The Labrynth of the Mind

The Drinking Contest

I am in a Dairy Queen. They are having an advertizement for new treats in their freezer (I mean the advertizement is in the freezer; it's a live action commercial).

"You've seen all these old treats" says the narrator. "Remember when this was new?" They show some things like an ice cream cake and a Dilly Bar, as well as some frozen canned whipped cream I have never seen before. "But now it's just the same old same old. Well, there's a new treat in town!" The other things are pushed aside, and a giant cake is dropped down, taking their place. It is green, and covered in lots of icing. Upon it's being sliced open, it is found to be filled with frozen coconut filling.

"Just in time for the Super Bowl, it's a -- Day Cake! [the -- was some name like McNabb, I don't think it was him but it was a celtic name famous in football] It is now being offered at a great price. Or, you can win this cake for free! All you have to do is be here on McNabb's Day (I guess it is some sort of holiday) and drink beer! That's right, you drink beer for 13 hours. Here's the thing - you have to be drinking beer the whole time, and no bathroom breaks can be taken. If you're still here at the end, you get the cake for free!"

A few people seem to be interested in this deal. Next to me is a table of really good looking girls.

"Heck," says one of them, "We'll just wait here until McNabb's Day starts. It's just an hour or so."

I sit down next to her, and put my arm around her. For some reason my mother shows up and sits on the other side of her. The girls begin talking about how much they like to drink, and how great it will be to have free beer all day long. They seem to think drinking constantly for 13 hours is easy.

I start talking to my mother, loud enough so that they can overhear. "What do you think would happen to someone who drank beer constantly for 13 hours?" I say.

"I don't know," says my mother, "but it can't be good".

"I would think you'd get alcohol poisoning," I say. The girls seem to take no heed. I pull the girl next to me a little closer, and give her a hug. I am honestly worried about her. "Here is my prediction. By this time tomorrow night there will be at least one alcohol related death because of this contest."

"I think you're right," says my mother.

I now see in my mind's eye the scene of an accident, and someone being loaded into an airplane.

Strange Goings-on at my Grandparents'

We are having a family get together at my grandparents' house. It is getting to be late at night, and my brother goes back to bed. My aunt decides to play a trick on him, and changes into a bikini top. She undoes the strings at the bottom, so it looks as though she is in the process of taking it off. Then she goes into my brother's bedroom, pretending to be a strange woman who wandered in from the street.

Fixing the Computer

(This may have been a continuation of the last dream, or not. I don't quiet remember. It's one of those that isn't so coherent.)

Bobcats never let go once they have hold of you. My little cat thinks it's a bobcat at times, but at other times it is just like a kitten. I pet it, but then someone makes it think it's a bobcat. It grabs my hand with it's teeth and claws, getting a wild look in its eyes. I start singing to it, treating it like a little kitten again. It let's go of my hand.

Now somebody has the cat on his shoulder, and is climbing and running along the top of a moving train. It is a daredevil.

Now I am in a room somewhere. There are lots of children walking by on a field trip. They have to line up at the door, and they set their books down in front of me. I look at them, and see they are doing the same thing I did when I was their age.

A telephone rings in the room I am in. A woman answers the phone. "It's for you," she says, "it's Client #9".

"Client #9?" I say, "uh, that doesn't sound right." I pick up the telephone. I should have known. It's my uncle, who likes to pretend he is weird people when calling family and freinds. He asks if I'm busy, and if I can help work on my Grandfather's computer.

Now I am at my Grandfather's house with his computer. It has a small problem, but Dell wants over $1,000 to fix it.

"$1,000?!" I say, "at the most, you'll just have to get a new CPU, or maybe just a new motherboard."

Now my brother goes to bed. I have my laptop running, and it's been running all day. I decide I had better shut it down.

Working for Rush

I get a new job, working for Rush Limbaugh. He is explaining how the job works.

"When I'm on the mic," he says, "I don't know whether someone is doing their job or not. I don't go around and see how much or how well people are working. What I do is look at their desk. If your desk is clean, you are a good employee."

I look around the office. Everybody has a nice, perfectly clean desk. I sit down at my desk, and try to organize my things to look nice as well.

I have had some unrestful sleeping lately, and not too good dream recall. So, unfortunately, I can only remember parts of this dream.

