What is Prayer?

Usually when we think of prayer, we picture kneeling by the bedside with hands clasped and being thoroughly disappointed. Usually, we feel prayer as some kind of contrived, forced, inauthentic attempt to connect with a barely articulated idea of "God" and often to be met with silence and a feeling of being kind of silly. Is prayer talking to God? What do you even say in a conversation that often feels so one-sided? What do you pray "for", if anything? How does prayer compare to other spiritua...