memorable

Awake, Non-lucid dream, Lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

[For the second lucid in a row, I'm actually aware of the dream beginning, and it begins the same way as the last one - a visual scene emerges out of a blank nothingness, and I focus on it until it expands from a few little circles to fill my entire field of vision. This time,] I'm out in front of a big, old, two-story wooden house where some Toastmasters meetings are going to take place. I go inside to attend them, and some of my real-life Toastmasters friends are there, too. There are also visitors there, whom they are trying to recruit to Toastmasters. While I'm standing around and talking with the group, I demonstrate my ability to fly from the ground floor of the house up to the upstairs balcony. I compare it to "lifting myself by the seat of my pants" [shoutout to Dr. Seuss!] because, I notice on this particular occasion, that's roughly what it feels like when I bring my concentration to bear on the task of actuating that ability. It feels like I'm using my mental concentration to lift myself up from the small of my back and propel myself through the air. I say to the assembled DCs: "I used to be very secretive about my flying, but now I'm very open about it. I think everyone should be able to enjoy it." [And I do.]

After the meetings are over, I walk out of the house onto the street, except where one would expect there to be a street, there is instead a big, shallow swimming pool. It is surrounded by tropical plants, and its edges go in a series of curves so that the overall shape of the pool is a big, amoeba-like blob with lots of curving pockets sticking out every which way. I walk around to one side of the pool, sit down on the edge, put my feet in the water, and think: "I wonder if I can change my clothes just by thinking about it?" I close my eyes and concentrate on what I want to happen - namely, I want to be wearing a swimsuit. I can actually feel the swimsuit form around me. When I open my eyes, I'm wearing a tankini with tribal-looking geometric patterns on it in raspberry, burgundy, and many other colors. I exclaim out loud, "Holy $#!*, I did it!" [It was a super cute swimsuit, but certainly not one I would ever choose for myself in real life. Upon reflecting afterwards, I realized that my dream body doesn't have stretch marks - or if it does, they're much less noticeable than they are in real life, since I don't remember noticing them - and it's also less fat than my real one, though not dramatically so.]

I notice that the regular clothes I had just been wearing - jeans, button-down shirt and white sneakers - are now floating on the surface of the pool, around me. I get the rest of the way into the pool. There are two other people enjoying the pool, two guys and another woman. I realize that while my swimsuit top has shoulder straps, it also has a part that's supposed to tie together across my back, just at the bottom of my shoulder blades, and it's untied. I approach the woman (the pool is shallow enough to walk in easily) and say, "Trade you ties?" We tie the ties on each other's swimsuits, as I had just requested. She is some type of POC [most likely South Asian? I couldn't say for sure] and very pretty, and her name is Kim.

After swimming and lounging around for a bit, the two guys, Kim, and I all get out of the pool, down at the far end of the 'street,' away from the house I had just been in. Another dream character is standing there, a petite, definitely East Asian woman [she reminds me of a younger Agent May from the "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." TV series]. She asks me and the two guys to come with her; she is recruiting us for some kind of spy-adventure-type mission. [I have no idea why she ignored Kim completely, but she did.] We follow her, but I turn to say goodbye to Kim, who is now standing on the edge of the pool, as I go.

The two guys and I follow Young Agent May into an area that looks like an ancient temple courtyard, all dusty dirt floors and high, light-yellow-tan-colored walls of rough-hewn stone that stand open to the sky. There are lots of wall segments forming corners, but there is a space off to the left that's more than big enough for a dark-brown, equally-roughly-hewn wooden table with two people sitting behind it. This is the check-in desk for the adventure/mission. Young Agent May goes over to check us in, and I look around the courtyard while the two guys start to explore. As I'm looking around, a brochure printed on unbleached brown paper appears in my hand. The title, printed in a curved swoop across the center in big, yellow letters, reads "Dole Presents: Adventures in Dole Whip." [Or something like that. Interestingly enough, I could read the whole thing perfectly fine. I can't remember all of it, but I'll reproduce the text I do remember.] The brochure goes on to say: "This dreamer is about to earn her title! Next Task: Create a tiny, consensually-dressed, applesauce humanoid." There's even an illustration of this little humanoid figure I'm apparently supposed to create out of applesauce. [Don't ask me what "consensually-dressed" is supposed to mean. Presumably "dressed in an outfit of its own choosing," with an undertone of "modestly dressed."]

I wake up to the sensation of my left arm being asleep. I've fallen asleep on my left side, something I rarely do.

[Cool! New ability! This is the first time I've ever changed my clothing at will. I guess that counts as changing my appearance, although I really meant changing an aspect of my physical body.]

Awake, Non-lucid dream, Lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

I see a beautiful, blue sky with lots of puffy, white clouds in it. I realize that this is a dream [I'm not quite certain, but I believe I became lucid by first realizing that I didn't recall how I had gotten outdoors where I could look up at the sky], and ground my awareness in the dream by focusing on the clouds in the sky. The sky expands to fill my field of vision, covering up and washing out the gray nothing behind it.

I realize I'm in the backyard of the house I lived in as a child, and I'm with two girls I knew in elementary school. I walk around the neighborhood with them for a bit, exploring the yards of the houses. They are fenced in, and many of them are on very steep hills [which was not the case in real life]. At one point, a man who lives in one of the houses sees us. Eventually, I stop following them and start following two DCs who are young women closer to my own age now, a blonde one and an Asian one. [I typically prefer to spend my lucid-dreaming time exploring my dream world on my own, but this time, I thought I could maintain a longer, more stable lucid dream if I focused my attention on following two dream characters around, instead. It seems to have worked.]

We end up wandering from the suburban neighborhood we're in to a well-lit, wood-paneled mall. We end up in front of a hair salon, where the salon owner stops us and presents the Asian DC with an award for her hairdressing skills. I notice that she is suddenly wearing a pretty, fancy dress appropriate for accepting an award at an awards ceremony. After she accepts it, we continue wandering around and exploring. The next time I notice the Asian DC, I see that she's wearing casual, comfortable clothes again. I exclaim in disappointment, "Aw, man! I wanted to do the finger-snap thing!" [Meaning, I wanted to consciously and actively change her from one outfit to another by snapping my fingers, Q-style. I was disappointed that she had performed the transformation on her own. ]

Our wanderings continue to take us through indoor environments, and we eventually end up in a spacious church where the service is just about to start. A greeter hands me a service bulletin, which is a single large sheet of paper that you have to fold up yourself. I wander through the sanctuary, from front to back, just as the procession is starting.

As I wander outside again, I remember that the next time I found myself lucid dreaming, I had wanted to do the 'pinch your nose shut and try to breathe through it' reality check, so I do so. It still works the same as ever - I can still feel myself breathing even while pinching my nose, which I still think is the coolest sensation. However, this time, my dream-sense of touch tells me that I'm missing part of the tip of my nose. [I thought, "Maybe I've been reading too many A Song of Ice and Fire books?"]

I see the aforementioned blonde dream character again, and for the first time, we actually stop to talk. When I ask, she tells me that her name is Julia, and it turns out that she knows that I'm the dreamer. She refers to me as the "universe goddess." [There's a gap in my memory here; I don't recall how we got from just talking to this next part, but:]

Julia is now mostly submerged in a tank of water, and I lay one hand on the crown of her head, which is sticking up above the water, and say: "I, [my full, legal IRL name], do hereby name you Julia." As she climbs out of the tank, I add, " [Nickname] is short for [my full first name]." [I often explain that to people when meeting them for the first time IRL.] After Julia is out of the tank, I ask her if I can do that again, because I didn't use both hands. I ask her what her middle and last names are, and she says "Tilly El-Haz[something, I don't remember exactly]." We stand facing each other, and I lay both hands on the top of her head and name her with her full name. [She looked like she could have been Supergirl, or otherwise related to those Els.]

[Hmm. Fascinating. I've only met one or two other dream characters who exhibited any awareness that we were in a dream, and this is the first time one has referred to me in terms like "the universe goddess." This dream put me in a great mood, as my lucid dreams always do.]

Awake, Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

[Note: This DJ entry contains discussion of my personal religious beliefs, which are Christian. If, for any reason, you do not want to read about them, please skip over this entry.]

