As far as I can remember the first time I saw a tornado I was about 9 years old. My friend and I were playing hide-and-seek in a huge cornfield in the middle of the summer, when suddenly we turned around and saw a huge funnel of gustnado forming just behind our backs. It looked more or less like this:

It soon reached the black clouds - spilled like a puddle of black ink above our heads - and started swaying back and forth. It kept advancing in our direction as if it were a hand of some dark god that descended from the sky to grab us and take away from our careless lives.

We suddenly saw many of such gustnadoes circulating around us – a real gathering. We knew there seemed to be no way out from this pandemonium, and that we might never be able to go back home to see our loving parents… even if it was just a matter of crossing the field and a street to reach our village. We decided to keep playing… yes, this was the only way out: keep playing hide-and-seek. I still remember all the details of everything that occurred after we separated to run in opposite directions, believing we could fool the forces of nature so easily. I hid in a vastly overgrown cluster of bushes. So concealed I could only peek through the branches of the shivering weeds, observe the prying giants that towered above me and pray for salvation.

This was the first time I saw a tornado… and wasn’t the last one. It may sound crazy but so far I lived in three countries and I’ve seen more than a dozen of them. I really can’t tell why it is always me who happens to be at the right time in the right place.

The last time I saw one of them, it was just behind my house. It was about a week ago and it looked more or less like this:

I wish it were only an idea for a story, or my own musing, but all of this happened!

You don’t believe me?

Let’s make a test. What would you do if you saw a tornado (coming your way) near where you live?

a) get out of your house and start running as fast as you can

b) start screaming so that to warn everyone else

c) hide in your cellar, close your eyes, clasp your ears and keep telling yourself “everything’s going to be ok”

d) get your camera and start recording or taking pictures of the tornado

Well you see this is what I usually did until last year. Nowadays what I do is simply choosing:

e) perform a reality check, realize you’re dreaming, keep focused on the tornado and either keep standing on its way and see what happens or, in case it changes direction, start chasing it.

This is what lucid dreaming makes you do: find a solution you wouldn’t have thought of in a normal dream and have great fun. I hope one day I will succeed in not waking up before I get swallowed by a tornado!

P.S. Oh, sorry you must have thought I was talking about real life tornadoes! Well, at least you are now aware that the ones I was talking about occur in my dreams (and know what it feels like to become lucid in one of them). Tornado dreams are my most frequent recurring dreams and they contain a dreamsign with a guaranteed 100% reliability. I remember a whole dozen of them but there were many many more - I simply forgot them. They are and will always remain my favorite and most vivid dreams.

Well, I actually never saw a tornado in Poland, but am not sure if I would like to see one. In comparison with the tornadoes from my nightly adventures, the ones I see on the videos look sooo fake!

Labels: lucid dreaming

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