side notes

I've gotten better at WILD, although it took... what... 4 years?

I've found I have much more control over the dream and don't run into the "stuck in the dark" issue that plagues my lucid dreams when I gain awareness during a dream.

I've been horrible about keeping a dream journal, and today I only remember my 2 WILD lucid dreams and not much else. Very lazy of me.

My favorite method for WILD is to explore a specific environment. I have two main fallbacks, two different "home bases". I know a lot of people really want to create a home base. It has been very difficult for me - I had no luck even managing to arrive in my home base for 2 solid years. I think part of it was that my "home" really wasn't a good one and didn't reflect my true personality or needs, and I had to spend a lot of time rearranging and rebuilding it in my head. I have two different ones right now, depending on what I want to accomplish. One is a whimsical home in what looks like the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, perched on a cliff over the ocean. The other one is a fortress in a rugged landscape that looks a lot like the Grand Canyon, although much more mountainous.


LD #1: Woke up. Had to use the bathroom. Went back to bed.
Began my visualization of home #1... I was on the sandy beach below the cliff. I walked up and down the beach in my mind, focusing on all of the sensations that would go with it - the sound of the waves, the sound of the wind, the feel of the sand beneath my feet and even the slight whisper it made when I walked. How my footprints looked. The sky and horizon over the ocean, and the smell of salt on the breeze. Eventually, the sound of gulls over the water.

I looked back toward my house. There are steep stairs that lead up from the beach to the top of the cliff - they're made from the stones themselves. I walk across the beach to the steps and start climbing upward toward the house. The stones feel solid beneath my feet.

By the time I reach the top of the cliff, the dream has solidified into a lucid dream, although it still feels very fragile. I spend some time on the terrace at the top of the cliff looking out across the beach and ocean, and marvel at how beautiful it is.

I have a feeling that there are some friends nearby heading toward my house, so I move through the bedroom (which has a door leading to the terrace) and then the kitchen area. Things are fuzzy and I've made the mistake of not stabilizing very well because I'm anxious to greet my friends.

I open the front door. The rainforest outside is cool and misty. Wooden steps create a trail upward through the foliage. I can hear their voices in the distance, it sounds like two of them are arguing with each other.

Two of my friends appear at the top of the steps and start heading downward... I can still hear the others arguing with each other, although they're still out of sight somewhere further up the trail.

All of this is very distracting. The dream is too thin at this point, and it fades. I wake up.

LD #2:
I wake up naturally. It's early morning... light outside, but earlier than I'd like to get out of bed. I don't really remember the dreams I just had.

I lie back and begin another visualization; this time, I'm exploring the fortress. The fortress is a very new idea, interesting and a bit more grim. I wander around through some nondescript rooms... I haven't really developed the place much... and eventually become lucid in an area with ugly lemon yellow walls that really don't look very fortressy. I'm sort of irritated since I'd rather be somewhere more fitting for what I'd like, and more interesting. The hall I'm going down twists and turns but doesn't lead anywhere, and I'm becoming more irritated.

I run across a woman wearing a very old-fashioned maid outfit (not like a sexy French maid, think a traditional English maid) but she's very... zombielike. I think I said something to her, and she replied in a monotone. Her eyes were white and milky-looking. I don't like her and don't want to deal with zombies, so I destroy her (with a thought, she basically becomes a blood spatter across the walls and floor).

I run across one of the dream characters who'd normally inhabit this fort (he's a general) but everything is foggy so I don't recall any specifics about him... I need to work on him a little more... and complain about the zombie. He tells me that he and another dream character zombified all of the inhabitants and servants in the fortress when they took it over, so they wouldn't have to deal with any opposition by them but the fortress was kept running and in pretty decent repair. He doesn't care much about convenience and upkeep for himself - he doesn't need that stuff - but the way he sees it, it's more convenient for me. It's sort of evil and disturbing, but it IS something I'd expect that character to do, and he does have a good point.

This wasn't something I came up with myself... I was a little surprised by it, actually. I still don't really like the zombies, but I don't want to argue with that particular dream character very much - he's very stubborn - so I let the zombie thing slide.

As I head toward the main door that leads outside of the fortress, the dream falls apart and I wake up.

As I fall asleep, I practice visualizing and mentally exploring my "base". It has gotten more detailed as it has grown organically over time. I've only managed to reach it in one lucid dream, which was blurry and short, but... well, time and patience. I think part of my problem is that I tend to think of it as 'home', but when my dreaming mind goes "home" I end up in old apartments and bedrooms. I may need to rename/reframe it as something else, like Focal Point, or simply the Cottage. It will be a good springboard, once I manage to make it into a stable setting.

I've worked on visualizing it as I fall asleep at first not because I expect to have my first lucid dream there (there's a great deal of NREM before your first dream) but because I want visualizing that setting to become automatic for my V-WILDs later at night.

I've had a lot more success with V-WILD than anything else, although the dreams tend to be "fuzzier" - not sure why. They tend to fade quickly. I suppose it's something I'll need to work on.

