nightmare

So I’ve been trying to get a lot more serious about LDing for this year. I very much need to experience other worlds right now. And it’s somewhat worked; I’ve had very brief moments of lucidity and even one OBE in the past few days.

Last night was pretty lame though. I only remember one non-lucid dream and that’s it. I was picking up something in a dark garage, and I felt like something bit me. Well, I looked at my hand and found a smallish spider actively biting me. I’m an arachnophobe so I freaked out. I killed it while it was biting me. It left a bloody circular mark on my finger, and for some reason it was purple.

I woke up shortly after that. I checked my finger and whew, no bite lol. It’s still a bit frustrating though; my brain felt so tired yesterday that my dreams were at a pretty low level of awareness. Which is definitely why I wasn’t conscious enough to do a reality check as planned.

Two nights ago, I had a dream about a creepy monster. It started out as an orange snake, female. Then it turned into an evil monster. Apparently, it was called a "ground Shrek", and despite the reference to a kid's movie, it was actually quite terrifying.

It had glowing yellow eyes, and a mouth that was filled with sand. It sang a song as it began eating/killing everyone, and it went like this:

"...And we shall be appointed view
Of earth's eternal sleep."

There were a few lines before it but I couldn't make them out. It kept singing this creepy ditty over and over again as it killed people, and its voice was now deep, masculine, and hollow. The song had a tune similar to a church hymn that I know, "Go Forth With Faith", which for some reason makes it even creepier.

It raced towards me, and I couldn't get away in time. The last thing I heard inside of its mouth was this song, and I fell into the sand that fell even further into a black void. At that moment, I believed that I was facing death, and I would finally see what the afterlife was like, if it existed. Then I woke up. Terrifying, but cool.

Non-lucid.

This tops the nightmare I had about the haunted church with the demonic shrieking choir, and the dream about the wasps crawling out of my ears.

In this dream, my dad was forced (by some evil people, if I recall correctly) to shoot a group of people. This included my brother, my sister, my aunts and uncles, some of my cousins, and others. Then, he had to shoot himself.

My mom and I were spared, for some reason, but we were forced to watch as our relatives stood there and my dad pointed the weapon at them.

I woke up before it got violent, thankfully. But holy hell my subconscious must hate me. Took me a while to fall back asleep after this one. Awful.

I keep getting back into lucid dreaming and then falling out of it whenever things get too busy. This is bad. I am really trying to be more consistent from here on out.

I used to have such good recall. last night was faint, and I recall two nightmares: I had a dream about a creepy guy and his daughter, apparently. Then, I had another dream, this one about a playground for all ages including adults that was haunted/menacing. It was loosely similar to the current horror novel I'm writing. It's cool to have nightmares about your creative work; hopefully that means I'm actually creating something spooky. (:

I'm pretty sure I was lucid this past week, but only briefly and I don't have time to search for where I wrote it down as it's the first week of classes. :/

Last night, I was on a public balcony/observation deck that overlooked the ocean with my mom and possibly one or both of my siblings. There were some enormous ocean waves going on, and some even spilled over the top of the balcony. However, despite my anxiety, we kept sitting there and chatting for some reason.

Finally, one giant wave started heading towards us. It was terrifying...And then I woke up.

For whatever reason, enormous waves tend to be a recurring motif for me in my dreams...

So my family in general is pretty cool. I get along with them fine for the most part, and none of them are psycho in any way. :p

But last night I had this crazy nightmare that my dad was trying to imprison us and a bunch of other people, most of them strangers, in our house. I think he was going to kill us too or something. When he was half asleep, or drugged, or something, we were able to control him, so we instructed him to move the people out of our house, and we were planning to get out of there too before I woke up.

He was deranged. Weird look in his eyes too. It was pretty freaky-deaky for sure. o____o

Am I more prone to nightmares than the average person, or do most people experience this?

Dream 1: My family and I are at the airport. We have to go to the other part of it...in disguise (?) because of a fire and smoke in the nearby mountains.

We stop to use the restroom. My dad and brother go ahead and use it, but as I'm trying to head to the toilets, this kid who used to bully me in middle school blocks me and starts kicking me, and mocking me. I tried having a normal conversation with him so that he would let me alone, but then he just starts making fun of me again. I had no idea what to do. It was a very powerless feeling and it was awful to have to relive that :/ Thankfully I woke up pretty quickly. No lucidity though.

