[dogscoff]

I realize they're dreams, but what happens in a dream is usually what you expect to happen. not what you want to happen, what you expect to happen.

yes, I find that. What you expect to happen is what happens, hence that horribly feeling of inevitability in nightmares.

However once you realise you are in a dream you can control it. You just have to decide what's going to happen next and then let it happen. The trick is to realise that you're dreaming without waking up- letting just enough conscious slip in there, but not too much. And once you have control of your dreams... well, hehe... anything's possible. *lewd grin*

And about being woken up prematurely... yeah, I hate that, but I read somewhere that you only ever remember dreams if you are woken up in the middle of one. If allowed to wake naturally, you won't remember any dreams from that sleep.

Also, why is it that every morning I get up at 7:30 and spend half an hour hating work and hating everything because I'm not allowed to just stay in my bed, but on the weekends when I can stay in bed I either wake up early anyway (aaagh!) or wake up unnappreciative of the lie-in? I'm going to start setting my alarm for 7:30 on Sundays, just so I can get the satisfaction of switching it off, rolling over and going back to sleep.

Finally I hate all these "dream interpretation" books. They say things like "if you dream of a dog, then you are feeling safe." Well, if you like dogs, then maybe. But if you hate and fear dogs then a dream about dogs won't signify security at all. I do that believe dreams sometimes tell you things about your life as it is now, but the language of dreams is as individual as human beings.