I'm trying to get from one place to another by bicycle. It's right at or just after sunset on a cloudy, overcast day, so it's somewhat dark outside. I'm bicycling along sidewalks that run between buildings that are each about four or five stories tall and have lots of windows. [It actually bears a strong resemblance to some of the private college campuses I used to walk around when I was a kid.] When I try to turn a corner, a guy on a larger bike passes by really fast right in front of me, and I shout out in surprise and fear. After he has passed by, I turn the corner and go on my way. I'm carrying a large plastic bag hanging from my left handlebar. It is filled with other, crumpled-up plastic bags, as well as a heavy, black, U-shaped metal bike lock.

I'm in the sacristy [back room where robes and other special equipment are stored] at my old church. I've arrived there to meet up with a bunch of my friends from my old college Christian fellowship, who are all crowded into the room. [I think this might have been the place I was trying to get to on my bike, but I'm not absolutely sure; I don't remember the transition from one dream scene to another. Or they may have been two entirely separate dreams.] We're all there for a special church service in which all of us young adults will be honored. All my friends already have their choir robes on, and I hurry to take mine out of the closet and put it on over my clothes.

As I'm doing this, everyone starts to file out of the room, because it's time for the service to start. I'm still hunting through the shelves in the back of the closet for my shoes, saying aloud to myself, “I'm not sure if I have black shoes in here....” I came into the room wearing white shoes, which wouldn't go with my dark-purple choir robe. [They were the same kind of choir robe I used to wear at the church I attended immediately before my current one.] I find a pair of black, slip-on sandals [a pair I own in real life] on a shelf and start putting on, but I'm already being hurried out the exterior door of the sacristy, along with the rest of the procession of young adults. When we get outside, I cross the sunlit courtyard by shuffling and sliding my feet forward, still working on getting them all the way into the sandals.

Although this church building is in a different place and has a very different layout than it does in reality, I recognize it as the one I went to as a child. The sacristy door opens onto a courtyard paved with red ceramic tile and enclosed with white walls, and it's a beautiful, sunny day. We walk in a procession along the outside wall of the sanctuary, then turn left and then left again to enter the church through its large, wooden double doors. I'm still finishing up fastening the front of my choir robe as we enter.

As we enter, there is modern, rock-instrumentation-based worship music playing, the kind we used to have in fellowship meetings. Most of the pews are facing forward, except for the section nearest the front, where they are facing inward toward the center aisle. Beyond those seats is the altar area. The sanctuary is full of people, including my mom, who is sitting in an aisle seat that I pass on my right as I walk up the aisle with the procession. I'm aware that the families of my friends from the fellowship are there, too. We all process up the center aisle and take seats in the center-facing pews.

The music continues until we are all sitting down. When it ends, one of the leaders of the fellowship starts welcoming everyone to the service and talking about how its purpose is to honor the young adults of the congregation. During this speech, I realize that I accidentally dropped my knitted bag of choir books [again, something I had in real life at my previous church] in the aisle, right where my mom is sitting. I stand up and go to retrieve it, but a tall, old black lady beats me to it. She picks it up and brings it back to me.

The leader who's speaking says that we're going to start things off by playing a team-building game. [This was typically how we started off conferences in that fellowship in real life.] I smile; this is going to be fun. I look at the service bulletin and see that just about everything the leader will say is printed on it, like a script. There are even photos of the young adults who are being honored, and a list of the supplies we'll need for the team-building game. As I continue to look through the bulletin, I see that after we play this game, we'll proceed to have a regular church service, the more traditional kind we've always had at this church. I'm also aware that although some of the people in the congregation are from my Episcopal tradition, and others are from my friends' evangelical tradition, absolutely everyone present is not only okay with the idea of having a service that blends elements of both traditions, but is actually happy about it and looking forward to the rest of the service. I am, too. The whole gathering is suffused with a sense of love, peace, joy, and unity.

-----------------------------------
Side notes:
This dream was significant for me because it made me feel better about the past. It made me feel less conflicted and less torn, and gave me hope that reconciliation between those two areas of my experience is possible.

[This is a catch-up post. This dream took place on the night of November 20-21, 2012. The title of this dream is in Japanese, and is read "Sora ni Tondeiru Yumebito-Tai." It literally means "Flying in the Sky Dream Person Team (or Corps)." The dream felt a lot like being in an episode of an anime series, so I gave it a title that would be suitable for an anime series.]

Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm outside somewhere, lying in the warm sun. The sun's rays are making me too hot in my flannel pajamas. I'm wearing dark-colored plaid pajama bottoms [the same ones I'm wearing in real life], and a white flannel pajama top with red roses on it [the same pattern as on a bedspread my mom has at her house].

I'm in a large department store, filled with racks of cold-weather accessories and other clothes. I'm wandering through the racks by hopping up off the floor, hovering above it for a few seconds as I float forward, and then sinking back down. After several repetitions of this, I think, Hmm, this is longer than I should be able to float like this. Oh - that's because I'm dreaming.

I fly out of the room with the clothes and winter accessories and into a larger room. It's still part of the same store, but it has a higher ceiling and has a skylight. I stop to ground myself in the dream by landing on the ground and touching things with my hands, including some packages of batteries that are hanging up on a rack. It works.

I join up with a a group of kid DCs that includes Merida from Brave and a curly-haired blond boy. We all set off from the department store together to battle some evil force. We run out of the store and come to a hilltop that overlooks an ocean bay. Some of us, including Merida and myself, jump off the top of the hill and start flying over the bay. I shout “Woohoo!” as I jump off. I notice that some of the others in the group are simply running down the hill, rather than flying. [For the first time, it seems perfectly natural to me that some DCs can fly, too, and I don't feel any need to hide the fact that I can fly, as I usually do when I'm around DCs.]

All of us, those who ran and those who flew, reassemble at our destination, which is a small house on the cliff overlooking the ocean. We realize we're being pursued by some kind of monster that will kill us and eat us. There is a newspaper article about the monster in the house. The kids all seem to be sure that the monsters have found us, that they're coming, and that we're all doomed. For a second, I'm genuinely afraid, but then I remember: Oh, yeah, this is a dream. I know what this most likely means. I roll my eyes and announce to the group: “They aren't really monsters, they're just tasks that I haven't done and that I feel bad about.” [Or words to that effect.] I think about it for a moment and come up with what that task must be - paying a bill [among other things that I don't remember now]. Everyone in the group seems to relax, and no monsters ever actually appear at the house.

One of the DCs in the group says to another, “See about adopting her [meaning me] into the practice.” They are both young men, about 17-19 years old. The second one looks at me and says, “You're [Emiko].... Roboto.” [He used my real-life first name.] I reply, “Yes, that's a name I've used here before. I don't really like it, though.” [Huh? That's definitely not my real-life last name, and I certainly don't remember using it in a dream before. It was a big part of my childhood, though.] I say something about how grateful I am to have been accepted into this group of people, even with my mismatched pajamas. I'm still wearing the same dark pajama pants and light pajama top from the very beginning of the dream, while most of the other people in the group are wearing neat, matching, school-uniform-like outfits. [This isn't surprising; I was an anime fan for a long time, and a lot of the characters in the shows I liked were high school students who wore school uniforms.]

The group of DCs and I all feel a general sense that that is the end of this adventure, but that there will be more in the future. We start flying off over the landscape, looking back at the buildings where we've just been: the big store with the skylight, and a motel [?]. There is an upbeat, exciting rock song playing in the background. It feels exactly like I'm experiencing the end credits of an anime show.

I'm now traveling along in some kind of vehicle with the two young men, watching the scenery pass by from a tree-lined road that runs along the crest of a ridge opposite those buildings. I say to them, “Also, your ending theme song kicks ass.” [I think the context for this was that they thanked me for sticking with them so long at the end of the adventure, and I replied that of course, I wanted to prolong the experience as long as possible and have as much fun as I could. I don't remember the beginning of the conversation very well, though. The song I heard reminded me a little bit of this one, except it was at a faster tempo.]

I have a false awakening in the bed I'm actually in [I was sleeping on a futon because I had family in town that week], where I can see my bare legs, before waking up for real.

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Side notes:
THIS DREAM WAS SO COOL!!!! I hadn't had a really long, fun, clear lucid like this in a while before I had this dream. I was so happy to have it!

Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm flying through a large, rectangular, exhibit-hall-like space with an entryway connected to one end of it. Every time I make a complete loop through the exhibit hall, out into the entryway, and then back into the exhibit hall again, the scenery and displays in the hall have changed. While I'm flying through the entryway after a couple of iterations of this, I catch on to the fact that I'm dreaming.

I remember that I need to stabilize and ground myself in the dream, so I will myself to go down. I sink straight down, in an upright position, until I'm standing on the floor. I immediately walk over, reach out, and touch one of the walls, then squat down to touch the carpet. The thought of licking the floor to bring in that sense crosses my mind. [I was reading a thread on DV before I went to bed that mentioned engaging all five of your senses in a dream.] I decide not to, but thinking of things you should do in a dream brings to mind the current Task of the Month: spell “November” backwards.

While still squatting down, I start tracing the shapes of the letters on the carpet with my finger. R...e...b...m...e...v...o...n. I get all the way through it, and feel very proud and pleased with myself. I feel just as alert and self-aware as I do in waking life, but I notice that it's slightly more difficult to keep track of the letters and what order they go in than it would be if I were awake. Then, I suddenly find that I have a ballpoint pen in my hand [a plain black Bic pen with a grip, the exact same kind I'd just been using in real life to do my homework for a class]. I take the pen and print “Rebmevon” on the wallpaper on the nearest wall. It's still a little hard to focus on spelling. At first, I write an “e” in place of the last “o,” but then I cross it out and correct it. I write it a second time [I think] because I can, but then I think, Okay, now you're just doing it to be a smartass.

[There was more, but I only have time to write the part that has to do with the Task of the Month right now.]

Awake/SP, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm in an elaborate, fantasy landscape. I fall over the side of a cliff and start falling down the side of a mountain, which has terraces in it and lots of trees, but the trees are all growing out of the side of the mountain. As I fall, I think, I could expect there to be a soft, grassy field below me for me to land on, and there would be one. I try to do exactly that, but it doesn't work. Eventually, I remember that I can fly, and fly back up to the top of the cliff/mountain.

[That's all I can remember now of an awesome, detailed, elaborate lucid dream that was remarkably long for my first sleep cycle of the night. I was really, really determined to have a lucid dream last night, and my determination and MILDing worked. I also remember choosing to stay in and prolong the dream at least twice, but I don't remember any more details. I really should have taken a moment to write them down in my paper dream journal after I woke up.]

[Later, different part of the night.] I feel, more clearly and with more awareness than I ever have before, all my major muscles transitioning into their paralyzed state. After a moment, a dream begins to form. Some Viking-warrior-looking guys who look like they came straight out of a movie by Aardman Animations are standing over me, watching me wake up. We're all in a big wooden hall. The dream is very weak, fuzzy, and indistinct, though, and although I try to focus on it, it fades away before I can get into it fully. This can be partially blamed on the fact that I'm completely fascinated by the experience I've just had, and this novel feeling of being “stuck” in my sleeping body while still being consciously aware.

Welcome to SP, I think. That wasn't so bad, was it? I lie still and observe the experience. Although I'm conscious, in a way I never am in waking life, of my breathing happening automatically, I feel like I'm not getting enough air. I realize that that's because I have my forearms crossed over my chest so that their dead weight is resting right on top of my ribcage. I can feel my left-hand fingertips touching the skin of my right arm, but I feel removed from the sensation. I hope for another dream to start, but it doesn't. I attempt to visualize a scene, but it's a very halfhearted effort and doesn't go anywhere. Also, I have my head tilted to my right at an awkward angle, which makes me think, I'm going to feel that in the morning. After a few minutes, I get bored and decide to get up and use the restroom. I have no problem getting back to normal wakefulness.

Side notes:
I've always been afraid to try WILDing because I'd never experienced sleep paralysis, and I was afraid that I might experience hypnagogic hallucinations or sensations that would frighten me. This was the first time I'd ever really experienced SP. It was cool and weird, but not frightening at all, and I didn't experience any hypnagogic hallucinations. Getting over your fear of something is always nice.

[This is a catchup post. I had this dream on the night of July 18, 2012, but I'm just now getting around to posting it.]

Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm in [or outside - not sure] House #1, and I become aware that I'm dreaming. I think, Hey, cool! This would be a great opportunity to go and achieve that goal! So I take off and start flying, keeping very low to the ground [I don't know why] , following the roads that lead from my house to the nearby park. I make a point of concentrating on the dream world around me, to keep myself in the dream. [I think] There's a moment where I briefly become aware of my body lying in bed, but I forcibly drag my awareness back to the dream and manage to stay in it. [It may have been after this next part, I'm not sure.]

Anyway, I turn up the road that leads to the park, and there it is: the metal, chain-link, curved baseball backstop, the one I've been fantasizing about flying to the top of since I was a little girl. I come to the center of the back of it and start flying up, following its curve, but inexplicably sink back down to the ground. I shrug and decide to just climb the thing instead. It works. I'm up at the top in just a couple of seconds. I stand on top of the baseball backstop, surveying the park and feeling very proud of myself for finally getting to the top of my baseball backstop in a lucid dream.

***********
Side notes:
Every time I have a lucid dream, I always start my day in a great mood, with the attitude that today is going to be a great day. On the day after I woke up from this particular dream, I finally received and accepted the job offer I'd spent years waiting and hoping for. Does it mean anything? I'm not willing to say yes, but it's interesting.

Color-coding: Non-lucid, Semi-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]
Bold text indicates a “dream within a dream,” meaning any dream scenes that followed after I dreamed of falling asleep

I wake up in my current bedroom. I can hear the couple who lives downstairs in the master bedroom arguing. The woman says something like, “I have to get up now and get ready for work!” I can't sleep with them arguing, so I decide, “Okay, I guess I'm up for the day now, too.” I get up and start trying to take a shower, but the hot water keeps turning cold because the woman downstairs is taking a shower at the same time. After I'm done, I'm still feeling so sleepy that I decide to go back to bed and try to get some good sleep while I still can. It's still only 4:15 AM, after all. So I get back into bed and go to sleep.

[All of the above paragraph was a completely convincing false awakening that I failed to catch. I've never heard the couple in question argue like that, plus, in the dream, the residents of the master bedroom were the parents of the girl who actually lives there in real life, and I thought nothing of it. :/]

I'm visiting EM and SM's house in Omaha [something I did in real life recently]. It's morning, and we're all getting ready to leave the house for the day. They have a gigantic, elaborate house [way bigger, fancier, and more high-tech than their real house]. While we're in the kitchen, SM says something like, “You haven't had a chance to eat today.” I answer, “I know. That's why I always keep bananas in stock.” I show her that I'm carrying a banana with me, which I intend to eat for breakfast. SM has an eyepatch over her left eye socket, with a cool outer-space vista on it. It's embedded into her skin, and I can see muscles twitching underneath it. It's kind of creepy.

We get outside the front door when I realize that I don't have any shoes on. I say to EM, “Could you unlock the door for me, so I can get back into the house? I'm not wearing shoes, only socks.”

EM takes out a door key and uses it to unlock a lock in a wall, which opens the front door. “The front door” consists of a zig-zagging wall of metal panels that cross a wide, concrete courtyard. The panels that are parallel to the house swing open, toward the house, when the key is turned; they're the doors. I go into the house and run up the stairs to the room where I'm staying, to get my shoes.

When I come back outside, I find SM sitting on something in the middle of the tall, light-green grass on the wide front lawn, waiting for me. She doesn't have her eyepatch anymore; both of her eyes are normal. [This is the case in real life.]

“Wait just a ding-danged minute here...” I say. This discrepancy has caused me to begin to suspect that none of this is real. To test whether I'm dreaming, I turn to face a low rock wall nearby and start walking toward it, willing myself to pass through it intangibly [something I know very well that I can do in dreams]. I find that I can't pass through it; I just bump into it normally. In the moments that follow, I'm very acutely and vividly aware of the world around me, of my own self-consciousness, and of the fact that I'm not sure whether I'm awake or dreaming at this very moment. [I finally started watching the TV series Awake a few nights ago, and this is what the protagonist experiences all the time, a fact which is reiterated at the beginning of episodes 2 and 3. That is so cool, that I got to experience that personally in one of my own dreams! ]

After another moment or two, I do realize that I am dreaming. [I don't remember specifically how or why.] By definition, that means that I am getting some good sleep now, I reflect gratefully. I smile and decide to enjoy myself here while I'm getting that restorative sleep I needed so much.