My first few dreams... I don't recall them. I wake up. It's 7-8 in the morning and I don't need to get up any time soon, so I let myself start drifting off to sleep. I decide to try a WILD but I'm too sleepy to want to put much effort into it, so I decide to drift and latch onto the first setting that presents itself.

That setting is the store that I work in. It is a dreamlet that I am standing behind the row of cash registers. I am still mostly awake at this point, but I decide to go with it. I mentally "walk" out from behind the counter and start walking toward the market section of the store.

As I "walk", the visualization gains vividness and clarity. It begins to become more than merely a visualization, although it is not yet a dream. In the past, I may have tried to "push" it into a full blown lucid dream, but that mistake can cause the dream to collapse. I have learned to simply let it gently glide into a dream.

By the time I reach the center of the market, it has become a full blown dream. It's still "thin", though (hard to explain). I am standing in market. The layout has changed, though, and it's not the store I recognize. I'm standing next to an open refrigerated section with several shelves lined with cartons of fruit - strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. The dream begins to fade a little bit. I run my hands over the fruit, trying to stabilize it. It doesn't seem to work very well. I remember that I need to engage more than one sense, and one of those senses is taste. I grab a strawberry and try to shove it into my mouth, but there is something like a force-field in front of my mouth, preventing me from doing so. I can't seem to put it in my mouth with my hand, so I toss it into the air and catch it in my mouth. It tastes how I would expect a strawberry to taste. I begin walking down the aisle, and the dream fades.

When another dream begins, I am no longer lucid, although I still have an instinctive feeling that what is happening is not "real", although I am not sure why.

I am riding in a small, worn wooden boat across a gunmetal gray lake, toward a barren shore. The sky is overcast and gray, and the lake is very flat and still. There is a man waiting for me on the shore. He is very tall and thin - almost gaunt - and dressed in odd-looking dull gray leather armor. There is a thick red woolen scarf wound around his shoulders, neck, and the bottom half of his face. He has messy black hair. I think of him as my cousin, even though he is nothing like any of my cousins in real life except for being very tall. I reach the shore and step out of the boat. The dream shifts and fades.

I later had other dreams, but they were fragmented and I can't recall them.

I don't really recall my dreams from last night, which is sort of disappointing. I'm making an entry in order to keep up the habit of making an entry, and also in case I recall anything throughout the day (which happens).

As I went to sleep tonight, I recited a mantra, "I will stabilize". I also firmly fixed in my mind that as soon as I began dreaming, I would know that I was dreaming.

This worked. I spent some time drifting, and then a dream began. I was lying in bed, and the lights were on. I looked to my left. There were 3 tiny, glowing playing cards floating in the space above my head. I thought, "Yes, I'm dreaming," and snatched the playing cards from where they were floating. It's hard to explain, but the cards were a cue for me - it was specifically seeing the cards that made me lucid. I don't remember what suites the cards were, only that they were 1/4 the size of normal playing cards, they were glowing, and they immediately induced lucidity.

I got out of bed, and my bedroom was very different and not at all like my real bedroom. The carpet was worn out, and an ugly shade of tannish orangy brown. My "dream room" carpet is always this ugly color, for some reason. The door was in the wrong place, and led to a hallway that doesn't exist, and there was no furniture besides my bed. The bed was a twin, but in real life, I have a full. I said, "Stabilize!". I went to the door and tried to visualize that as soon as I went through it, I would be in a rainforest. I tried very hard to convince myself of this.

When I went through the door, everything was dark. I saw shadowy forms that hinted that I was in another room. I got frustrated and lost lucidity.

I woke up, grumbled, and tried WILD. I got past the initial wave and felt as if I was sinking into my bed. I sat up out of my body. I tried to open my eyes, but it was very hard, and I felt like I was opening my physical eyes. I was really tired and had work in the morning, so I gave up on it and lapsed back into unawareness. I dreamed that my head had made a huge dent in my pillow, so now my pillow had 2 lumps of stuffing on either side and nothing in the middle. I tossed and turned (in the dream) and tried to make it comfortable somehow.

I dreamed I was shopping at a store. I've never been there in my waking life. There was a desk on a top shelf that I was interested in - it was $50, and I thought it would make a good room divider. But my cell phone was malfunctioning badly. The screen came off (how?) and then it got hot to touch and melted. I got some of the melted screen on my finger, and it burned me. I kept thinking about how frustrated I was that all of my money now had to go toward buying a new phone. I needed a smartphone, too, so it was going to be expensive.

I woke up. I tried some visualizations. I visualized a room full of dolls, where each doll represented a DC I knew. I visualized putting a doll on the floor and making it grow to full size. (I was not asleep at this time). I began drifting off, but the visualization didn't completely take hold, and I didn't become lucid. Instead, the room became the room of a woman with a group of really odd friends. My dream followed their antics, but I don't recall any specifics on what they were.

