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30.06.2016

Death in the House of Cards (Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

First one back. Pretty basic, but it's a start.


I'm in the world of House Of Cards, in some sort of lab. There's some weird green insect, about the size of a small dog, being extracted from Frank--I don't know what for.

A woman doctor is trying to not let me die, while undertaking some kind of operation, I suspect to make me stronger or something. The whole lab ignites from her intensely passionate concentration.

As I leave, I see a guy flicking through politicians' profiles on his computer--including Donald Trump--trying to decide who next to target for whatever reason. He says to me, 'watch the exit'. Walking through the lobby of the building I see someone I recognise say 'I want to shoot someone today'. An innocent passerby overhears but it's too late, and one of the politicians I've just seen on the computer is killed in the crowd.

I walk out the unguarded exit, as part of this was clearly meant to be a distraction. I look to the left to see Trump walking out of the building in a different direction, and I suspect he has been turned into a sleeper agent.

It was during an evening. I was just outside my house, in the backyard. With my older sister we were trying to catch a dangerous animal. A long, dark green snake. It was rumored to be really dangerous, and that there was a gray cat always running somewhere with that snake. We saw both of them running around our backyard. I felt great danger but also had a lot of courage and slightly foolish bravery and wanted to catch that snake. My sister felt like this too. I grabbed a long stick ending with two protrusions, knowing that it'd be a really useful tool in catching that snake. We chased it all around, trying to grab it with that stick. I missed a few times and had to grab another stick as the first one broke.

It was getting darker, my another sister, this time younger, went out of the house and had to escape from that snake really quickly. She ran inside the house, screaming. I saw the gray cat, it was looking at me somewhat unpleasantly, with an ominous expression. The snake have ran into deep bushes, I felt arising danger. After a while it ran out and then just stopped. I took this chance and caught the snake. But as I was catching it, it bit me in my thumb. I released it's jaws of my finger and felt weird.

Everything went black and then I woke up in hospital. Doctors told me that I was in a coma for two days. I left the hospital with brother and my friend and wandered around the streets.

I worked in cafe but it was a different building than in waking life, a nice big space. It was evening or late at night and we were getting ready to close. I was attempting to make vegan cookies and trying to find some vegan chocolate I could add. I remember seeing a Christmas tree that was in an adjacent room, and I unplugged, or plugged the lights in, I can’t remember. A lingering customer was remarking about how slow I drove my car, and I had an image of my [dream] car, with the entire front smashed, like a memory of a crash. I told him I drove slow because I had once crashed my car, and I showed him a fading bruise on my right inner bicep.
Outside, me and co-worker (old friend?) were going to our cars when we noticed two suspicious men on the roof of the cafe. We ducked down and tried to hide behind some structure. I think the men could see me, and I decided instead of remaining in hiding that we needed to distract them. I made an urgent look to a customer that was also outside- some man- and he seemed to get it and we both loudly talked about something and started to go back into the cafe.


Fragment: Editing some trailer or excerpt of a movie. Lots of problem solving dreams last night of this kind. Designing, editing, creating. Left me feeling tired when I initially woke up.

Wrote down notes on dreams, read a little and went back to sleep. More dreams below.

I was in my front room with my husband. We were sitting on the couch and a giant black bear was excitedly trotting back and forth between the couch and the front door, like my dog does when she wants to go out. In fact, the bear completely had my dog’s essence. I jokingly asked my husband, ‘Want to let her out?’ I got up and walked on the couch to reach for the front door, realizing that the bear could attack me at any moment. I opened the door and watched the bear run out and run down the street. I briefly wondered if I should warn the neighbors that a bear was running around.

I was making a movie with some people- maybe I was related to the director? We were hanging out on an urban street sidewalk, in an area that looked like an east coast city. An old male actor was standing next to me, and a slightly chubby man (my relative?). After a few minutes of discussing the movie or something else, we went inside a door behind us and it was this old man’s apartment. The carpet was old and stained and there were various rugs around. He mentioned something about liking my dog, or enjoying having her there, and he had a large dog that came in and tried to get near my dog but she seemed defensive. In the kitchen on the counter there were 3 bubbling pots- one was a tea kettle I think, the other perhaps coffee? And the third was apparently and experiment I had going on in a giant mixing bowl. It looked like bread dough in water with cayenne pepper, and I added something like apple cider vinegar. I have the idea that it was fermenting, not boiling.