As usual, all I want to do is explore the dream world, so I start flying up and away from the house. I see SM's car driving away below me, and wave goodbye to her. From up here, I can see the entire city spread out below me, covering the gently rolling hills like a blanket, and it's very beautiful. It's also very windy up there. I think to myself: I've got brains in my head, I've got feet in my shoes, I've got levitation powers in my mind. I can steer myself any direction I choose. [This is a reference to the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You'll Go!, from which one of my contacts in Omaha read a passage to a graduating class while I was there. Hmm. No idea why I thought of them as “levitation powers” instead of “flight powers.”] I try to fly into the wind, which is coming from my left, but can't find the strength to fight against it. I decide to fly with it instead. I think, Why not? When you're going bicycling, you'll probably choose to ride with the wind, if you have a choice.

I end up flying through a neighborhood filled with lots of cute little houses that line narrow, old, little streets that wind around every which way. [Just like in the real Omaha, or, at least, the neighborhood where EM and SM live.] Every front yard has big, tropical-rainforest-looking trees in it that reach across the street, forming the beginnings of a canopy, but not a very thick one. There are exotic, tropical birds in every tree. [Um... not at all like in the real Omaha. ] I fly along, following the streets and admiring the beauty all around me.

[Dreamskip - I don't remember getting from one locale to the other.] I'm still in Omaha, but now I'm in a gigantic, elaborate, multi-story library and bookstore. It has lots of glass walls and ceilings that let in the sunlight, and they're arranged in a square geometric pattern, just like this library. It's filled with lots and lots of shelves of books, and there are plenty of people walking around. I'm still flying to get around, instead of walking. I fly up from one level to another, in search of the section where the most popular books are kept. I want to check one of those books out, but I don't have a library card yet, so I'm limited to buying it. I definitely intend to get a library card when I move there, though. [True in real life, too.]

When I get to that section, I land and start walking. I'm looking for the second book in a series I'm reading. I have to think about it to remember which one it is. It's not the Twilight series; it's the Hunger Games series. [Which I haven't even started reading in real life, but I would like to.] I look through the neat, white, bright shelves and find the book I'm looking for. I pick it up and start walking away with it, reading it. There's a computer kiosk that beeps at me as I walk by. I look on the screen, and it has a written message directed at me, chastising me for cracking the spine on my book. Doing so somehow disrupted the operation of a pacemaker of somebody in the immediate vicinity. [I don't recall seeing that somebody there, though.]

I continue exploring the library, and decide I want to go down one floor, but I don't want to fly because there are lots of people around, and I generally try to avoid using any of my dream powers when there are people around to see me. [Yes, they are just DCs, but I always think like that in my lucid dreams anyway. I don't know why, but I do.] I see a wide, steep, carpet-covered ramp leading down to the level below me, and decide to roll down it.

[Dreamskip. I'm not 100% certain that I was still aware that I was dreaming in this scene, but I may have been.] I'm walking along a city street and see a restaurant that is closed. I'm disappointed to discover this, because it had belonged to my friends. I wander through it, looking at all the debris left in the abandoned building. I walk to a side entrance and go out through the patio, where I see that people have begun seating themselves at the patio tables. I realize that they must have seen me walking around inside the restaurant, assumed it was open, and sat down. I feel bad about it, but I start telling them, “Sorry, it's closed.” They get up and leave.

[Side notes: Heh. I love how my subconscious has turned Omaha into this perfect tropical paradise with an awesome library, a place where everything I saw around me was incredibly cool and gave me nothing but happiness and joy. Omaha really does have a gigantic central library, although it doesn't have that cool architectural design. That part came directly from the library at UC San Diego. I didn't go to school there, but EM did - a fact which I had consciously forgotten about until I told my mom about this dream later in the day. Hmm. Omaha also has a zoo that I didn't actually see, but that everyone tells me is pretty awesome. Okay, subconscious, I get the message: Don't give up on Omaha yet. You may still be able to find happiness there.]

Awake, Lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

After I've woken up in the night and am going back to sleep, I feel that sensation of floating, of being untethered from gravity and from anything else physical. I know that I can enter a dream from here if I let myself float away. I do so, and immediately find myself in a dream. [I have to admit, though, I'm not 100% certain that my consciousness remained continuous from the time I woke up to the time I entered the dream, so I'm only willing to use my WBTB and DILD tags for this entry, not my WILD one.]

I'm in a bright, sunny, pedestrian-oriented shopping area, with a wide, winding sidewalk that leads between a series of large, curving, mostly-white buildings, each of which contains many different shops and restaurants. One of them has a large Cold Stone Creamery sign on the outside. It's very pretty, and looks very real. I'm very pleased to be in a lucid dream again.

At some point while exploring this new dreamscape, I see several friends of mine from earlier periods of my life [high school and/or college - I don't remember this part all that clearly]. Then, I wander through a small exterior door in one of the buildings, which leads into a classroom. In this classroom, the desks are set up in several sets of rows that are set at right angles to each other. The aisle between the rows of desks begins near the door and goes right through where the corners of those right angles would be. All the desks are filled with young adults, like me, but I don't know any of them. I walk down the aisle toward the front of the classroom. There is a male teacher there, leading the class in a discussion about something, but he doesn't complain or try to shut me up when I interrupt him and say to the class:

“Anyone want to help me out with this possession thing?”

[Or some similar words to that effect.] By this point, I've remembered one of the current Tasks of the Month and decided that with all these DCs around, it should be easy to give it a try. [I'm not surprised that I asked if one of my DCs would willingly act as the possessee. Possessing someone by force or surprise doesn't appeal to me at all; I already knew that about myself.]

A woman in the front row, on my left (the teacher's right), raises her hand and stands up. She's maybe an inch taller than I am, but stockier, and has dark red hair and green eyes. Both of us are wearing jeans. She follows me to the back of the classroom.

“I want my gold star, dammit!” I say, just before I go to work on possessing her. [I was talking about the gold wings I was going to earn here on DreamViews (or rather, the silver wings - in the excitement of the moment, I completely forgot that we had switched the basic and advanced tasks early in the month), but my exclamation came out as the commonplace expression meaning a reward or recognition for an achievement. My subconscious betrays my true colors: I really want recognition for my lucid dreaming achievements. Wow, I'm shallow. :blush: ]

My method of possessing people is as follows: I stand directly behind the red-haired woman, and we clasp hands with our fingers interlaced. Then, I press the trunk of my body into her back, with our shoulders aligned, and push myself forward until our bodies merge. It's a somewhat slow process at first, since the substance of her body offers some resistance to mine, but it works. [I already know how to become intangible to walk through things in dreams; why didn't I think to make use of that ability and adapt it to this purpose? I don't know.] In a few moments, I'm standing in her body and controlling it from the inside. It has an awkward, heavy feeling to it, but it's really cool. When I've made it all the way forward, I notice that I've done an incomplete job; I can still feel our hands clasped together, and my feet are sticking out above hers, because she was taller than me to begin with. “We're supposed to merge them together,” I say. I straighten out my fingers and merge them with hers, and push down with my feet so they're merged properly. Then, I walk forward, one step at a time. It feels heavy and awkward, like I'm wearing several layers of really heavy clothes. I walk out through the door of the classroom into the sunlit walkway. Then, I collapse onto the ground and try to extricate myself from my DC. I only succeed in discarding the pair of jeans the DC was wearing, leaving them lying on the ground.

I get up, go back into the classroom, and try again to release my DC from possession. This time, it works. The DC steps forward and away from me, and calmly walks back to her seat. The other DCs in the class seem to approve of the successful possession. [If my DC now wasn't wearing pants, none of the characters in the dream seemed to take any notice, including the red-haired DC herself. I think she just had a long, dress-like blouse on.]

I want to practice this newfound skill again, so I look around the classroom. In an aisle seat on my right (the teacher's left), a man with black hair in a ponytail is sitting. That'll be different, I think. [Being in a man's body will be different, I mean.] I look at him, and he gets up and allows me to take possession of him in the same way. This time, it's a little bit easier and goes a little faster. Unfortunately, I woke up shortly after this point.

[This is a catch-up entry. This dream is from the night of February 11-12, 2012.]

