection, etc, but it really would be awesome if it worked. like virtual reality to the nth degree. so anyway someone mentioned the point - how do you know it doesn't happen? maybe it's not a conscious choice that you can make, to dream with someone, but how do you know that you've never dreamed about a person and that person dreams the same dream about you, at the same time? so it theoretically *could* happen. but, if it did, would it just be amazing coincidence, or would it be some sort of telepathic communication? objectively, dreams are just the firing of neurons within your brain, and have no basis outside the body (or outside the brain for that matter). but then again, what are we but moving molecules, firing neurotransmitters, ion balances, complex organic compounds, etc, moving at random? what the hell sort of free will can an overglorified chemical reaction have?