I felt like an outsider. My mom and my brother were there. They each got a text from my aunt asking if they were going to the annual family boat reunion. I never attended this (dream event) but I was slightly hurt that I didn’t get this text as well. I was playing on my iPad/iPhone, editing movies or watching clips of a movie I was working on.

I was catching rides on large cruise-like boats by walking into the center of a bridge and stepping out as the boat passed under. I was able to step directly onto the boat without jumping using this method. Soon though a boat came and I wasn’t able to get on, but I notice a crowd of people, including an attractive woman around my age, were able to get on that boat in a way I couldn’t access. Then another series of boats show up, these are smaller, and several groups of teenage girls are on the bridge with me. They are dressed like they are on a sports team, mostly red and white colors, and they jump into the water next to the boats, or jump directly on the boats themselves. I contemplate doing this and then decide those boats aren’t for me and I think it’s too dangerous to jump anyway. An old school friend is near me and she agrees. I decided to wait for the next boat.

Thoughts:
A lot of this seems mundane. Bears are a common theme for my dreams, they used to be nightmares, now they just show up randomly. Im not sure why this one seemed like my dog, if that means anything to me. I think bears mostly symbolized anxiety for me in the past, or my father…now they seem to symbolize something that I am slightly afraid of, but think I can get around.
Boats and water are reoccurring a lot lately. These definitely seem symbolic, perhaps of subconscious emotions, or finding ways to navigate those emotions.
I live far away from my family, and have for a long time. I love them but I don’t want to live where they are, and it’s hard for me to travel to see them very frequently. I suppose I do feel left out, and although I talk to several of them frequently, I worry if I will regret this one day. Or if they think that I don’t care about them as much as I do. I am very introverted and could go days without talking to any human and be fine. I often realize that I have gone a while without reaching out, and wonder if I’m more oblivious than others when it comes to maintaining relationships.

I've been having success with autosuggestion again as I'm trying to come out of an extended period with less LDs than usual.

The technique I'm trying is simply making my dream goal my last thought before I fall into unconscious sleep.

01.07.2016

(Non-lucid)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was with my group of friends from Venezuela, with whom I went to school with from grade 1 to grade 8. We were staying at a big house that had an indoors soccer court; it looked a lot like the court we used to play at in school. We spent all day playing soccer, I was better than I thought even though it had been a whole year since I last played. Alejandro was complaining about something as per usual, probably something Alexis did. We texted the remaining guys from the class to come meet us but they didn't reply.

After the soccer match we decided to go inside and watch a movie, there was a small movie theatre with red seats and a huge 4k 100'' screen. Alejandro and Javier wanted to watch the Real Madrid game but everyone else wanted to watch... Avatar?

I left and went to my room. My brother was there, he had just come back from surfing. I noticed he had rented the same surfboard I rented when I was down in San Diego. It was an epoxy 8' board, green on top, yellow on the bottom. I told him I didn't like the wax job they did on it because it was impossible to get rid of the sand and resulted in bad body rashes.

I went outside and noticed the was a tunnel in the backyard. I went in but it was really dark. I had to crawl through the entrance and almost got a claustrophobic attack. Once past the entrance I stood up and looked around. It was just dirt; I was probably about 8 feet underground. I was scared it would collapse so I tried to exit but the entrance was now smaller and I couldn't fit. I started freaking out and woke up.

I dreamt that it was my last day of school again. It started with this Barbie Doll. I was throwing it around with my friends, but the main person I remember being there was C. Then we went in to this room. It was completely white, and at the far end was some opaque glass, with a door in it, like a bathroom stall. I opened the door and there was a couch in a little area. Then I went back in to the other room and threw the Barbie Doll, and it exploded in to a bunch of different pieces. Then I went to talk to my computer science teacher. She was in a room of a similar style. The flooring was white marble. It was like a really fancy, high end government building, or something like that. I talked to her about a coding competition I had earlier. My friend was also there who had participated in the coding competition. I'll call him Jerry. He was talking with my teacher, but then started to open up his computer and do things while my teacher was talking to him. Then, another friend came online on Steam, and he pulled up a live video of him playing Grand Theft Auto. The sound was pretty loud, and he wasn't closing it, even though my teacher kept making more and more obvious remarks about how rude it was. I was going to start yelling at him too about turning it off and being polite. Then, something happened, but I said goodbye to my teacher, and went in to another room with Jerry and C.