[I'm writing this down so long after the fact that I'm not 100% sure that I have the date right. It's within 1 day of the actual date, though. This is the only dream I remember having while on my first-ever cruise. I thought it was pretty cool, funny, and interesting.]

I'm at my old high school, with my mom. [I went to the high school where my mom was a teacher, by the way.] The fire alarm goes off, emitting a continuous stream of high-pitched tones. We try to turn it off ourselves, but we can't. We go to the school administrative office and ask the principal to turn it off, because it's driving us crazy. He tells us that he can't turn it off, either.

I wake up, and can still hear the high-pitched tones. I realize the following, in this order: That's not a fire alarm. That's the ventilation system whistling. Hey, that was a real sound that was occurring in the real world, and it came through into my dream! Awesome! Also, the speed and durations of the tones was exactly the same when I heard it in the dream as it is now, further demonstrating that time passes at the same rate in dreams as it does in reality.

Color-coding key:
Awake, Non-lucid, Possibly lucid? (not sure), Lucid, Lucid 'dream within a dream,' [Commentary made while awake]

[This morning, my alarm went off at 7:30. I had planned to get up and write, but I still felt so sleepy that I decided to sleep in. I believe I had all these dreams during the extra hour I slept in. Again, I don't remember the transitions that connected them, if there were any, which is why this entry may seem fragmented.]

I'm out somewhere with my parents and T&P [some real-life friends of ours]. We're in a gravel parking lot, getting into our cars to go somewhere. I'm driving my own car by myself. I follow the other car, which has my parents and T&P in it, out of the parking lot and along a narrow, gravel-covered alley. There are two big rocks in the middle of it. I watch the other car drive over them and worry that my car isn't high enough off the ground to clear them, but it does, with no problem.

I have a small patch of thick, dark-brown hairs growing out of a mole on the right side of my chin. I want to pull all the hairs out with tweezers, but I look for the tweezers and can't find them. Later, I look in the mirror again and have a short, but thick beard, with only a couple of long hairs straying outside of the beard zone. I still can't find the tweezers, so I try to pull them out with my fingers, but can't; they're too solidly rooted. I continue playing with those hairs with my fingers as I go about the rest of my day. [Funny how at no point during this sequence did I think to question the situation; I'm a girl! I do, however, find and pull on stray hairs like that often in real life.]

I'm explaining to someone, over the phone [I think], that J&L have passed away. The conversation continues, and I say something about how hard it must be for the other person to find this out. [J&L are the original owners of the house I'm now renting. I've had this conversation over the phone at least twice in real life. Even though I never actually met them, it's still hard to tell people that news.]

I'm in a body of water, and there's this little cartoon guy swimming in the water. He has a mask and a snorkel on. There is a song playing: “let's go swimming under the sea!”, it says, or something like that. I'm following the little cartoon guy as he swims through the water. I have my own snorkel, but no mask. I don't really need it, though, because when I duck my head below the surface, I can see underwater just as clearly as if I were wearing a mask, and the water doesn't sting my eyes at all. Then, the little cartoon guy starts diving deeper under the water. I think to myself, It annoys me when cartoon characters do that when they only have a snorkel. [Somewhere toward the beginning of this dream, I became aware that I was dreaming, but I don't remember precisely when, nor what triggered it.] I want to continue following him under the water, and I think to myself, I can breathe underwater in dreams. My known dream ability to breathe water activates at this thought. I abandon the snorkel and continue following the little cartoon guy. We're in what looks like an ocean. The water is deep blue, and there are sea creatures of some kind swimming in it.

I'm in an unfamiliar bedroom, going to sleep. I even feel sleepy. While I'm getting into bed and falling asleep, I think about the fact that I'm going to be in a a dream as soon as I fall asleep, and that I'm going to be lucid and take conscious, intentional action while I'm there. [I remember having a specific mission in mind, but I don't remember what it was.] After a few seconds, I roll sideways out of bed and know that I'm in the dream world. [I think some kind of dream followed, but I don't remember it now. After that dream ends,] I'm back in the same bedroom again, and I go through the same sequence of falling asleep and knowing that I'm about to enter a lucid dream. This time, I sit up in bed to enter the dream, and then climb out of bed and step away from it, towards the door of the room. I cast a sidelong glance over at the bed and get a glimpse of myself, lying asleep. I quickly look away. I think, I know this is a dream room, and that that isn't actually my real body, but still, it's creepy. [I'm pretty sure I was aware that I was dreaming throughout this entire sequence, even the parts where I was falling asleep.] The reason I know that the whole experience is just a dream is that the bedroom I'm in isn't mine. The walls are painted a dark, cool color, the bedclothes match the walls, and the room is longer and narrower than my real one.

From that unfamiliar bedroom, I walk out into a plaza surrounded by buildings. It is a sunny day. There are signs in the plaza directing people to an area where a birthday party is being held for a child. I walk into that area and find a table with a bunch of party food set out on it. From that table, I take a cupcake and start eating it, without bothering to take the paper off first. I want to take advantage of the opportunity to do that. I know that this is my dream body, so I don't have to worry about the paper doing me any harm, and in addition, I don't have to worry about what the DCs around me will think if they see me eating the cupcake paper. The cupcake itself feels and tastes exactly like cupcakes do in real life. I walk around while eating it, observing all the people walking around and the kids running around and playing in the courtyard.

As I continue to explore the dream environment, I come upon another sign reminding everyone that it's time to go and complete the paperwork to register their cars. I follow the directional arrows on the sign, and end up entering a building that contains an office with a reception desk front and center as you walk in the front door of the building. I go up to the reception desk, tell the woman there my name, and ask for my car registration form. It turns out that the form is filed under my old address from when I was living in Florida. She gives it to me to update. The sheet of paper she gives me is the top sheet of a piece of carbon paper. It's a sheet I already filled out back when I was living in Florida; it has all my information from those days on it, in my handwriting, in blue ballpoint pen. I start working on bringing the information on it up to date.

The top section of the form contains several multiple-choice questions with checkboxes below them. These questions are all about your religious beliefs, and they're really only on the form as a formality. They ask about whether or not you believe in the Bartel Water Bug, and the boxes indicating non-belief are already checked. I read over this section and then start updating the form with my current address, but then it occurs to me to think: Why am I wasting dream time filling out a form? I look up from the paper to see what the woman behind the desk is doing. She has turned away to do something else. I set down my pen, turn around, and walk quickly out of the building while she's not looking.

Back in the courtyard, I discover that the item I've decided [in real life] to use as a totem, which in my case is a thimble, behaves in a very interesting way when thrown or tossed in a dream. Namely, it acts like a magnet. Whenever it comes anywhere near another person [yes, even if the other person is just a DC], it flies away from them as if it were being repelled by their presence. Then it flies back toward me, straight into my hand, as if it were magnetically attracted to me. I encounter a family that I know in real life, walking along the edge of the courtyard. I say something like, “You're gonna get this thing thrown at you,” to the 7-or-8-year-old daughter in the family, and then I throw my thimble at her. When it gets within about a foot of her, it flies away from her and back toward me, and I catch it. [That's the last I remember.]

---------------------------
Side notes:

When I woke up for real and reflected on the part of my dream where I kept dreaming about waking up and falling asleep within the dream, I thought, "Cool! My mind came up with a kind of hybrid dream experience, incorporating characteristics of the lucid dreaming experience that I learned from Inception (the knowledge that I was about to fall asleep and immediately find myself in a lucid dream, the experience of entering that dream from within another dream), as well as characteristics that I learned from DreamViews and from EWOLD (the perception of rolling out of my dream body and the knowledge that that room was itself a dream)." To those people who looked down on the newcomers who jumped on the lucid-dreaming bandwagon after Inception came out: I was one of those bandwagon-jumpers, even though I tried not to be too obnoxious and annoying about it, and I believe that we newcomers are perfectly capable of learning and growing into the world of lucid dreaming as it is actually experienced outside of the movies.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

[Last night, I had probably the longest and certainly the most highly lucid dream I've ever had. I'm writing this at the end of the day. I tried to recall this dream as best I could upon waking, and I made some handwritten notes, but by now, although I remember the highlights of the dream, I've forgotten what order they went in and how I moved from one to the other. This is my best attempt to reconstruct the whole, long sequence, but some of these are most likely not in the correct order. I do remember that I consciously chose to move from one activity to another in the dream, though.]