Review:
Dream clues:
- Playing cards (instant lucidity)
- My pillow doesn't have stuffing. It's a memory foam pillow.
- Unfamiliar store, without recalling how I got there
- Malfunctioning phone (malfunctioning electronics)
- Spectator perspective

Edit: Believe it or not... I actually figured out the playing cards while I was riding the train home. In my dream, they were glowing like they were lit up LEDs. On the train ride home, there's an installation where LED playing cards flash by the train windows. I tend to stare out the window at them because I'm bored and they're something to look at... which means I'm also staring at my reflection. So, since mirrors instantly make me lucid (for some reason), apparently my brain linked the playing cards with my reflection strongly enough that just looking at a card makes me lucid.

I dreamed that I was part of a crew that was going to ride in a rocket to the moon. The capsule we were going in looked very old, like 1960s era Soviet technology, and it was very tiny. It had one circular room. 2 men were operating the actual controls, and I was supposed to navigate. For some reason, I did this with old-fashioned looking blueprints. Our first mission was successful.

Things went a little wrong during the 2nd mission. There was another woman, Sophia, who was training to be a navigator. They assigned both of us to the capsule for the next mission, but it was far too cramped for 4 people to fit inside... when all 4 people got in, I didn't have enough space to actually do my job. Finally, it was decided that Sophia would stay behind.

Eventually, we docked at a tiny space station with a room with several beds built into the wall.

Then, a perspective shift. I'm now a spectator, and Captain Kirk is leading an old-fashioned-looking starship. He's only doing it temporarily, until they pick up the "real" captain. They run into a very strange colony/organism, it's a giant, translucent, organic bag of liquid with worms and snake-like creatures inside of it. It reminds me a lot of looking through a microscope at a slide full of tiny creatures. Anyway, it engulfs the ship. Kirk leaves the ship and floats into a little air sac/bubble in order to try negotiating with the creatures, but they're sort of evil. Eventually, he decides it can't be done, so he punches a hole in the side of the sac and all of the fluid drains off into space.

Then I dream that my mother gave me 2 bowls of popcorn. One is smaller than the other. I sit and pet an orange kitten, and we both eat popcorn.

Review:
Dream clues:
- I do not normally operate rockets
- It is not the 1960s
- "Spectator" perspective
- My mother is 2000 miles away
- I don't own a kitten

1. I dream I am working at a nursing home. I take care of an old lady, and take her to a doctor appointment, but forget to actually take her in to see the doctor. I send her off (to somewhere) and then remember that the doctor hasn't actually seen her, and start worrying that even though she is healthy she may have health problems that aren't so obvious... but there's no way to fix it without getting in a lot of trouble.

2. One of my less comfortable OBEs. I partially woke up, but my body was still 'paralyzed' and I was half asleep. I tried to settle down and catch onto a dreamlet or something. That isn't working and I'm not entirely lucid, so I try to sit up out of my body. My body "sticks" to me like it's glue, so I try to roll over out of it. I feel like I am tipping and sinking backwards into the bed. I am in the "wind tunnel". I start to panic, and after a lot of flailing around and struggling, I lapse back into unawareness.

3. I dream that there is a huge snowstorm and the whole city has shut down. The city I live in is one I've never seen before in my life. I go outside and start trying to shovel snow with everybody else.

4. I dream I am in a castle. I am moving through room after room. The floor has diamond floor tiles in various brown colors. I can get on top of the walls and run along them, and jump down into other rooms. As I am crossing a hallway, I see a mirror. Mirrors always make me lucid - I approach it, see my reflection, and 'push' into lucidity. Unfortunately, I'm sleeping too lightly, and it wakes me up (not a false awakening).

I grumble and roll over. A few minutes pass. Someone lightly knocks on my door, twice. I ignore it because if my brother is trying to wake me up on the morning I have a day off work, he's being a jerk.

Someone knocks on my door again, a little louder, twice.
I say "what?" but there's no answer. I get up and open my door, but nobody is there. I hear someone in the kitchen. I go into the kitchen and ask my roommate, "Did you knock on my door?"
She says, "No, I wouldn't do that."
My brother is asleep... my other roommate isn't home. My roommate verified that she was, in fact, making breakfast, and that I did ask her if she knocked on my door. Even though it was a hypnopompic hallucination, it still sounded very real, and was pretty creepy.

Review:
Last night was semi-productive, I guess. I'm having more lucids, but the quality has gone down. I don't think it's because I'm getting "worse" at lucid dreaming, so much as I am having a lot more lucid dreams lately and the quality will slowly improve again.

When I say OBE, I don't really mean that I believe it's an actual out of body experience. I mean that it's a specific kind of lucid dream I have where it feels like I am rising/rolling/whatever out of my body, and either end up in the void or end up in a facsimile of my bedroom, while my "body" remains in bed. I don't believe anything paranormal is going on, it's just a really specific kind of dream with a really specific feeling... and a specific set of challenges that I still haven't overcome.

Clues I was dreaming:
- I don't work in a nursing home
- We don't have blizzards where I live
- I don't generally wander around castles

I dreamed about abandoned, crumbling, overgrown overpasses and train tracks through the wilderness. I clung to the bottom of one, like monkey bars. Some friends and I went into the wilderness to explore, but we were afraid of getting lost. We ran across another group of people. In our explorations, we cut through a lot of grass and underbrush, and I was worried about the impact we were having on the landscape.