He had a game on a VR headset that he wanted to show me. I put it on ,and it was like a real life simulator, but I started out in a grocery store. I started destroying things, and throwing food at people. For a second I was worried about whether I was in real life or VR, but then I decided I was in VR, so I kept destroying things. I was throwing tomatoes and all kinds of food at people. I ran outside the store and heard screaming and there were people running. There was this little girl with a gun and she was just waving it around shooting. At this point I had forgotten about the VR thing, so I ran with my friends to the room we were in at the beginning of the dream. I could see the outline of someone sitting on the couch behind the opaque glass. They were reading a book. So instead of hiding there, I hid next to the door, and sat on the ground. After a bit, I got up and went outside. There was a huge water fight with all of my classmates, and I was soaking wet. Somehow I ended up with my pants off and just my underwear and a shirt on.

I was going to walk down a hill to another friends house, but about halfway done I decided it would be too embarrassing without my pants on, so I ran back up the hill. I started thinking "wow this is pretty fun. I am going to start running more." Then I got to the top and got in my car and drove home. Upon arriving, I noticed some friends at the house next door. I went over to say hi. One of them was one of my sisters friends who I haven't seen in at least four years and the other was a good friend from my school. They said "hey" and my sister's friend said, "How would you like it if we pantsed you?" There were also a couple other girls there, so I would have been embarrassed, and I backed away as they tried to come pull my underwear off. I warned them I would punch them if they tried. I just turned around and ran in to my house. I wondered if the police would have come if I had punched them, but decided that I would have been fine since they were trying to pull my pants off. It was dark once I got inside. The house was lit up, but there was nothing in it. The walls, floors, and ceilings were made of wood, but it was a sort of unfinished, rough wood. I saw my sister sitting out on the deck in a bunch of beanbags. My mom came up to me and said, "Z, I left a present in your room for you." I went downstairs, and it turned out to be this book on the history of Colorado or something like that. Then I woke up.

This dream partially overlapped with reality, as if I was in the early stages of a WILD - but I wasn't lucid. I saw a town. I recall some kind of device around my arm, and an application that reminded me of Facebook, or a dating app, telling me it suggested a nearby café for some reason. Only vague flashes remain of this bit. Then, I was in my bed (overlap with reality part starts here) and looked to my left through the open door of my bedroom. I saw a very creepy little girl dressed in red approach. I couldn't see her face. She looked a lot like Alma from the game FEAR. I was almost frozen in fear. At some point I decided I couldn't just lie there and let whatever happen, so I conquered my fear and jumped out of bed. I thought about getting one of my guns, and closing and locking the door. Sadly she was already in my room, walking by the bed to the other side. The rush of adrenaline I felt when I got out of the bed woke me up.

This dream featured gameplay of the game Fury³, a very old Microsoft game from 1995. My view was the camera of the ship. I flew around Terran, the first planet. My objective was to blow up some kind of tower. I fired on it, but it wouldn't blow up yet. I flew up, then dived down for another volley. Another target (or the same one?) also flailed to blow up. It took off (it was a big ship) and flew off. Having failed to destroy it, I expected to fail the game, but I think I got assigned a new target instead.

