Ah, Omni.

I had a subscription to that magazine starting when I was nine years old. I begged my grandparents for it. After that, it became a Christmas gift.

That means I read it from 1985 until it closed its doors in 1995. Even as I started reading it, I knew that at least half of it was unalloyed hogwaysh and hooey, but what I loved about it is that it presented a future that I’d actually want to live in.

Well, this article said better than I can why I loved it.

By coupling science fiction and cutting-edge science news, the magazine created an atmosphere of possibility, where even the most outrageous ideas seemed to have basis in fact.

I learned how to lucid dream from Omni. I was exposed to ideas and ways of living that I never otherwise would’ve encountered in my very small, extremely conservative hometown. It more than any other single publication changed my sense of the world and of myself.

Omni was a huge part of my childhood, and a catalyst for learning to be a different person than everyone thought I should be, and wished that I were.