In waking life I lie down to sleep and begin having stress dreamlets. Tiny little dreams wherein I'm placed in some absurd, stressful situation that lasts only a moment and then wakes me into a fright. Then another one instantly over and over. Like a type of torture. This has never happened to me.

I'm returning Charlie the dog to Josh's house, and I'm really stressed because Charlie has to shit and is about to shit on the stairs and I have to be somewhere and I don't know if Josh is home. Awake.

I'm in a dinghy (little boat) buzzing along on the water in a harbor area. My body is bent backward over the bow so that my head is hanging upside down and close to the water. I am controlling the boat backward because I'm seeing upside down. I don't have the strength to right my body and am about to impact something. Awake.

I'm thirsty and am fumbling with a glass and sort of water dispenser but my hands are numb and wet and I keep dropping the glass, full of water, on the floor. And there is soap in the water whenever I get any to my mouth. People are watching and I'm feeling my nerves like pins and needles. Awake.

Now among the basic level dream missions (finding your hands, finding a mirror and seeing your actual self, finding your body) I've only the final remaining. In waking life, just an hour ago or so, I was lying here in the boat meditating. Visualizing the boat interior and trying to see with my eyes closed. The wood grain of the drawers in the galley. The veneer of the dinette table. The ghostly textured white of the vinyl surfaces.

Then, as I go to sleep, I continue to repeat to myself I'm in the boat, I'm in the boat, I'm in the boat... All this to prepare.

And then the stress dreams. Over and over -- many others I can't recount. Hazy and frightening and embarassing.

The last one: I'm in the boat and suddenly it pitches to one side as if being pulled by a line. I jar myself awake in a panic and think Holy shit! I'm sleeping in here and the boat is underway! I leap to my feet and am about to look outside when I realize, suddenly, I'm dreaming. And simultaneously I realize this is it -- mission accomplished. I'm in the boat in a dream. Unlike normal lucidity there is no threat of the dream dissolving. It is very real, but not more real or more something than reality. That extra woah! that normally makes it so easy to wake from lucid dreams is missing.

I look at the main berth where my body should be lying asleep. I see nothing there inside or on top of my sleeping bag. I prepare to lie down in the same spot in the same position my body should be -- face down, hands folded under thighs. As I lay down there is a sort of magnetic resistance, something electric, and I see, suddenly, a dark three dimensional shadow that takes the space and shape of my body. It is resisting me with an electric feeling field. It was invisible! Hidden from me!

I force myself into it with brute strength, with pure will. Much like willing myself to see the right face in a mirror - once in the Jungle, and once in Utah. And the hissing electric resistance builds and builds, then SNAP I snap down into the same space my body occupies. As if the field reversed -- as if you're pushing two magnets together and all the sudden one flips around and they join together in an instant.

I'm suffused with a crackling, popping energy, electric and fiery. I stand up, my whole dense body blistering with strength, and explode out of the top of my boat into flight. I'm in Key West -- which I was well aware of. I am occupying the same time and place as I am in waking life, right now. There is faint light on the water but everything is illuminated as if through my eyes. I am the same me of waking life -- same body, same thoughts, same memories, everything -- all clear and very much there. I am fully aware that I have been trying to do this for a very, very long time and have finally done it.

An osprey comes barreling towards me with its talons out in front of it in salute. This is a congratulatory gesture and I understand. It is still, however, intimidating. I stand (or float) my ground, looking boldly at the bird of prey as it careens right at me. At the last second it folds its talons under it again and passes by with a feathery swoop.

I have the sense that the important part of the experience is over. I fly around for a bit, willing airplanes into existence and them chasing them. They respond like living creatures when I touch them, turning into giant, rubbery whale like things.

Then I awake, lying face down in the main berth with my hands under my thighs, and snap into a sitting position fully awake and aware. As if I've just walked into another room rather than "woken from sleep." No grogginess and no transitory phase separating the two existences. I hurriedly walk into the V-Berth and begin scrambling in my backpack for pen and paper. When I find them both I return to the main berth to record the dream. I hear the sharp, chirping calls of an osprey out in the night.