I then dreamed that I got a job at a shop in a historic section of a city. It was a job at a candy shop, and it was partly commission-based. My mother didn't want me to take it. She said the area was "too dangerous".
I was at the outside cafe section of a nearby restaurant when I went lucid. The restaurant was inside of a converted Victorian style house. When I realized I was dreaming, I immediately went inside to look for a specific DC I really wanted to see. I didn't see him. Instead, there was a waiter who was in his late 30s but mostly bald. I covered my eyes and tried to imagine that he was the DC. When I uncovered them, he had changed a little bit; his face had morphed, and was a little blurry, and tufts of hair were coming out of the side of his head, and he looked a little... melted. I got very frustrated.
I recall that my surroundings were hazy. I recall the restaurant having a lot of dark wood in its decor, and being a fine dining/upscale sort of place.

Review:
I think I went lucid because I realized the area I was in was unfamiliar and I did not recall how I got there, and this was a cue that I was dreaming. I have also just randomly gone lucid a lot out of "habit" - I am used to habitually questioning reality, now, so I also do it while I am dreaming as well, which I suppose is the whole point of ADA. This has led to a gradual but measurable increase in lucid dreams. Three years of practice are finally paying off.

For anybody who is just getting started, remember this: it took a year and a half of trying before I had my first lucid dream.

I need to work on remembering to stabilize and observe before trying to do anything. I've been frustrated at the haziness of my lucids lately, but I also have not been observing and stabilizing as I ought to. I need to work on vividness and stabilization. I miss the beautiful landscapes of my first few lucids... I've stopped observing and gotten too impatient, and it's backfiring.

I try too often to exert direct control. I think my attempt to change the waiter may have been a tad too direct. I still wouldn't call it a complete failure - I did succeed at partially changing his features.

Things I could have done:
- Asked the waiter to seat me, sat down at the table, and waited for the DC I was trying to find to show up at the time we'd agreed on.
- Continued to look for the DC in the crowd.
- Looked for the table that I knew the DC was waiting at.
- Used the restaurant doorway to go somewhere that I knew the DC was at (scene change).
- Reached behind myself and felt for the DC's hand.

So, tonight will be another night - and hopefully, another lucid. I need to remember to use my environment to my advantage.

I was very stressed when I went to bed last night. I had a lot of trouble falling alseep, and I don't remember my dreams. I woke up and was about to attempt a WILD but was disturbed by a friend calling my phone.

I may recall some fragments throughout today, but I think last night was a bust.

I am in an old apartment, the one we lived in when I was in high school. I dream that I have 3 pet hamsters. I only meant to buy 2, and the 3rd one is very small and snuck in with the others. They're very bitey and nip at my fingers whenever I try to handle them. 2 are typical "golden" hamsters, and one is a mottled tortoise shell color. I have placed them in a cage I purchased, but the cage seems to have come without doors, so they simply keep crawling out of the cage. I finally locate the door for the cage, but it's very dented and doesn't close properly. In addition to this, the cage has little "windows" (gaps in the bars) and they just squeeze out through there. I'm worried since I don't want a hamster population explosion in the apartment complex.

I wake up. I try to WILD but the kids next door are being super loud, which is obnoxious since it's about 7:00 in the morning.

I am in a Dwarven city. I am incorporeal, simply watching the dream. The city is a network of underground tunnels, many of them lined with thousands of polished gemstones that reflect the torch light. The gemstones become more numerous and precious in the tunnels that lead to the houses of the wealthier citizens. There are also a few Hobbits who live here. Many of the tunnels converge in caverns, which have shops and restaurants and markets.

I follow a character who's a hobbit. He's supposed to be an idiot. He's running around inside of the dwarf tunnels frantically looking for someone. There are areas of the complex that are specifically off-limits to him because he caused so much trouble... specifically the home of a very wealthy hobbit whom he caused a lot of grief. He's running around and being disruptive again.

Dream shifts - either it's a new dream or there's a huge break in the narrative. 2 men are trying to canoe across a freezing cold lake. For some reason, they're naked. The canoe tips and they end up falling into the lake, which is super cold. One of the guys tips the canoe back over and the water inside instantly freezes. He climbs into the canoe and starts digging the ice out of it with a shovel. The other guy is still treading water in the lake, complaining about the cold; the guy in the canoe tells him to wait and take deep breaths, he's trying to empty the canoe out.

Mikasan, here is approximately half of an answer to "what was the treasure" for you. This dream was definitely non-lucid, but it looks like the Dwarves still had my treasure map... haha. Apparently, the treasure was a cure for a rare disease:

Scene shift... 2 Dwarves are searching for something that seems very important to them. They have a map. One of them looks like Lokmin, from a prior lucid dream. What they're searching for is apparently a huge cliff above a lake... there was supposed to be an inscription on it, but the stones have eroded and fallen into the lake. They have to fish the stones out of the lake and try to piece them back into place. The portions of the inscription that they can make out alludes to some kind of cure for a disease... something about "the king was the single one I could cure". They need to know what the cure was, which the inscription is supposed to talk about, if they can find the pieces. While Lokmin is dangling from the cliff face, one of the pieces crumbles and falls on top of him (it would have weighed several hundred pounds) and he tumbles into the lake with the slab of stone.