Experimenting with Lucid Techniques

I am walking down a hallway, I believe in the old mansion that is connected to the church I attend and is now used for sunday school rooms. I somehow know that I am dreaming. [This may very well have been a WILD, I seem to remember slipping from being awake into a dream at some point. But it would have been the first dream of the night which I didn't think happened that much with WILDing] I realize that I have pretty good control, but the detail of the dream is rather poor. It is pretty dim and fuzzy, as though it were something I was trying to visualize. Also, as often happens, it begins to fade out altogether as I think of myself being asleep.

I begin to climb a staircase, and think back to Hyu's dream journal and how he anchored himself better to his lucid dream. I become more aware of my senses, and imagine a piece of chocolate to bite into. At first the piece of chocolate is very tiny, and doesn't have much substance at all. But the very act of trying to bit into it seems to have strengthened things a bit, so I am able to visualize an even bigger piece of candy. This time, I can taste the chocolate, as well as the caramel center. I can feel the chocolate and caramel in my mouth as well.

Then I get down on the floor and smeel and feel the carpet. It smeels and feels like carpet, allright. I have a vague idea that I tried to summon a Dream Guide, and even of some individual showing up.

Now my recall gets a bit fuzzy, because I don't believe the dream broke up or anything. I'm not sure I lost lucidity either, but I have a vague recollection of a gang of criminals out to get the President. I was part of this gang, but I may have been undercover. Or I may have been out to capture the gang.

Names in KI List (fragment)

Another dream related to Uru. I link into the cavern, and see a few names listed of people who are present. There are only a couple at first, but then I look again and there are a whole bunch of people.

A glass of port

I walk into a bar. The bartender tries to give me a drink of wine. I don't like any kind of alcohol, except for sweet wines and port. I ask for a glass of port, but he pours me a glass of some kind of wine saying it is like port. I take a drink. It tastes OK, but it seems to have some kind of milk mixed in which makes it taste funny.

I have been worried a lot lately, and I hope that the alcohol will help to make me relax. However, the bartender will only give me a drink in a tiny shot glass.

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill has come to live with my family. Actually, in my dream I think I am related to him. We get into some discussion with some people (I think we are at my old college, but I'm not sure). Churchill and I are arguing one side against some of the others. It is getting late, and we all decide to go to bed.

I start up to my room, but then remember that I left a light on in the living room. I go back to turn it off, and Churchill says something really strange like "farewell, sweet feline". I just kind of stare at him, and then go back to my room, thinking what a weird thing that was for him to say...

... There is food. Shrimp, I think. Also, there were some books around that I was reading. I think in preparation for a class. Wait, I'm getting something more: I am studying for an exam that I am about to take. That's how it starts. Then I started reading Churchill's "Gathering Storm".

I'm a Toys-R-Us Kid

I am at Toys-R-Us with my mother, father, and brother. We are looking around, and split up. We are supposed to meet up again in a few minutes, but I get lost. Some type of adventure befalls me, though I don't quite remember what. Finally, I meet up with my family again.

In this dream, Toys-R-Us looks like a greenhouse. There are many rooms in it, connected to other rooms. There are tropical plants around. (And fireplaces?)

Letters to Lincoln

We are talking about Abraham Lincoln. Our family (in the dream) has letters that were written by Abraham Lincoln's wife. We don't know exactly where they are, but apparently we were descended from her. We have a bunch of her old stuff, actually. I wonder if it is worth anything.

The Church

I am visiting a new church. It starts out with me listening to the church on the radio, but then I actually end up there. At first I think it is a good church, and well founded in scripture. But then the pastor begins to talk. He is dressed in some odd uniform, and his whole message seems to be about how he doesn't think Christ is the only way to heaven. He hints that Christ may actually not be God. "What kind of a church is this?" I think to myself.

The preacher decides to show a movie to the congregation. It is about Barak Obama. As soon as Obama appears on the screen everyone stands up as though they were going to sing the Doxology. I am a little disgusted by this seeming idolatry. I had been standing out in the hallway watching through a door. I sit on the floor in a sort of a protest. People in the sanctuary decide to sit, too.

Grandparents (fragment)

I seem to remember something about going to my Grandparents' house.

