I didn't wait long to jump into research mode. My first lucid dream was still fresh and the intensity of it had not lost any luster over the passage of a few days. Soon I went to the largest public library in San Diego and began thumbing through the card catalog. I still didn't know if there was a name for the nocturnal experience, so I simply started in the letter D for "dreams, dreaming, dream anything." It didn't take long for me to come across a book on lucid dreaming. Judging from the brief, cursory description in the card catalog, it looked to be the book I was looking for. At least that was my hope; it was the only title on that subject, so if this was about something entirely different, I'd be in a real dilemma.The book was Lucid Dreaming by Stephen Laberge. He was a researcher at Stanford University. Adrenaline hummed in my ears. It held all the promise of a cryptex without the locks and secret codes. Just a few days ago during my sleep, I had stumbled into another world purely by accident, that by first glance seemed very much like this one, yet still different. Maybe this book held the key to going back to that other world. Unfortunately, whatever esoteric knowledge held within those pages would have to wait. There were only 3 copies and they were all checked out. One copy was due back in a week. I went to the counter and reserved it, then went about my business feeling it had been a productive afternoon (that's how research went back in 1987). First off, I had learned there was a name to the phenomenon, and it was important enough to someone to research and write an entire book on the matter. Secondly, I was not alone. The experience was not unique to me. There were others in the area who cared enough to check out a book from the public library--at least three others in the city of San Diego. So maybe I wasn't going mad, or overreacting to an overactive imagination. Well..I suppose I could still be overreacting to something. But I was bitten and curious and not content to just let it lie. Check out my next blog to find out what the book revealed.