I’m in a large room with a really cool indoor playground in it. I observe that they’ve added more decorations and more play elements to the playroom since the last time I was there: there is now a long chain with brightly-colored wooden blocks in various shapes (cylinders, hexagons, and others) threaded onto it hanging across the ceiling, and there are more things to climb and play on. I climb up one of the climbing walls, along with another girl. We press against each other as we climb it.

Later, elsewhere in the same room, I’m looking at my reflection in a mirror. I notice that my neck looks strange, and tilt my head back to see. I see that my neck appears to have been replaced with a shiny, silver metal bar that appears to be a piston. This causes me to realize that I’m dreaming. I pinch my nose to confirm and find that I can still breathe. The familiar sensation pleases me, and I'm very happy to be in a lucid dream. I have a slightly higher degree of lucidity than I've ever had before.

I go outside the building. There is a grassy lawn outside it. I have a discussion of systems for play and discovery with MA [a real-life friend and colleague] and another dream character.

I then decide to explore a bit. I walk away from the large building and head toward another complex of buildings that appears to be an elementary-school campus. As I start walking, I say to myself, “Again, why am I walking when I can fly?” So I start flying over there. I find a party in progress on the far side of the elementary-school campus, where there are some picnic tables. People are hanging out and drinking beer. I obtain a pint glass for myself, but leave it sitting around on or near one of the walls as I wander away.

I see the entrance to a mall, and enter it.

I fly up into the air to get an overview of the area. From up here, I can see that the town I'm in is on the ocean and has a beach. I think, That makes sense. Oceans and beaches are part of my schema for what a broad overview of an area of land should look like, because of where I grew up.

I'm walking along a rolling dirt path. While walking, I eat yogurt out of a plastic cup with a metal spoon. It's raspberry-flavored and smooth and creamy, and it tastes exactly like real yogurt. Then, I find a handful of coins that someone has dropped on the side of the path, along with a bronze medallion. The medallion has some text inscribed on it that says the name of the country I'm in and what the medallion was awarded for. [I don't remember what it said now, although I could definitely read it in the dream, and the country name wasn't the name of any real country.] The coins are all common U.S. coins, but there's also a fifth coin, a brass-colored one that's shaped like a little house [a square shape with a pointy roof]. I pick all these items up.

I wake up in a car with MA, JL, and one other friend. One of them is driving, and I'm in the back seat. I remember that I had just been dreaming, and pinch my nose. Yep. Still dreaming.

While exploring the grassy, park-like area outside the building I started in, I spot a silver, metal, quarter-spherical shape rising up out of the ground. I say, “Ooh!” because I see an opportunity here. The structure is roughly the same shape as the baseball backstop I once fantasized about flying to the top of [see my DJ entry dated April 28, 2011], even though it's solid silver rather than chain-link, and it's maybe two-thirds to half the size of the real one. I take off and fly to the top of it, stopping myself by grabbing hold of the top edge of the hollow quarter-sphere with my hands and then swinging myself up onto it, so that I'm sitting at the top with my lower legs dangling over the edge. I'm facing a crowd of DCs standing on the ground, one of whom is a burly man who flashes me a thumbs-up sign. I proudly declare, “I'm the coolest kid in school!” The DCs seem to approve, but then they start flooding into the hollow space inside the quarter-sphere, filling the space and causing the structure to tip over backward. I climb off as it slowly tilts over, unhurt.

Having accomplished both the old goal of flying to the top of the backstop [well, sorta] and my other goal of trying dream food, I say aloud, “Okay, chores over. Time to have fun.” I fly up and let the wind carry me away.

The dream fades, and I find myself lying down. I try to move my arm, but judging by the feel of it, I realize, No, that's my real arm! I don't want to do that! [Whether or not this was actually true, I couldn't say for sure, but it sure felt like it was at the time.] After a brief moment of feeling stuck in that position and trying to figure out how to get back to exploring the dream world, I roll over and fall out of my bed. I think, Wow, that actually works! I quickly determine that I'm back to the lucid-dreaming state, and remind myself that all that's around me only exists inside my mind, as I read in EWOLD.

I'm looking at a different, grassy lawn. There is a little red demon thingy growing out of the grass. He has red roots that run all over the surface of the lawn. I have a magic sword, so I hold it out, wondering if it'll help and what I can do with it. The demon takes the sword and kills himself by using the sword to sever all his roots. When he and his roots have all disappeared, a small chair rises up out of the plus-sign-shaped hole in the ground where he had just been. It is a reward for my defeat of the demon. I take the chair and carry it with me as I fly back over to the party, which is still in progress.

When I get there, I use the chair to help me grab onto some structure to arrest my motion and land. Flying is easy, but stopping is hard, I think. I can't find the glass of beer I left there earlier, but I decide it's no big loss. I take my chair and sit down at the corner of one of the portable tables that are set up in the party area. I'm facing the outside wall of the elementary-school complex. Up against the wall I'm facing is another table with a clear pitcher of beer on it.

There is another handful of coins on the table near me – again, standard U.S. coins, all of them shiny and brand-new, plus the odd house-shaped coins I saw before. I decide to swallow some of them, because I know I can't do any harm to my real body by doing so. I see another girl at my table doing the same. It feels good. I can feel them going down my throat, but the sensation seems to be weaker than would be realistic, which isn't surprising, since I haven't actually done this in reality [and certainly never will]. After swallowing a few coins, I decide I want more beer to go with them, so I get up and get myself another cup. The beer is cold and rich and flavorful; it tastes exactly how I like my beer to taste.

I've run out of coins, but I still want more. I cup my hand, place it on the table palm side down, look away, and think about what I want to have happen. I feel little pops under my hand, like bursts of compressed air, as more coins pop into existence. Then I feel the coins themselves against my hand as the pile grows. I remove my hand and continue swallowing coins. I'm very pleased that I've suddenly become so good at summoning objects.

My dad is sitting right next to me, at the end of the table, so his chair is perpendicular to mine. He sees me swallowing coins and absolutely freaks out. He recoils from me in disgust, asking me, “What are you doing?” I simply respond, in an “it's not a big deal” tone, “It won't hurt my dream body.”

Then I woke up for real and waited while the last of the SP faded away, concentrating on remembering all that I'd dreamed about. I was very pleased to have accomplished so much and to have been lucid for so long. [In fact, I got to check two goals off the big list in my profile today: trying dream food and summoning an object. ]

[This is a catch-up post. This dream is from the night of June 18-19, and it's one of the most fascinating lucids I've had yet.]

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm shopping at the old Toys 'R Us that we used to go to when I was a kid. [In real life, it's been closed for several years.] I've driven up there all the way from my current town, by myself, and I told my parents where I was going before I left. I've come there just to get the purple hippo stuffed animal that I saw advertised. I find it, go to a checkout stand, swipe my credit card through the card reader sitting on the floor near one of the checkouts, and then walk to the other side of the line of checkouts and get in line to check out. There's quite a long line, but it's moving fairly quickly because there are a lot of checkouts open, and all the checkers are calling people over from that one line. The line is in a rectangular, dark, warehouse-like space in the front of the store, separated from the store proper by high, dark gray metal shelf racks that reach all the way to the high ceiling. When it comes my turn to check out, the checker waves me through when I show her my toy and the receipt that was printed out of the credit card reader.

I exit the store and get into my car [our current, brown Honda]. I examine my purple hippo. It's smaller and narrower than the teddy bear I already have [in real life], and therefore not as good a shape for use as an arm pillow, but still, it's kinda cute. I can feel that it has a plastic cup built into its nose, so that its nose holds its conical shape. I set it down on the floor of the passenger seat, start the car up, and drive out of the parking lot via the ramp behind and to the right of the store.

This ramp forces me to turn right, putting me onto a one-way street. “This is why my parents never went out this way,” I say to myself. I end up driving through a neat, clean, inviting-looking urban downtown area, with lots of modern, glass buildings, concrete parking structures, and trees on the sidewalks.

[The dream shifts.] I'm walking the darkened halls of a big, old apartment building whose halls form a continuous square. Stuff involving Muppets, a bird named Gloria, and an alarm clock happens. [This was another elaborate and plotty dream, but I don't really remember the details anymore. I don't particularly care, though, because the next part is the really awesome part.]

