How planes actually crash is not how I always dream them crashing; being in an unrealistic plane crash is more often than not how I discover that I'm dreaming. I will be in a plane, usually with some kind of magical X-ray vision that allows me to see 360 degrees out my tiny bubble-window, and I'll feel some turbulence. Instead of a wing blowing violently off, though, or an engine dying and the plane tilting, or a sudden wind gust causing a nosedive, in the dream we'll gently land, just as if we were landing at the airport, except we'll be landing on a highway, or a winding country road, or even, laughably, at the wrong airport.

I've had this dream, or some variation on it, so many times that every time I have it I jump out the plane window and start flying, or doing complicated gymnastics, or burrowing into quicksand, or any of the myriad things I'm unable to do in real life. I've always been able to lucid dream easily, and I'm thankful for that. Most of the people I know tell me that as soon as they know they're dreaming, they'll instantly awaken. Kicking and screaming and holding onto the fabric of their dream world. Or something.

Last night was different. I was in a plane crash, the dream drifting kind, like always. We landed gently on a country road lined with snow-coated maple trees. There was a gentle sort of urgency to getting out of the plane, because we knew it would explode, so I took none of my luggage, and followed my dad sprinting across a swamp, which was slightly perturbing because I was sinking and running at the same time, but I turned around just as the plane started burning, and then, with one muffled bang, exploded (which consisted of the flames being snuffed out and the plane becoming a perfectly preserved skeleton of itself). After the brief interest of watching that, I was ready to fly, so I jumped off and spread my arms.

The same thing happened when I tried to fly as what happens when I try to fly while awake. The more I tried it, the more I fell on my face... and the more it hurt. Actually hurt, like dreams usually don't. So I had a second thought, thought maybe I wasn't dreaming, but then shrugged it off. I had floated in an airplane into a winter glade, exited peacefully, and watched it blow up practically soundlessly. I was definitely dreaming.

I tried everything I can do in dreams, everything, one thing after another, with failure after failure, until I had managed to convince myself that I wasn't dreaming. It was an odd, unsettling feeling. Everything that my logic told me was wrong based on my experience. Usually, experience and logic go at least mostly together, or at least together enough that you can see where they connect. This time, they were worlds apart. Logic: gentle plan crash in absurd circumstance: dreaming. Experience: falling on my face trying to fly, flopping on my head trying to do backflips, meeting only with stubborn dirt when trying to burrow into the ground like a mole: not dreaming. I didn't know what to think, so I chose experience.

The longer the dream went on, the more I felt I had found the truth. We all holed up in a shelter against the cold, waited for rescue helicopters, took turns using the bathroom to get ready for bed. One particular incident I remember that racked up lots of points for the not-dreaming side was my very real fear that I would lose my possessions and not be able to pay for new ones. I sidled up to my dad, who was quietly unpacking his stereo in the corner. 'You think flight insurance will pay for all my lost stuff?' I asked him.
'Oh, yeah,' he said.
'Because I'll need at least $5,000.'
'You know how much they give you?' He lowered his voice, leaned in to whisper. '$27,000.'
'$27,000?'
That was enough.

When I picked up my cell phone to call Dan and tell him the story of what had happened to me, the numbers were all warped and I couldn't seem to dial straight. Every time I pushed an 8, it came out as a 9 (if I was lucky; if I wasn't lucky, it came out as a squiggle, or a Chinese character, or a squashed bug). Do you remember the swirling alarm clock in Waking Life?

Once I got the numbers right, and he picked up, I found myself in my bed, cradling my hipbone like a cell phone. I was absolutely shocked. Experience had failed me! How come I hadn't been able to fly? Was this the beginning of the end of swooping lucid dreams?!