I never went lucid or found out what the cure was. I hope poor Lokmin's alright!

I had some difficulty initially falling asleep which disrupted attempts to use a mantra. Attempted DEILD last night. Wasn't successful at entering a lucid dream, but it did result in a very long non-lucid that resumed every time I went back to sleep.

These dreams are non-lucid but there is a very, very low level of semi-lucidity running through them, especially the later ones. I was not lucid but had some idea on a very basic level that it was not real, although I didn't realize it was a dream or even unconsciously influence the dreams. The fact that Bun popped up in the first dream was a clue that my dreaming mind was aware on at least a basic level, as summoning and petting Bun was one of my lucid goals. It's especially telling that in the dream, I was aware that this Bun was not the "real" Bun but she was still a perfect replica.

#1 - I have a pet rabbit again. I have named her Bun, after my last pet rabbit, and she looks exactly the same as my "old" Bun. I understand that this new rabbit is not my old rabbit (who died of old age) but she looks and behaves a lot like her. I don't feel sad in this dream. I feel happy that I have my rabbit back, in some form, again.

This is interesting to have popped up in a non-lucid dream, since one of my lucid goals is to summon Bun, pet her, and keep her in my base so I can play with her whenever I want to see her again. This was one of the goals I meditated on as I fell asleep. Alright, I know that's sad, but I miss her a lot.

On a side note: domesticated house-rabbits can be trained with very simple commands. They're devious, though, and not nearly as obedient as a dog.

I am building a cage for her. The cage came in a box, in several pieces, and is about 6' long. I've built a rabbit cage before, but this one is put together very oddly, so I'm having some difficulty.

In addition, New Bun is not trained like Old Bun is, so instead of obediently waiting in the same room as me while I prepare her cage, she keeps running off into areas of the apartment she shouldn't be in. I'm in an old bedroom of mine with light brown carpet. New Bun keeps chewing on the carpet and furniture, even when I tell her "No". I'm not angry, but I am a bit exasperated, because I spent so much time training the last rabbit not to do that and I don't want to have to do it all over again. I keep chasing after New Bun and carrying her back to my room, which is difficult because holding onto a squirming rabbit who doesn't want to be carried AND doesn't want to go where you're taking her is like trying to hold onto an angry water balloon.

She runs off AGAIN and this time I find her wriggling behind a server case, where there are a ton of wires. She's nibbling on the wires and doesn't pay attention to me scolding her. I pull the wires aside and try to grab her, but she wriggles in further. I disconnect the power so she doesn't electrocute herself. I have to move the entire case and disconnect all of the wires in order to get to her, and by now I'm pretty irritated.

I carry her (still as squirmy as before) back to the room and set her down. "Stay!" I command. She doesn't listen perfectly, but doesn't try to charge out the door again. I finally finish putting the cage together, and she bounds into her cage and settles down for a nap.

I wake up. I meditate on the dream and attempt to re-enter.

I fail at a DEILD and when the dream picks up again, I am non-lucid. My "mother", a woman with short blonde hair whom I have never met, comes into the room where I am petting Bun. She tells me that I need to get ready for my graduation ceremony. I close the door to Bun's cage and tell her goodbye.

The dream jumps locations and I am in a graduation ceremony that is being held at a place that is somehow simultaneously a yacht club and a water park. There is dance music playing and there is some sort of after-party. DJs have divided into Red and Blue teams, and over the course of the party, people are supposed to vote on which team's mix they like the most. Blue Team wins, although I don't particularly care. They put their mix CDs up for sale, but I'm not really interested; it's all super clubby "bro" techno. The party ends and it's time for me to pack my stuff up and move.

I wake up and use the bathroom. I meditate on the dream as I do so. When I lie back down the dream resumes. Throughout this section of the dream, I am almost nearly awake; I'm more aware that this is dreamlike but still not aware that I am dreaming, and do not affect the dream even subconsciously.

A friend of the family is helping me move to college. He looks like Dwight Shrute, for some reason, but he's not nearly as much of a jerk or nearly that creepy. The blonde haired woman - who was my mom before, but is now just a friend - rented a U-haul so she and her family could move their stuff, and is allowing me to pack some of my stuff in it since I'm moving somewhere that's sort of on the route to their new home. It's a long trip, and I ride in the back of the cab. "Dwight" chats with me the whole time. I want to chat with him about a movie about a group of people who make video games, but I can't remember the name of the movie and it's frustrating me.

Toward the end of the trip, the blonde woman reappears in the passenger seat - I hadn't known she was there, I think to myself, and think that it's so odd that she suddenly appeared there, but don't gain lucidity. I begin to look through my wallet; I only have a $20 and a $5. "Dwight" had paid for the gas and the blonde woman had paid for the U-haul, so I feel like I owe them something. I am debating the tackiness of handing them $25 total and telling them to split the money amongst themselves when I wake up.

