The Rules of my Dreams

Let me tell you about the very specific, unbreakable rules of my dreamworld. I have no idea why or from whence these rules were forged, but they play an indelible role on every fantasy and nightmare I've ever had. I can't break them, as hard as I try, and despite the obvious influence my own brain has on the formation of dreams, I feel that I never purposefully established or enforced the strict guidelines dream-me has to live by.

For one, I can run almost never. If there is a situation that requires haste, running is slower than walking. When I try to sprint I'm taken by a sudden and overwhelming heaviness that weighs me down so much so that running is impossible. It's like walking through invisible sand piled up to my chest. If I'm in the middle of a scene, being chased by CIA agents big, black over coats, sunglasses and dark trilbys, I might panic to the point of forgetting the rules I'm bound to and try as hard as I can to run away. My entire body literally bends against the restriction and I grab at the wall next to me or the gate just within reach, pulling myself through the mental muck. It's excruciatingly slow and frustrating. Yet, as soon as I remember, "Oh yeah, The Rules," I straighten up, stop trying to run and simply begin the first pace of a brisk walk. Immediately the heaviness melts away and I can now make good my escape. A simile is like when you punch wet sand and the sudden force turns the stuff hard and impenetrable, but as soon as you relax your hand and push lightly, your fingers slip under the surface of the sand with the flying trapeze.
The second unavoidable rule that I never invented, but discovered through experimentation in the dreamworld of Simon, is the precise nature of flying. I can usually fly in dreams, especially if I pull myself out of a passive state when I realise I'm mid-dream. More than once I've been in a tremendous fight at the top of stairs in and old clock tower, only to be over powered and thrown through the banister. At the exact moment I look down and recognise I'm about to fall to my death, I actually say to myself, in mid-air and a fraction of a second, "Hang on, this is a dream, Ha!" and as I swoop down, I pull up sharply with my will and rocket up, through the ceiling and into a new lucid escape. The rules of flight, however, are immutable.

1. I cannot simply take off in any direction. There's a method. First, I have to crouch down as low as I can and then push up, as if trying to jump as high as I can. Only the jump works much better than you'd expect and I launch directly vertical. I can't simply jolt forward Superman style.
2. I need to reach a certain altitude before I can begin horizontal flight. After this first big jump, I usually go up, up, up over the city or country, so high that the clouds whip through my hair and all the lights below are breathtakingly far from my floating feet. Sometimes I feel a little giddy in my tummy or get that weird swooping sensation in my groin (like what you get in the forward motion on a swing). I then start a head first dive. If I don't get enough height, the dive ends with me having to quickly pull my head up and land back on my feet. However, I can use the momentum as if the ground was a trampoline, and I'll immediately launch back up again. I pretty much always make teh required height on the second go.
3. Flight is not unlimited. Once I get the right height, as I swoop down I'll know and at the last moment, before I hit the ground, I pull up sharply and rip straight back up, over the threshold of height, and I start flying through the air like the little plumber does in Mario 64. After a few dips and pull ups, I can fly pretty much unhindered until I need to land, at which point I glide down at a weak angle and then softly pull up and plop onto my feet.

I have no idea why, but that is how I have to fly in dreams.
The last rule isn't anywhere near as solid as the other two, but pretty prevalent in Simon's dreamworld. When I websling or shoot guns, I sometimes do it through a Playstation controller. For shooting, this is occasional. For webslinging, a Playstation controller is a must. The way it works is a bit odd. Imagine my dream as a scene you're watching through a screen that takes up your entire vision. Now, when I want to sling across the city like Spidey, my hands pop up at the bottom of the eyeball screen. My mind controls the controller, and at the very same time, the me inside the dream, but the controller controls the webslinging direction and when I shoot each rope of webbing. Usually It's L1 for the left arm, R1 for the right, the left joystick for direction of swing and the right joystick (with far more precision and speed than the real Playstation) is used to aim where exactly I'm aiming the next web shot.

Weird, huh? These rules just are, and always have been, and pretty much never change as far back as I can remember.