It started in a small room. It was a long time ago, possible early 20th century, or even late 19th century. A couple of men were showing their refrigerators (I know, random). They said it ran on 500 Watts of power. I had my refrigerator with me, a modern one (their was ancient, they were from the late 1800's after all), and said it ran on 2000 Watts. They got suspicious as mine looked way too "futuristic" to them. I was from the future, so their suspicion was justified. At some point I was apprehended by a Nazi. Gestapo, or SS. *Racism warning*. He called me a "nigger" and ordered me to come with him. I tried to reason with the creep, saying I was clearly white, but he would not listen. Some other guy, also a Nazi (except I had known this guy for longer, apparently) had to take me in. We walked through a large, crowded corridor. I begged him to look the other way for a moment so I could get away. He used to be a friend, I think. I managed to escape onto a small town square, then flee between two houses. The place looked pretty old and Mediterranean. I heard a Nazi scream something, and felt a whole horde of the bastards chasing me. I was running on the street, when I felt myself being lifted up from the ground. I started to fly. I wasn't freaked out by this, even though it was my first time (in this dream's continuity). I didn't mind, I knew they would never catch me at that speed. I wasn't very good at steering yet, and I felt I couldn't avoid hitting the houses on the other side of the street. I plunged right through the window of a café, past two people who were trying to enjoy their coffee. Despite not *really* remembering my previous flying experiences, I remembered I had always had trouble NOT flying into buildings and decided a different approach. I would *let it* happen, and see what happens. By ignoring the buildings and not worrying about what would happen, I phased right through them. I could "become solid" mid-flight and burst through walls/glass/whatever, which was cool. When I was out of the houses again, I gained altitude again and looked out over the town. I felt invincible. I wanted revenge on the Nazi's. I didn't care about their puny bullets anymore. I'd rip 'em apart with my bare hands, or use TK. I knew the school (the place I escaped from was a school, apparently) was to my left, so I tried to turn left while imagining the place to create it. I think I was lucid at this point. I probably gained lucidity at around the point I started flying. Sadly, I instantly woke up the moment I tried this.

Final flash before I called it a night: someone was doing some kind of job (on a large wall?), and I was scratching rust off of my car.

My dream started out at the time of world war 2, I was a little boy living in the Soviet Union and because it was times of need, I worked at a factory. We got an official visit from Stalin and a bunch of other people, they said that for our Safety we will evacuate and board planes heading for safer locations. The planes were designed as to if it were attacked all the seats would fall one by one through a tube and then a parachute would open. It took forever to get everyone and every thing situated, they said we could have our own theme song play when we came out of the tube. I prayed and prayed when we started to take off and the flight was going well for a while but there were fighter planes that shot my plane down, everyone's seat went through the tube like designed and we parachuted down, me and someone else landed in the snow in the middle of a city next to a bridge and then a van pulled up and they started chasing us, they caught me and that is all of my story as I don't know what happened to me next. My dream turns into a 3rd person thing and I see all the planes get shot down, some have survivors and some don't and Stalin's plane was the last with just him and his little daughter in it, they get shot down as well. It turns out that it wasn't the Germans or world war II, there was a great revolt by the Red Army and Stalin was trying to move as much industry and personal to friendly territory as possible. I don't know what happened to me but I know that most people on the journey died, me and someone else were captured and thats it.

I find myself raising out of bed in the dark, and begin to notice the dream-feel. I noseplug and become lucid. I feel that the dream is very unstable, and know I need to do something quick. I float over to the window, and try to head to an outdoor area. I feel the void coming and set to make it through. I feel the outside of where the window would be and focus on the tactile sense. After a short moment, I begin humming a song to keep myself anchored while the next scene forms. I begin drumming on the surface along to humming of my song, and am starting to have fun in the void! I continue doing this for a minute or two as I continue to wait for imagery. I feel that nothing may be coming for a while, so I think back to the visualization training in sivason's course and begin visualizing a light blue background. I make my entire visual field into a light blue, and it seems to kick things into gear. I see to pastel looking birds flicker into the dream scene briefly, and make ca-caw sounds. I then ask for the dream to burst into vivid imagery. Suddenly, I find myself in an outdoor area standing in front of a two story lodge. I feel that the setting is situated in a mountainous area. It appears to be some sort of retreat center. I see a sliding glass door on the bottom level, and a wooden staircase ascending to the second story on my left. The scene is very realistic and vivid. I walk quickly up the stairs to see how moving quickly and taking in a lot of visuals would affect stability. I think back to the pages of the dream yoga course I re-read that night, and how the tactile and auditory training primes you to be able to process more stimuli. I walk up the stairs quickly and come to a glass door with a metal handle on the left. I think to myself that the handle is unnecessary and phase through. I think back to my goals and remember I wanted to find and talk to my spirit guide. I enter the massive rectangular room that extendeded far down to the right. It seems like a row of office rooms in front of me across from the entrance. Just to the right is a small staircase leading to an upper ledge area, and far down to the right looks like a rest area for younger children who visit. There appears to be a dark brown leather seat in this area for kids to sit in next to what appear to be book shelves. I consider shouting out for my spirit guide, but decide to explore and simply ask. I enter the first office room, and turn right to see a male sitting behind a desk on his computer. He is African American, in his forties with a blue button-down shirt and a short black mustache with short black hair. He stands as I approach, smiling, and I outstretch my hand for a handshake. I say "Hi, I'm Eric....do you know what the name of this place is?" I feel that it might be called 'The Spirit Lodge' for some reason, but don't want to jump to conclusions. He goes deep into thought, turns his head and says "Oh well, my name is Steve, and what I can help you out with..." and the dream quickly collapses.