[The dream shifts again.] I'm out on the town, in the same cool, modern downtown I was driving around earlier, only now I'm on foot. While walking across a plaza, I see several of my friends from [$SocialClub] [an organization I belong to in real life]. I recognize that I've been in this downtown before, and am very happy to be here. Somewhere around this point, I become lucid. [As usual, I don't remember precisely at what moment I did so. It may have been that recognition that I'd been there before that triggered lucidity, but I'm not sure.] I also pass by my friends from [$Class], who are on their way to class. I think of going with them, but choose to go off by myself and explore instead.

I end up on a particular street corner where there is a restaurant with a live band playing inside. I enter the restaurant to listen to the band. The restaurant is named “Café Debussy.” [ :gape: Whoa. That is so awesome. That's the name of the cafe where Cobb gives Ariadne her first lesson in shared dreaming in Inception. That is just so cool that I have my own version of it. I may have realized the significance of this name at that moment, or it may not have been until after I woke up, I'm not sure.]

While I'm in the restaurant, I meet and get into a conversation with a female dream character, who asks me who I am. I say the same kinds of things I would say when meeting someone for the first time in real life: that I live and work nearby, what I do, that I'm a member of [$SocialClub]. When I finish, she looks at me with an expression that shows that she's disappointed in me, and that she can see right through the baloney I'm giving her. “Who are you, really?” she asks.

I sigh and start telling her the truth.

“I'm from another world, that's not like yours,” I say. “I only come to visit here when I'm dreaming.” I stop myself short of saying that I'm dreaming all this that's around us.

As I speak, we start rising up off the ground. I'm either flying us up or causing a tower to grow up from the ground under us. [I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was more likely the latter, because] I'm making the buildings all around us grow taller or shorter, or change shape, just by thinking about it. I'm doing this because I want to show my companion the city from up high.

“Because I'm dreaming, I can control the situation, like this,” I say. “It's fun.” [I say a bit more that I don't remember now, and then] I end by sighing again, then saying, “So, here I am, your dreamer.” I extend my hand to shake hands with her.

She takes it. [Surprisingly,] The female DC reacts to what I've just told her with happiness and excitement. She leads me purposefully off in a direction across the city, apparently intending to tell others about what she has learned and introduce them to me. As we go, I realize that in all the time we've been talking, I haven't told her my name, so I say to her, “My name is [$RealFirstName].” I deliberately use the nickname by which I'm known to family and friends in real life, rather than my official, legal name, because I don't want the Fae to know my true name, because that will give them power over me. [Seriously, that's what I thought during the dream. I would never set any store by such an idea in real life.] She doesn't reply, though.

[She didn't introduce me to anyone, though. The next thing I remember,] The female DC and I have walked out to a metal, industrial-looking bridge, from which we're watching the sunset over the cityscape. I ask her, “What's your name?”

“Darla,” she says.

I shake my head and correct her: “No, that's the name of my friend who looks like you. What's your name?” Although she looks like one of my real-life friends, I'm interested in her identity as a separate individual.

From the way she hesitates for at least 15 seconds, going “Hmmmm...” several times while looking all around her at our surroundings, it's clear that she's never thought of herself as having an individual name separate from that of her real-life counterpart before. Finally, she looks over at the setting sun and says, “Umbra.” [She pronounces it “OOM-brah;” it means “shadow” in Latin. Hmmm. Very interesting.]

[Fragment.] Something involving roller coasters that look like snakes.

[False awakening.] I'm comparing notes with my mom about whether or not we just had the same dream about snakes.

[Different dream.] I'm on a ride that has foam seats with over-the-shoulder restraints. The seats are suspended high up in the air from an overhead track in a large building. I've somehow managed to board the ride so that I'm perched in between two seats, rather than fully seated in one of them. While the train of seats I'm on is moving to its destination, I manage to maneuver myself into one of the seats and get the restraints into place.

My train of seats arrives at its destination: directly above a gigantic aquarium tank. That's when I realize what the purpose of this ride is: to allow visitors a chance to be submerged in the tank for several minutes on end. I realize that I was supposed to bring a snorkel or scuba gear with me on this ride, but I didn't, and there's no way to get out of the restraints before I get dunked in the tank. I'm only mildly concerned about this, though.

I hold my breath and the seats descend, submerging me and everyone else several feet underwater. As soon as the seats have stopped descending, I start swimming upward, taking my seat and my restraints with me [I think; I'm not sure]. The moment I break the surface of the water, I found myself awake. I immediately kicked myself for not realizing that I was dreaming and subsequently recalling that I can breathe underwater in dreams.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm traveling to Epcot on a highway. The highway is elevated relative to the park, which is long and narrow, and lush and green. There is a giant, inflated jack-o’-lantern in the center of the park. I’m dismayed to realize that the jack-o’-lantern has become the park’s de facto icon; it was never meant to be.

[Different dream.] I'm at a summer camp somewhere. [The day before I had this dream, I'd suddenly, randomly come to the nostalgic realization that it had been a very long time since I'd been to a camp of any kind. Thanks, brain! :-) ] I arrive at a wooden pickup station (sort of like a bus stop) at 8:15 A.M. [I think], in time to get picked up by a horse-drawn, wheeled wagon. I climb up into it and sit down on one of several benches. The wagon takes me and several other campers to an Old Western town where a reenactment activity will take place.

When I get there, I'm really glad I got up in time to catch the wagon, because the town is pretty cool. There are a bunch of animatronic figures that re-enact the shootout at the OK Corral. They have guns that fire styrofoam bullets, which stick to designated, smooth, flat target areas on the other animatronic figures. I move out of the way and take cover while the shootout is going on, not wanting to get hit by the bullets.

When the shootout is over, a large bunch of balloons comes floating toward me. I understand that it’s to transport me back to the point where I entered the town. I take hold of the ribbons on the balloons and allow them to pick me up and float me over some buildings to another part of the town.

I touch down in front of some town official, possibly the mayor or the sheriff. He asks me, “What do you think of the town?”

“I think I’ll stay,” I answer. When I say this, what I mean by it is that I want to get a souvenir picture taken in period costume. There is a kiosk nearby where you can do this. I’m about to do it, but when I look at the signs on the kiosk, I see that the pictures cost $5.00 each. I don’t want to pay $5.00 for a photo, so I change my mind and turn away.

[Dreamskip.] I’m floating with my bunch of balloons again [I think], heading toward a theme park with a roller coaster. I’m thinking about how theme parks are architectural works of art, and should be appreciated as such.

[I waited too long to start writing this, so I don't really remember what happened between the end of that scene and the beginning of the next one, nor do I remember how or why I became lucid.]

I'm in the entrance corridor of a big, fancy office building with a beautifully decorated interior. In front of me is a long wall with a door in it, and a sign next to the door indicating that these are the offices of a financial company. I know that it's a subsidiary of another company, and that it's in charge of the other company's finances.

I think, Okay. I'm going to try to walk through a wall again. I start walking forward, thinking about that goal. I begin to pass through the wall, and the room on the other side becomes visible. I continue moving forward. Even when I've gone far enough that I should be all the way through, I can still see parts of the ornately-decorated wall; they linger in my vision, semi-transparent and seeming to stick with me, like the strands of a spiderweb stick to you when you walk through it. I think, Just keep going forward. They'll go away, and you'll get through. You can do it. I keep moving forward, and the last strands of the afterimage of the wall finally fall away behind me, leaving me standing in the financial offices. There's no tactile sensation this time, though, unlike in my previous lucid dream when I went through the car door; this time, I don't feel anything at all from the wall. I'm happy and proud that I've finally walked through a wall without leaving a hole in it.

I wander through the financial offices a bit. There are employees of the company there, walking around, going about their everyday work. I think, I'm invisible and inaudible to them. Or, if I am visible, I just look like another employee. Somehow, I just know intuitively that one or the other of these things is true.

Eventually, I end up in front of another long wall, this one made of mirrors. [I don't remember now how I got from one scene to the next.] When I find myself in front of this wall of mirrors, I think, Now that I've figured out how to walk through walls, I'd like to try out another dream ability. I wonder if I can create a portal. Remembering what I read in somebody’s DJ here on DreamViews, I use my right index finger to trace a circle on the mirror-wall. [I don't know what exactly made me pick this destination, but] In my thoughts, I pick “heaven” as the destination that I want to be on the other side of the portal. When I'm finished drawing the circle, the area inside it doesn't transform into a portal; instead, it swings inward, like a door on a hinge. I go through the doorway.