A Series of FA's

Have fun sorting this one out:

I wake up and check the clock. It is 8:45. I usually do a RC upon waking up, but I always assumed looking at the clock was good enough. Then I wake up. Not to be made a fool of again, I look at my hands. I rub them together. Nothing looks odd, so I must be awake. Then I wake up. I look at the clock again. It is a little hard to make out, but it looks like it's 1:45. Good, plenty of time to do a DEILD (I'm pretty sure this was a FA too. This set of dreams took place around 8:00am). I enter into a dream about Toys-R-Us. I pinch my nose and can still breathe. But then the dream changes so that this is actually not occurring, but is a memory of me doing a nose-pinch reality check in the past.

I am walking down an aisle in Toys-R-Us. There are characters from Star Trek there. They seem to be advertizing a sale on Star Trek merchandise. There is also food and apple cider. I stock shelves a while, and see Angela Lansbury. She seems to know me. I try to think of how I know her.

An announcement comes over the loudspeaker system, referring to the town we are in. I am reminded that I work in Wintersville, Ohio (I don't in real life. I don't even live near there). That is hard to believe for me that I actually work there.

I'm a little pressed for time today, so I will just make some quick notes and hopefully edit with more details later.

Sideswiped

Driving around a construction zone. An area where there's only one lane, no flagger. I enter and a RV enters at the same time. The RV scrapes against my new truck and keeps on going. I get out and try to find the guy. I think about suing the Department of Transportation.

Around Town

With my Grandfather at a country music concert. He stays only for 3 songs, then leaves. He is annoyed because it is at a university that is in the middle of a town (it didn't make sense to me in my dream, either). I argue a little bit about the immorality of having a university in the middle of a town, but he leaves anyway.

My Grandmother shows up in her car, so I don't have to walk home. We stop at intersection, girl has broken down.

A brass band is playing, and a new building is being built. I lobby to save the old building from destruction. They aren't going to destroy it anyway.

There are some pirates in a torture chamber held captive by a rival pirate captain. The rival captain is trying to force them to accept him as their new leader. There are lots of people watching from stands. It is like a stadium of some kind. Now it isn't a torture chamber anymore, but a dance floor. We are watching a documentary about how the Japanese are saving energy by a new form of dancing. One person from each couple sits in a chair and only one person stands up and dances. They still hold hands, though.

Big House

I visit somebody's house. It looks small from the outside, but it huge on the inside. One room looks like a cafe` of some kind. Or a hotel lobby. I go in and order food. The people with me are impatient because I'm taking too long. Someone is overcharged. I order a jalepeno and pickle sandwich. And french fries (I seem to be having recurring dreams about french fries).

Before bed I took 400mg valerian, 50mg vitamin B-6 and 0.5mg melatonin. I woke up at 3:30 am and did a WBTB. I also performed a MILD before sleeping. In addition, I attempted to incubate a dream about Myst Uru.

Uru Marker Quest

I am in D'ni, doing a marker quest (this takes a while to explain if you don't know what I'm talking about. You can google these things if you're curious). I am in a big room "upstairs" (a vauge dreaming impression, I don't know what building I may have been in). I follow the markers "downstairs" into a large dark blue grey room. It is a little reminiscent of somewhere in Kadesh Tolesa. The marker quest is describing a murder mystery (taken from waking memory. I was on such a marker quest before going to bed, and it was a location I was at during this quest that I was trying to incubate). The markers tell me about a group of people who "explore the walls". They seem to be suspicious, and I look around the walls of the room. I also call someone on the telephone. One guy in particular does not have a telephone. For some reason this makes him even more suspicious.

The County Fair

In this dream, I am back at my old job with the Army Corps. I am working at the public relations booth at a local county fair.

My former boss is supposed to call me (taken from waking life. I had to call my present boss this morning because he was supposed to call me and didn't). I am at home, but I know he is talking to someone about my phone number. He can't remember my number, and therefore can't call me. I somehow walk into his office as he is saying this.

"You need my number?" I ask, surprising him. We exchange greetings, since we haven't seen each other in a while. Then he sends me out to the county fair.

It is cold and rainy, and many vendors have pulled out of the fair. I myself am a little disgusted with the fair for some reason. I am hungry and decide to get something to eat. I stop at a booth selling hot dogs. I order a hot dog since it is only 75 cents. Then I decide to order french fries too, even though I wasn't going to at first. I fall into conversation with the vendor while he prepares my food, who is also disgusted with the fair.

"This fair ain't like it used to be" he says, squirting ketchup and mustard into a plate and then dumping fries in. "Look at all the people who have pulled out".