Practices: ADA, Mindfulness, WBTB, DEILD
While falling asleep, mantra: "I am aware"

Dream #1 - I am with my friend, R__. She's driving a car - one belonging to one of my relatives, according to my dream-memory, but in real life none of them own a gray minivan. We're driving around a mall parking lot. We can't seem to find a parking space. She accidentally hits another car while pulling into a parking space, and I cringe at the sound, but she's more angry about it than worried. She decides to try to use a note left on her windshield to explain why she parked in one of the restricted parking spots, by claiming she can't walk that far, but I don't think that will hold up under scrutiny. She finally gives up and parks pretty far away from the mall entrance. We can see it from where we are, but it's quite a walk.

I briefly wake up from the dream and try to carry my awareness with me into my next dream, using my mantra.

As soon as the dream reforms, I am instantly lucid. I'm inside of the mall from the previous dream, but R__ is gone now. The lucid dream has the crystal clarity characteristic of my lucid. Since I'm not outdoors (unusual), rather than the usual sweeping landscapes and storm-swept skies, instead the architecture inside of the mall is extremely grand. Super high vaulted ceilings, probably 80-100 feet high, with graceful arches carved out of solid pale pink marble and golden inlays. Intricate carvings and sculptures. White marble floors. The whole thing looks more like the inside of a cathedral than a mall.

I look around and think, "This is definitely a dream". I inspect my hand - it's perfectly formed. I do a reality check by trying to push one hand through the other, but I can't. I shrug it off - I know I'm dreaming. I try to fly, and hover in the air above the crowds milling around the mall. My lucidity tends to fade very quickly while I'm flying, though - there's something about not having my feet on the ground that does that. So I land, and then crawl on the floor and inspect the marble tiles. There's grime between them and they feel a little gritty - this place needs to be swept and mopped.

I decide to go treasure hunting. I reach into my back pocket - for some reason, I'm wearing a skirt with pockets - and feel around for a map. I feel crumpled paper and tug. I pull out a sheet of notebook paper, folded in half several times, and unfold it. There is a map on it, scribbled in blue pen, but I can't read what it says. It also has little pictures. I decide that I need to go find a dream character who CAN read it, and if I'm going to treasure hunt, I'm going to do it in style - which means having a whole group of treasure hunters with me. I run my hand along the wall as I walk.

I walk toward the food court - well, an archway I have decided is the food court. The floor slopes downward between it in a ramp, heading underground. I can see tables in the distance. I decide that's kind of boring and want it to be something more exciting. As I approach, it morphs into a Viking style beer hall. I'm pretty satisfied - this is definitely more fun.

I enter the beer hall, which is smokey and full of warriors eating and drinking. There is an empty space in the middle with a fire-pit that looks like it's used by entertainers - wrestlers, musicians, etc. The benches on either side are elevated on steps, sort of like bleachers, so everybody can see. Nobody is performing right now, though.

I see a group of 5 or 6 Tolkein-style Dwarves over to one side. They look like they're having a pretty good time. I approach them and introduce myself. Their leader is a pretty buff looking Dwarf. He has long, thick braided brown hair and is wearing a sort of heavy brown leather harness that has what looks like a lion's mane stitched around the neck and shoulders. He greets me respectfully:
"I am Lokmin, son of (I can't remember his dad's name)." He thumps his chest (which is more Roman, I guess, but whatever).
I hold out my treasure map. "I've found a map to potential treasure, but it might be dangerous."
The Dwarves deliberate over my wrinkled sheet of notebook paper, making sounds of interest and approval. Lokmin looks like he's about to make the decision to follow me...

But unfortunately, we never got to find the treasure. I live near an airport - one of the EXTREMELY LOUD jets that I LOATHE flies overhead, waking me up and ending my lucid dream. I was pretty upset. Even now there's another really loud jet flying overhead. I hate those things, and the airport by extension (it wasn't always noisy here - they moved the flight paths).

I go back to sleep, trying to re-enter the dream, but I'm too irritated to focus.


Dream #3 - I dream that I am taking naked photographs of myself using my laptop camera and didn't realize the curtain across the sliding glass door in the living room was sheer. I figure either nobody saw me, or they didn't care.

I don't remember much of last night. Again, I was distracted and not focused on dreaming lucidly, although I did ponder it as I fell asleep.

I had one of my out of body experience type things. Sometimes, while asleep, even though I am not dreaming I will instinctively "sit up" out of my body and begin an OBE.

I was not able to easily fully free myself from my body, this time - for whatever reason. But I WAS able to see - in the past, I've always been blind - although I wasn't able to fully open my eyes. I was quite aware that this was a form of dream, although I was unable to control its course. I stumbled around my dream-room, half-blind and unable to control my limbs very well at all or free myself from my blanket, which I felt like I was entangled in.

I realized that this wasn't working well and lay back down, attempting to visualize and possibly break out of the OBE into a regular lucid dream. I also attempted to do a scene change to sky, which didn't work. Unfortunately, I lost lucidity.