Morning of July 1, 2016. Friday.



My wife Zsuzsanna and family as we are now are living back on Stadcor Street in Brisbane. Our youngest son first notices a caterpillar which moves quite fast. I tell people not to touch it as it has long hairs (though I honestly am not certain if it is poisonous in this way). It seems to crawl unnaturally fast at times but is not really a threat; only a curiosity. It is somewhat of a deep blue color.

Eventually, it seems to make a cocoon after we have it in a large rectangular plastic tub full of dirt. We are out on the back porch, seemingly early in the morning. As I watch, the cocoon moves rapidly over its body like a transparent skin. There is interest concerning when it will become a moth or butterfly. Almost as soon as the cocoon is formed the caterpillar changes as the “skin” now disappears and it becomes a large moth that flies upward. It is almost like a small bird.

---

This is a curious and more direct waking transition utilizing the typical consciousness displacement flight symbol in leaving the dream state. A cocoon can be seen as a dream sign (analogous to the sheet or blanket that covers the sleeping dreamer) as, additionally in this case, a moth is attracted to moonlight. A caterpillar, especially in a cocoon, is a waking precursor that implies the liminal space on a more subdued level. The moth has a crescent moon design on its wings, which indicates the dream state itself (moon induction) as now waning in relationship to the circadian rhythms and biological nature of the dream state and dream stability and continuity. As I wake while we stand on the back porch, while watching the moth fly up and away, our youngest son is to my right and I am facing the outer wall of the bedroom where Zsuzsanna and I had slept while living at that house (dream sign and waking reference).

---

I find myself looking into a mirror in my home. My face is recreated just about perfectly, yet I get a strange feeling about the situation. I begin thinking and realize 'Wait, I was just in a dream where I was helping my grandpa out with some papers, this has to be a dream'. I look into the mirror again very sharply and say, yeah this is a dream. I turn right, head out through the door way and immediately think back to a dream goal I had. I consider trying to find my spirit guide, but then think that I'll do somethink a little more fun in this one. I turn right and head down the hallway, and smile to myself about how realistic everything is. Spatiall, everything is recreated very close to perfectly. Everything is in the right place, the rooms are the correct sizes, and the layout is correct. The color is a bit dim, but the dream appears to be in the very early morning hours. It feels a bit more more like the typical OBE you hear about. I head toward the counter and see only a few things on it. I think back to a previous goal and decide I'm going to eat one of S's chocolate cakes she made me for my b-day. I head around the counter and figure it would be easier to imagine the container behind one of the recesses. I make my way around the corner and see a container with a green lid. I open it, and a piece is inside. It has a lot of moisture as though it has some extra liquid on it. I take a couple bites, and feel the energizing effect of the super intense cocoa. One of my goals was to feel the strong effect of the cocoa The taste isn't very strong, but I know it could be. I turn to the fridge to try again, and try to find some dark chocolate bars. The collapses rapidly and I find myself returning to my body.

I'm in bed next to S, and I roll over in the dark and put my arm over her. We start talking, and I get a strange feel about the situation. I do a noseplug and I'm lucid. I give her a big hug, still unable to see much in the dark. I then tell her, "Well, I have some good news and some bad news... we're dreaming... but we can still keep talking and go outside Wasn't bad news for me, but maybe for her! She agrees and I go to scoop her up in my arms and turn to fly through the window to head outside with her. As I'm turning,I say, "I have to ask you though.. why didn't you tell me that we were dreaming? She says matter-of-factly something like "You looked like you were resting...I didn't want to bother you". Fair enough I thought, and continued toward the window to head outside. The dream begins to fade rapidly and I wake.