"I know," I say, "I think this is going to be our last year here." In fact, I know it is, because I am the one who schedules the fairs. He hands me my food. The fries have onions and peppers mixed in with them. It looks pretty tasty.

I walk for a while, and come to some railroad tracks. There are some people walking on the tracks. What they do is wait for the warning lights to flash on the track signalling a train is coming. Then they jump on the tracks and walk, as though that is the safe time to walk. I try to warn them not to do this (though I seem to be walking on the tracks with them). I describe to them how "two of my relatives - or ancestors, I guess" were killed doing this.

The above dreams were recorded at 3:30AM during the WBTB. The following dreams I recorded this morning.

Western Christmas Carol

I am with some bad guy, in a sheriff's office of the Wild West. The bad guy has a rather distinctive face, looking like a typical bad guy. While we are waiting for the sheriff, another guy walks in and leans on a counter in front of us. Those of us waiting in the office are startled to see how much this new guy looks like the villain. They could be twins, except this new person is much younger. Then a second person walks in and leans on the counter next to the first person. He too looks exactly like the villain, but he has a big bushy beard. Those of us waiting (the villain, myself, some other person, and Peter Lorre - I don't know how he fit in) talk about the coincidence. Then the villain starts reliving past memories.

The past memories are brought on by the fact that the first look-alike reminded him of his own youth. It is like the Ghost of Christmas Past for him, and he begins to soften up by remembering how he used to be. Then, when he sees the second look-alike, he thinks of the present, and how things could have been different. This then, is the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Then the sheriff walks in. If we were surprised before, imagine our shock at seeing the sheriff - an exact double of our villain, except for the badge and hat. This is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, with the ominous foreshadowing of a hanging.

Sad Dream

This dream may have been part of the Western Christmas Carol dream, as it started out in a similar scene. It deals with some issues from the waking life that are sad and personal to some close friends, so I won't go into much detail in the first part. It cheers up a bit by the end, though.

A man, falsely accused of a crime or imprisoned for a petty crime, has a heart attack while in prison. They could have let him out to go to the doctor, but they didn't. He dies. This makes the following events even more tragic and frustrating for the family. Some other things happen (taken from waking memories) that add to the family's grief. There are some scenes of sadness.

Somehow the scenes above lead into a story of three guys who go to Russia. They send a letter to the United States' government threatening to do something extreme. This causes the government to go into a tizzy, and then reports come that the three guys have taken over Russia. What actually happened is that they claimed Russia and nobody bothered to argue with them. It was so silly that it wasn't worth Russia's effort. However, the newspapers pick up the story and blow it out of proportion. Some of us get a big laugh out of that. "Then violence spreads" as it was said in my dream. I am sort of writing this as a story and living it at the same time. Everything disintegrates into a big fight and mass destruction. I buy candy.

The Minivan in the Kitchen (Lucid)

I am walking down the hallwau in my house towards the kitchen. I enter the kitchen, and on the left where the table is supposed to be is a large minivan. This isn't right, and I realize that I am dreamin. This realization seems to cause me to jump, and I wake up...

...But it's a false awakening. I find myself walking down the same hallway, and enter the kitchen again. I look to my left, and there is the minivan sitting there. This reminds me that I'm dreaming. Once again I jerk when I realize that, and either wake up, have a FA, or something. I can't remember anything else.

Driving to Class

It is 2:00pm (I know the time because I have to leave home to make a long commute to college to take a class). A few things happen to delay me about 15 minutes, and I can finally leave. My father comes along, and decides that he is coming with me. We hop in my car and start the commute. A little way down the road I point out to him that my class goes until about 9:30 or 10:00 at night. He was going with me to do one little thing down the road from the school. I don't think he really wants to wait around for 6 hours or so until I am done with class. He realizes this isn't a good idea, so we decide to turn off the main road and go to a town called "Augusta", or something similar. Whatever the name is, it isn't there in real life though I think it represents a town that is.

The plan is that my mother and brother will meet us in Augusta and pick up my father. It seems that much of the dream from here on consists of driving around in circles and gets a little monotonous and frustrating.

The Detectives

I am a little unclear as to the details of this dream. It just came back to my mind after journalling the last one. I am a detective. Also, I am with my family and we are trying to pick out a movie to watch tonight. There are four of them, two new movies and two classic movies. I can't tell the ratings on the new movies, but I don't know if they contain any objectionable material or not.