The doorway is on one of the short sides of a rectangular room. The floor, walls, and ceiling of the room are all the same dark, metallic slate-gray color. At the opposite end of the room is a raised stage, also that same color, and on the stage is a smaller-than-life-size, cartoon lion. He's very definitely alive, though, and I know who he is immediately. I kneel down on the floor where I am and exclaim, “My Lord Aslan!” [Hmm. Well. That's reassuring.]

[I don't really remember how I got to the next scene. I remember attempting to create another portal and finding only darkness on the other side of the circular door because I hadn't been thinking of any particular destination, but I don't remember whether that was before or after the above scene. In any case, here's the next scene that I do remember.]

I'm now outside the building I was in before, walking across a grassy field. I happen to glance down at my feet and notice that I'm barefoot, and that I appear to have an unusually large number of toes, sticking out at odd angles and overlapping each other in unnatural ways, just like my fingers sometimes do when I look at them in dreams. I look down again, and this time I see that I have eight toes in a neat row on my left foot. It makes me smile to discover that toes can exhibit the same odd behavior as fingers in dreams.

I'm very pleased with my achievements so far tonight, but no other ideas for new abilities to try out come to mind, and the sky and the grass are so inviting, so I decide to fly. I kick off the ground with my right foot and take off. I find myself being forced backward by some unseen, unidentified force, just as I have many times before when I've started flying. I move my fists into the position I learned from my dream dad in my previous lucid, with my left fist close to my chest and my right one further away from my body, and move them back and forth relative to each other, trying to use that new technique I'd just learned to gain control over my flying. It works. I stop feeling the unseen force, and begin flying forward.

[That’s the last I remember of my dream.]

I woke up and found myself still in sleep paralysis. I didn’t feel any vibrations this time, though; it just felt like my arms and legs were really heavy, and like I couldn’t move them even if I tried. I waited a few seconds before moving my arms from their position up over my head. I didn’t even remember putting them there before falling asleep. A few minutes later, the feeling goes away.

-----------
Side notes:

I get to check another goal off my list of lucid-dreaming goals! Yay! I really look forward to continuing to improve my intangibility skills. Now that I've more or less gotten the hang of going through things, my new big goal is to get good at defining, creating, and getting into dream environments of my choice.

[This is a catch-up post. I had another good lucid dream on the night of April 27-28, 2011. It took me a long time to get around to finishing the writeup of this, but here it is.]

Awake, Non-lucid, Semi-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm at a meeting of my local community advocacy and action group. It's being held in a big, spacious, public multipurpose meeting room. There are no chairs or tables in the room, just empty floor space. A lot of the people there are wearing our team color, orange. We're electing the new secretary for the group. The election process begins with everyone who wants to run for the position walking out of the crowd and going and standing in a line, facing the rest of the crowd. My friend J. is there, and she starts to go and stand in the line of candidates. I tell her something like, “Oh, don't run for this. You already do so many things.” I'm specifically thinking of choir when I say this. [In real life, J. and I are in choir together, but she's not part of the advocacy group.] I say this to her because I don't want her to get overwhelmed with too many responsibilities.

[Later, different cycle.] I'm walking through House #1. Everything looks gray, dimly-lit and fuzzy. Because of that, I suspect that I might be dreaming, so I do a reality check. [I don't remember what it was; I think it was trying to go through a solid object.] It doesn't work. “Aw, nutbunnies!” I say aloud, disappointed that it isn't a dream.

And yet, a part of my mind is still suspicious. As I continue walking through the house, I decide to try doing the nose-pinch RC. This time, it works. I'm delighted to find that I really am dreaming! Breathing through my pinched-shut nose feels really cool, too. I do it several times, to verify that I'm dreaming and to experience that cool, weird sensation. It's been a while since I've experienced it.

As usual, I'm eager to just explore the world of this dream and see what there is to see, so I leave the house through the front door and go outside into the yard. It's a bright, sunny, breezy day, and now everything is in color, rather than shades of gray. I walk through the front gate and out into the front yard. Standing on the front lawn between the hedge and the liquid-amber tree, I allow myself to be lifted up into the air on the breeze. It's really fun. “Wheeeee!” I say aloud, enjoying the moment with pure, childlike playfulness. The wind blows me into the branches of the liquid-amber tree, which are pointy and scratchy. I return to the ground.

Our brown car is sitting on the north side of the driveway, the side furthest from the front lawn. [I think it might have been the Mazda we had when we lived in House #1, not the Honda we have now.] I decide to continue practicing my intangibility skills by passing through the closed car door to get into the car. As I start to go through the door to the back seat on the passenger side, the door becomes semi-transparent and stretches inward, like a rubber sheet. I get all the way through and feel the door pull away from my body as it snaps back into place. It feels like rubber, too. I'm now sitting in the back seat of the car. “Holy s***, that was awesome!” I exclaim aloud. I'm really proud that I succeeded in going through the car door like that.

I sit in the back seat of the car for a moment, just taking in the realism and detail of its interior and basking in the glow of my achievement. Then, I decide to get out of the car the normal way, by opening the door. By the time I get out, a van has parked on the other half of the driveway, right next to my car, and there are people getting out of it.

I think, Hey, I'm here in the dream version of my old neighborhood. This would be a great chance to go fly up to the top of the baseball backstop in the park. So I start flying toward the park. To get there, I fly above the streets that lead to it. “I’m not exactly going as the crow flies,” I remark to myself. I realize that I'm following the same route to get from my house to the park that one would follow if one were driving between the two points; I'm just following that route out of a habit that was ingrained into my mind in the real world. The thought crosses my mind that I might wake up from this at any moment, but I immediately push the thought away and ignore it, because I want to stay in the dream.

I arrive at the park. “I’ve always wanted to do this!” I exclaim. [Some background for DV readers: As a child, I once came across a book about out-of-body experiences in a bookstore. I didn't buy it, and I was too afraid to try to induce an OBE, but I thought the idea was really cool. I fantasized that if I were ever to have one, the first thing I would do would be to go to the park, fly to the top of the chain-link baseball backstop, and sit on the edge of it. I wanted to do that in this dream because it was something I had wanted to do for many, many years.]

I start flying through the park toward the baseball backstop. My dad is there, and he stops me and shows me a way to hold my arms that will help me fly better and faster. I do what he shows me: hold my arms out in front of me, elbows bent, fists out, right fist in front of my left one. He tells me that I can fly faster by pushing my right fist further away from me and pulling my left one in closer to my chest, as if I were pulling a rope taut. I try it, and it works. During this training session, I notice that I’m suddenly wearing red boxing gloves.

Using this new method, I continue flying toward my goal. It's a long, long way to the place where I think the baseball field should be, over wild, natural terrain. When I get to where I think it should be, there is no baseball field there, just a broad area filled with rocky hills. I spot the backstop among the hills and land next to it.

“What?” I say aloud, surprised and confused. There is a metal baseball backstop, but it's tiny [maybe two feet tall], overgrown with weeds, and covered with the spiky seed pods from liquid-amber trees. “That’s pretty lame!” I say in disappointment. I turn away and fly back the way I came.

I eventually fly back to what appears to be the counter of a sporting-goods store. I land there and take off the red boxing gloves I'm still wearing, and the bicycle kneepads I have on my feet. I then leave the store by flying through the big, high, square window above its front door. Flying through it creates a sort of flashing, ripple effect in the glass, somewhat similar to what I saw the first time I went through glass, but more visible and flashier. I knew I could fly through glass intangibly because I’d done it before.

I'm now flying outside. There is a concrete parking structure that looks a lot like the one at the local mall right in front of me, and there is another park off to the right. I head toward the park to fly up onto one of the baseball backstops there. As I’m making my way over there, I hear the very faint sound of smooth jazz music. I realize that there’s only one place that music could be coming from: my parents’ clock radio. [I notice that the music is playing at normal speed, too – this demonstrates to me that time does indeed pass at the same speed in my lucid dreams as it does in the real world.] The combination of the music and my knowledge of where it's coming from cause the dream to fade and me to wake up.