Why this word is great
DREAMSIGN — [Noun] A specific, anomalous element within a dream that, when recognized, serves as an internal signal to the dreamer that they are dreaming. From English dream ("a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep") + sign ("an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else"). Unlike a "lucid dream trigger"—a broader, external technique—or a "dream symbol," which is mined for subconscious meaning, a dreamsign is a functional glitch, a cog in the mind’s own simulation that has come conspicuously loose. It is the clockface whose numbers swim like tadpoles, the text that shifts upon a second glance, or the familiar hallway that terminates in a wall of solid mist; a quiet crack in the world, through which a sliver of waking self can slip, recognizing the most convincing prison has no locks, only the pervasive conviction that the walls are real.