I was gathering with a group of people, training or preparing for something. I was practicing my flips or trying to practice my flips.

It became a Team Fortress themed scene. We were preparing for invasion.

I was trapped in an outdoor area that they (the military?) are going to close soon. I was hurrying to the exits, but it looks like it's too late. I saw the guards closing the exits while running on a plaza area. I reached the closed gate. Nearby, a guy wearing white buttoned shirt and glasses called to me to follow him, presumably to their hiding place. I followed him. It seems there are monsters that come out during this time, and the citizens have to hide. I was in their hiding place. The hiding place became mobile, like a tank. They were busy chatting about it more with excitement than fear. We passed by some areas where there are body parts and blood lying around.

Somehow, I realized I was the monster, so I felt I have to leave and move away or everyone in that tank will die. When we were nearing the border gate, I saw a woman arguing with a guard (female?). I'm not sure if she wanted to leave or stay, but she looked fearless. Then we heard a roar or something. From the opening of the building to my right, something came rushing out. I jumped out of the tank, turned into a monster, and clashed with the other monster.

Again super late to bed, but some decent dreaming. Mind busy with work stuff so recall poor.

+ sexy time

Spoiler for sexy time encounter:

I'm having intercourse with a girl. I'm about to climax, and I think I'd probably better pull out and put on a condom. I do so and I notice that I'm already wearing one even though I didn't put on one before. I think this means she was ready ahead of time and put in the condom before we started so that when I entered her it would automatically slip on. After this we don't get back to business.

later:

+ preparing an advertisement using an image editing program, pasting a graphic in at the bottom and scrolling around to see the whole thing.

+ bunch of snoozing short scenes
Approaching a (strip club?), two women are talking outside on the sidewalk/parking lot, one young and hot (a dancer) and one older. The younger one is saying how she really needs money and business is pretty slow. I'm heading in that direction but don't want her to get the idea that I'd be a potential customer. Some thoughts about spending hundreds of dollars and wondering how much this would affect her financial situation.

I see (imagine?) a girl leaning on a building across the street, and how I could go and talk to her?

In a large open field, there are people (looking for?) and a dog, a man finds the dog, a woman leaves the scene, being the former many-year owner of the dog. I sob bitterly at the prospect of losing a long-time beloved pet like that.

Morning of July 1, 2016. Friday.



My wife Zsuzsanna and our family as we are now (relative to age and appearance for the most part) are seemingly living back on Stadcor Street in Brisbane. However, our house is eventually implied to be haunted. There are also a number of other people, including a young black male, who are either staying with us or just looking things over as visitors. It seems we may have just moved in within the last few days.

A few different times, termites crawl out from near the top of the walls. There seems to be some sort of demonic or ghostly presence in the “attic” (though there really was not an actual attic as such in real life). The black male spends time looking at the ceiling and I notice some unusual patterns. For example, parts of the ceiling have spiderweb-like cracks in about three different areas as well as real spiderweb a short distance from the ceiling light. At one point, there is a small cylindrical hole where sand or dust rains down from for a short time.

The room shared by our two oldest children when they were younger now seems to possibly serve as a different room, though there is an unfamiliar and unknown young dark-haired female in another room whose room it may be (or may soon be) and I am seemingly checking the room regarding its safety. Instead of a wooden ceiling of planks, it is white tiles and actually seems like my bedroom in Cubitis in some ways (though the ceiling is lower). However, it also seems like some sort of unusual but very subtle composite even though the Cubitis house layout is different from the Stadcor Street house layout, though two bedrooms and the living room (lounge room) are in similar locations with respect to each other's directional orientation.

I reach up through the pushed-aside ceiling tile and find an old paperback children’s book with a yellow cover and a sketchy drawing on a white panel with a black border. I am unsure of the title. I think it may be a story from “365 Bedtime Stories” (owned for years in my childhood) and may refer to “What a Jolly Street” (which I have not thought of in many years). I brush and sweep dust and spiderweb from it with a very realistic focus and sense of awareness and touch. It depicts a cheerful running boy (implied to be running away from the foreground, though at an angle from his right) with a blanket over his shoulders (obvious dream sign though it does not trigger anything - though the cover being yellow is a dawning consciousness and sunrise symbol). I give it to the unknown girl who may be implied to be my (fictional) daughter though as other families may also be living in the house, I remain unsure. I am also aware of my real youngest son at one point during this scenario. I am able to find a few more similar books and find it fascinating and enriching, though almost like a typical faux lucidity where I expect something (without knowing I am dreaming) and manifest it with no effort. (The thought alone creates it.)