I know that this wasn't a misadventure with sleep paralysis because I've gotten very good at differentiating. When I woke up, my bed and bedroom were unmussed despite the fact that in my OBE/dream, I had completely wrecked my bedroom and knocked/thrown stuff everywhere. Unless I then cleaned them up in my sleep... lol.

I was woken up by my smoke alarm chirping. I had to get up and change the battery. While I did so, I tried to ponder the dreams I had, but I couldn't recall any of them. It was frustrating. My dream recall seriously hinges on how stressed and distracted I am.

I dreamed several dreams, and woke between each.

*side notes
*gaining lucidity
*lucid

#1 - I was having difficulty doing something. That's all I remember. Dream fragment.

Woke. Did Reality Check. Attempted WILD; failed, fell asleep.

#2 - I am in a house. I'm looking for a bathroom. There's no bathroom, because I didn't have enough in-game gold to buy an expansion. I discover that some of the red and white scented candles I've been buying were made by my cousin. He's been lying about having a regular desk job.

Woke, used bathroom. Reality Check. Attempted WILD; failed, fell asleep.

#3 - A wife and husband are fighting over their finances. The husband is unemployed or doesn't make much money, and the wife is burnt out and tired of working overtime to completely support them. The wife decides to make adult videos, and her best friend offers to help her. Her husband finds out and is extremely upset.

Woke. Rolled over and fell asleep.
#4:
I dream that I am riding a bus through a sweeping countryside. It appears that I am somewhere in New Zealand. The landscape is mountainous and verdant. It has just rained, the sky is full of gorgeous, radiant clouds, and it's is very beautiful (note: sweeping landscapes after a storm are actually one of my dreamsigns)

It begins to storm violently, and I'm up in the mountains. I am both riding and driving the bus. It's storming like crazy, and the mountain road is winding and dangerous. I'm high up in the mountains now, going over a narrow bridge. The choppy water has risen to the very bottom of the bridge, and it churns dangerously. The bus hydroplanes, loses control, veers off the bridge. The bus is now an old cadillac. The bus now disappears from around me as I enter the water. Frigid water envelopes me as I sink, and places immense pressure on my body; I debate fighting it, or merely letting myself sink. I allow myself to be pulled under and away with the current.

I wake up on a bus. I don't wake up on a bus; I am driving a car. I'm going to pick up a friend's dad. My friend is a chubby blond teenager wearing a Hulk Hogan shirt. We pick up his dad at a fast food restaurant that looks like McDonald's. He jokes about us being a software development team. He is actually a developer, himself. He looks really tired, and I ask him if he's been pulling long hours. He says, "Yes, and driving is a challenge. I'm practically cross-eyed." He decides to check his voicemail and starts swearing; apparently, his boss/team lead is asking for a whole bunch of ridiculous stuff that he can't possibly do on such a short deadline.

I wake up on a bus. I have stretched out across the seats, and a little girl is commenting to her mother that I'm taking up too much space. I try to pull myself up into a fetal position to free up more seats. My friend and his dad are also on the bus. The landscape is the one as described before; the sweeping New Zealand landscape.

I wake up and feel a bit irritated that my prior attempts at WILD have failed. I see light seeping in through my bedroom window and am a bit upset that it appears to be so close to morning. I'm also irritated that I didn't pick up on my most obvious dream sign.

I fail to do a Reality Check. In retrospect, my bedroom window was INCORRECT. The curtain wasn't there. I shrug it off, telling myself that it's just another chance to try to WILD again. I settle down in bed (note: I am fairly certain this was a FA and I am actually trying to WILD from my FA, which is kind of hilarious because it actually works)


#5 (?) -
I begin to see something forming in front of me, very blurry - it is a field of large, smooth pebbles. I decide that it looks somewhat like a beach, or is close enough to make into one. I try to make it solidify, but it fights me. I try to imagine it as part of a landscape, but it remains a flat plane - almost like a pattern. It is supposed to be the ground, I understand, but it takes up my entire field of vision.

I can feel it there - the dream is blurry, but it's forming. I don't want to lose it or lose consciousness, so I start actively trying to make it stabilize. I focus on the pebbles; they sharpen a bit, and then go all fuzzy again. I run my hands through the pebbles, then dive to the ground and shove my face into the pebbles. They're still fuzzy and immaterial, although I feel the ghosts of sensations from them. I enthusiastically rub my face back and forth in the pebbles. I feel like they're fading away and get upset, so in a moment of desperation, I lick the pebbles. They don't become any more material; they taste like grit and sawdust. I roll around on the ground like an idiot, grabbing handfuls of the ground and rubbing it into my face. I feel and smell dead leaves. Suddenly, there are dead leaves mixed into the pebbles.

I look up. There's more landscape forming! I see fuzzy green. I feel like this is like the edge of a lake or swimming hole. I stumble to my feet and pick leaves out of my hair.

The world suddenly solidifies, as my lucids often do - everything goes from a blurry mess to absolute perfect clarity. I am now on the edge of a small lake or swimming hole, on an artificial beach. I'm at a cook out!