Now I'm eating french fries. There is a lot of ketchup on the french fries. Way too much ketchup. However, an attractive lady is also eating the french fries. Then I realize I have been looking for her, because she is the one I have to arrest. But I'm also hungry (this dream took place in the early morning). The dream seems to be half about eating and half about arresting this woman. She is sad about being arrested and I feel a little bad about it.

Skydiving (fragment)

I don't remember much of this dream. It may have been the result of an incubation attempt. All I remember is skydiving.

Last night I took 150mg of Ginkgo Biloba, followed by a brief period of exercise (50 pushups). In the past, this has greatly increased the amount of dreams that I either experience, recall, or both. I also attempted to incubate a dream in which I would be in the computer game Myst Uru.

Myst Party

I am at the church that I went to when I was little. My parents are with me, as are a couple of other people. My mother is eating a cookie, or a cupcake, or something like that. She tells me she got it downstairs. I ask someone else about it, and this other lady tells me that she got it "in the room beneath the rooms" or something cryptic like that. I know that by that she means that the cookie came from a room down in the basement near the boiler room, in an interesting set of stairwells and hallways that always fascinated me when I was little.

We sit down in a pew, either towards the back of the sanctuary or up in the balcony. I look over to the end of the pew and see a big sign that has been hand written. It is advertizing a "Myst" party, as in the computer game. According to the sign I am either too late for the party or will not be able to make it.

At the Mall

I get a new job, working as a security gaurd at the mall. I am at home with my family, and we decide to go shopping. When we get to the grocery store we were originally going to go to, it turns out to be the mall. I decide that since I am a security gaurd, I can walk along with them and shop, and still be able to do my job at the same time.

We split up. The rest of my family goes one direction, and I go another direction with a girl that I knew in college. We go into a couple of shops and look around, and somehow I loose my socks. I go into a gift shop where they are selling a pair of socks for $3. I debate for a while whether to get one pair or another. Then I check to make sure they are all $3. I see a sign on the box of socks that says $3, so I am informed of the price.

I go out of the back of this store, and keep on going. The girl is still in the mall, but I walk on down the street until I come to a grocery store. I go in and walk around, and then get a cup of coffee. Then I think maybe my family and the girl will wonder where I went, so I go back.

Back in the mall I meet up with everybody. They aren't too concerned about where I went.

Blue Blotch

I have some kind of a welt on my forehead, and next to this a big blue blotch. I am worried that this blue blotch may be the sign of some disease, so I look it up online. I know that looking up symptoms online is a bad idea, but I go to WebMD anyway and check it out. When I type in "Blue Blotch", I get a page with a terrible illness. It shows a deformed and barely recognizable person who is being killed by a disease that started with a blue blotch. I decide not to trust WebMD.

The Fair

In my old job, I often went to fairs to talk to people. In this dream, I am back at one of the fairs. It is cold and cloudy, and my mother is with me. We set out looking for a certain barn (I think it had model trains in it, but I'm not sure). We walk out to what appears to be the end of the fairgrounds, but I can see that beyond us is more buildings. My mother does not seem interested in looking anymore, so we go back to wherever we started.

Old Mr. cedward1

I'm an old man in this dream. However, I am a powerful old man. I seem to be very skilled at my job (I think I am a lawyer). I am well known and well respected. Some people probably fear me. However, I am all alone. I never wanted to marry anyone or have a family of my own, and now in my sunset years I begin to regret it. I wonder if it is too late to find a wife, but then I think that even now I might not want to give up my freedom.

For a brief period, the dream is about a queen somewhere who is in the same predicament. Then it is back to me as an old man.

I am eating steak and a baked potato. I pur butter on the potato, along with a bit of white cheddar cheese and steak sauce. I mash the potato up and eat. It tastes pretty good for being dream food...

... The dream changes quite a bit. I am no longer an old man, and am walking through the woods. It is late fall or winter, and all the leaves are off the trees. My job is to see if people have been logging near a creek that runs through the woods. I inspect a while, and then my mother's beagle runs away. She can't get it back, so I call it. The beagle come trotting out from behind a tree.

Another Shopping Dream

I am at my Granparents' house. Everyone goes shopping, which is referred to by an odd name like "simple country" shopping, supposedly because they are going bargain hunting. I decide to stay behind, but as they are leaving I change my mind.

We all go in to town. Some things happen that I can't quite remember.