Back in the kitchen, there is movement in the ceiling over time, which is not tiled but of some sort of white fiberboard. Whatever is up there is very heavy and seems to make the ceiling slightly lower wherever it goes. Everyone seems concerned as we clearly hear it within the ceiling, “following me” wherever I walk, which is quite interesting - as if it can sense me somehow - even though I try to walk very quietly. This goes on for several minutes. At one point, there is the idea that it may be a giant rat although its “real” form may be a demon or ghost. I am annoyed more than frightened in any way and talk about “how to get rid of the demonic presence”. After a time, it speaks in a deep patronizing voice. This causes me to have had enough since this being also brings out termites a few times (as if by supernatural control), though they do go back into the walls. I shout as loud as I can for the being to leave and I do not stop. I am not afraid; I am annoyed. Eventually, it seems quieter.

I casually walk into our large lounge room. On the opposite side of the room and to the right (near the front windows) is a large lion sitting in a natural position on one of two large couches (which form a corner against two walls that join) and is “playfully” nudging one of six or seven toddlers who are somehow all sitting atop the back of the couch. The lion is opening his mouth around one in particular as if to indicate he is about to swallow her. There does not seem to be an immediate threat because the lion does not actually bite any of them. However, I have had enough of this strange “haunting” and even strongly feel that sacrificing myself to save the toddlers is the right thing to do. I get the lion’s attention to distract him from hurting any of the toddlers and he jumps down from the couch and approaches me. I assertively demand “Who are you?” after boldly gazing at his face for a time, because, even though I am not lucid in any way, I get the strong impression that I should do this.

The lion eventually starts talking in a rough human male voice as I look stoically into his eyes, but, almost without me noticing the change, the lion is now a dark-haired and heavily mustached European male (perhaps in his early forties) standing before me in a medieval swordsman outfit, though there are also the essences of court jester and pilgrim in his overall appearance and I seem to make out vague pale green and brownish horizontal stripes across his jerkin. His hair is about shoulder length though his small hood seems up. He talks about being the former resident of our house. He seems angry about its fate. Oddly, his main concern is about a party that is apparently to be held in the kitchen. I am not so keen on a party myself. I try to reassure him so as to stop all the ghostly commotion and eventually wake - with an understanding that a few of the other people will not have a party that may wreck the house and annoy the ghost.

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The setting of the kitchen may relate to slight hunger in sleep, though here, it may also imply the presence of the lion of coalescence as a lion represents swallowing the dreamer back into whole consciousness. The toddlers probably represent potential new (or offset) dream states, as this takes place on a couch (a dream sign as it is like a bed). When I was getting books from above the ceiling, I was attempting to reach and communicate with the critical thinking skills of my conscious mind, which are usually greatly lacking in dreams (as anything above the ceiling represents conscious activity as does a haunting - which is meant to stir the conscious self into waking or at least being more aware within the dream state). With the most subtle of conscious activity (though I am never lucid here) I even get a direct symbolic response that indicates I am sleeping and dreaming (the book cover of a boy running with a sheet over his shoulders). The challenge of “who are you” is quite extreme and rare for me in a non-lucid dream state (though is commonly practiced by other schools of thought in dream work), especially as I subliminally know the “who are you” is a form of my emerging consciousness. Overall, I found this dream fascinating and have placed it on my “favorites” list. It is one of my favorite non-lucid dreams in recent years.

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Again, it is curious how I challenge the Gatekeeper in liminal space, which, for whatever reason, some people identify as the “subconscious”, though this makes no sense as it is the dawning conscious self that is growing in activity in the dream state, not the “subconscious” (a term I no longer use or broadly accept anymore). A swordsman represents truth and clarity of conscious day to day awareness and in some cases implies a higher “destiny” regarding change (especially the angel with a blue flaming sword). A concern about the “party in the kitchen” possibly relates to eating healthier foods and losing a bit of extra weight yet may also metaphorically relate to a more profound coalescence in integrating more with the Source.