There are tons of people milling around. The dad from my prior dream is grilling food, and there are a bunch of fat guys in tank tops drinking beer out of a cooler. There is a little girl in a purple swim suit playing with the sand. She has a toy shovel and those little plastic sand castle molds, and she's making a castle. She has white-blonde hair that curls in little ringlets around her ears, and blue eyes. She looks like she's maybe 3 or 4, and she's adorable. There is also a black and white Border Collie lying on a red and white checkered blanket next to a guy in a t-shirt and his kids. The dog is panting, because it's hot outside.

The swimming hole has a tall, metal slide where you can slide into the water. The sky above, unlike 99% of my lucids, is vivid blue and brilliantly clear - this is a hot summer day, probably July or even August.

I clap my hands together and yell out loud "YES! Finally!" I immediately run up to the dog and pet her. Her fur is thick and somewhat coarse. I scratch between her ears. She's very friendly, and enjoys the attention. As I scratch her behind the ears, I recall my lucid task.

"I need to destroy something right away!" I tell the dog. I had decided on Simple Task I, which was to destroy an object by any means.

I look around. One of the first things I see is the little girl's sand castle mold, but even thought she's a dream character I feel kind of bad about that. I see a plastic drinking cup with Vash the Stampede on the side of it (I haven't watched anime since the 90s, I don't know where that came from) but decide it's too solid/not interesting. There's an array of picnic stuff - plates, cookware, food, etc. I settle on the one thing that I feel is out of place: an empty carton of half & half.

I point at it and try to make it explode. Nothing happens. I get angry and pick it up and throw it, yelling, "This is MY dream!" It still does not explode. I chase after it, scoop it up, and tear it into several pieces. I begin to throw the pieces at the two fat guys who are sitting in plastic lawn chairs and drinking beer. They think this is hilarious.

I hear the little girl calling to me from behind me. She is running toward me, waving a huge syringe. One of those big, scary-looking ones they use to inject things into your rump. It's almost as big as she is (and for some reason, empty). I laugh and launch myself into the air, hovering above her. She runs around below me, waving the syringe. I rise higher into the air, using swimming motions, and taunt her. She begins to climb the ladder to the slide, which has now somehow gotten higher and scarier-looking and is turning into a bridge.

The dream fades, and I wake up. It is 3 a.m., which means that it couldn't have possibly been light outside last time I woke up.

(this dream is current, as of last night)

Side notes:
WILD attempt unsuccessful. I felt the onset of paralysis, but the sound of the heater distracted me, so I was unable to "dive". Ugh. I need to not let those things distract me! I may have to turn the heat down, although then I'll have issues with being too cold. I can't wait for summer.

The second time I woke up, I just couldn't tolerate remaining on my back. It's hard to describe the sensation, beyond discomfort coupled with a compulsion to roll over onto my side.


The dreams:
1. I was wandering through a hospital, which was also a university somehow. The elevators didn't work properly. The math professor accidentally locked me in the classroom; I don't remember how I got out. I remember that there were a lot of ledges and narrow bridges you had to climb in order to navigate even the most basic parts of the building, such as the library, and thinking to myself that it was unsafe.

2. I dreamed that M--- and I were driving through a city. It was an unfamiliar city, but it was on a bay or sound of some sort. I wasn't paying attention, and M--- was driving. He drove up the metal framework of an unfinished bridge, and over the edge, into the water. I bitched at him and told him that he needed to pay attention to where bridges end. Rather than letting the car sink, I dragged it along behind me in the bay so that it floated and started the engine, using the car's engine to push us through the water faster.

3. I dreamed I was lying on a mattress with Mom and G---, and G--- was trying to tell me that if you add red paint to yellow paint, it makes green paint. I was arguing with him that it did not, although at the time I couldn't articulate why. Mom began playing with actual paint, like finger paints, and made a mess.

(Woke up, used bathroom)

4. I dreamed I was in a city with high rise buildings. The light was shining off of them.

5. I dreamed I was talking to a rheumatic old man. He had oddly-colored eyes, one was a deep blue hazel with brown in it and the other one had a brown iris shaped like a flower, where each petal had 2 dark brown dots in it, and no pupil. He had a cloth that was soaked in bleach that he would sniff, and told me about how comforting it was to him to smell it, then pressed it in my face - I wasn't too thrilled with it, although I do like the smell of bleach sometimes. He then told me about how the gene for his weird eye was recessive, and asked if any of my relatives had the recessive gene. I told him no, because he was creeping me out. His eye reminded me of a weird cat I remembered seeing (dream memory, not real), a black cat that also had oddly-colored and oddly-slanted eyes.

(woke up and went back to sleep)

6. I dreamed I was grocery shopping, and trying to select food that I thought both my brother and I would enjoy. The grocery store was dark and dingy, and the freezer cases had cloudy glass and didn't seem to close correctly or be working properly. I was loading up on junk food, thinking that we hadn't been able to afford it lately and he would be pleased. I also bought Fresca. I wanted to buy a small sample pack of different sodas, but someone had stolen 2 out of one of the sample packs and another one was nothing but grape (I hate grape). I was disappointed.

Woke up. I need to remember to perform Reality Checks more often upon waking, though.