IRL, this kid was a prick in middle school, but he actually became a really nice guy in high school. It was weird how that worked. I went from hating him to liking him over the course of a year. I did my best to forgive him for what he had done to me in the past. So I have no idea why my subconscious wanted me to experience that again.

Dream 2: I was at a nice restaurant with my (extended) family. We went to dinner at this fancy restaurant inside a mall. But I had to go to the bathroom, and the chef or waiter or whoever I talked to said that there wasn't a bathroom in the restaurant, so I'd have to go next door. Next door was a more casual but still pretty fancy diner with a bar as part of it. I walked past the bar and into the outdoor patio area. At this point, I had completely forgotten about using the bathroom, and went to get a drink of water instead. I sat outside with my water for a while, on a concrete step, next to a single dude on my right and a parent and their toddler-age daughter on the left. (Can't remember if the parent was male or female.) I watched a small little fountain show that they had going on. Water was leaping into the air out of the small fountain; I think it was shaped like a dolphin? Not 100% sure. A Weepinbell was there too for some reason, and it spit bubbles out of its mouth and into the air. The song "Alone I Break" by Korn was playing. When I woke up, the song was still in my head. o_o

Dream 3: Family again. We're going home from a reunion. My dad said that he'd take me to a cool place he was thinking of, but I can't remember where. Before leaving, I start playing with some toys in this outdoor pit (part of our condo). Kaden, a former co-worker of mine, is there for some reason. We dig through this ENORMOUS mess of toys -- like it's about the size of a small house -- and we found a really cool map. This other dude who looked half-white, half-Chinese was there, and he was the one who found the map. Each time you looked at it, the map would change. The first time it had the 50 states, the second time it only had the continental 48, and the third time it had a saying or slogan or something on it in black lettering with a yellow background. Might've flipped it a fourth time; I don't really remember but if we did I believe something new was on there. There was a piece of tape on it, too, with some writing, but I don't recall what it said. We tried to find the brand so that we could buy one ourselves, but we couldn't seem to find it.

IRL the power went out last night for just a few seconds; I can't remember which dreams it was in between but I couldn't remember anything when I woke up then. (The fans went off, so I think that's what woke me up)

Dream 4: Some guy with long blond hair was complaining about how they wouldn't let this one girl who was a missionary use DeviantArt or Facebook or other websites ("they" being the people in charge of her, I think), and I was trying to explain to him that missionaries aren't supposed to use those things anyway at least until they finish.

I don't know why all of these dreams involved bathrooms and my family. And I'm still trying to decide whether to keep describing my dreams in past tense or present tense. But overall it was a night with a lot of vivid memories, so that I am grateful for!

It's been too long since I've updated this. Hoping to get a bit more on track this summer.

Dream 1: I remember being really itchy during this dream, and I found that the reason why I was itchy was because a spider was crawling on me. ._____. The creepy thing was that I woke up and was still itching. Thankfully, no spiders to be seen. xD

Dream 2: This one was kinda cool. I was walking around with a bunch of my friends from school, on campus, including a TA from Film which I took a few semesters ago. One of the guys there asked me how my slipping was going, and I was really confused until we stepped off of the path. I then saw all the ICE that was all over campus, even though it was sunny and summer. The ice was pretty dirty and gross, and some of it was transparent-ish so that you could see some of the grass underneath. In order to walk on it, I tried flying, but I could only fly for short bursts at a time for some reason. Then, I had to land again, and there was the risk of slipping upon landing. So I settled for this awkward hop-slide method, where I alternated short flying and sliding on my butt. We were heading towards a large tree for some reason, at the edge of a field (said tree does not exist IRL).

Then there were these ducks we slid by, and they were all dead. o_o My campus has a lot of ducks, but they are usually, you know, not dead. One of them was cut open, and instead of blood and guts, it was filled with black beads. Weird stuff.

I was very close to being lucid, considering that I knew that I could fly, but I did not consciously recognize that I was in a dream.

Slept 7.5 hours last night. I've been lacking sufficient REM sleep lately, having not slept enough for the majority of the week, and I think that's why I started dreaming and woke up about 30 minutes later, then fell back asleep with no recollection of dreams for the rest of the night. Weird how that works -- I'll have to do some more research.

The one dream I remember was from that 30 minute period shortly after going to bed. I was at home home, as in my parent's house, which I only go to during breaks from college nowadays. There were spiders all over the place. I'm freaking terrified of spiders. D: The other weird thing in this dream was that my dad was nervous just like I was, when in the waking world he tells me to stop being so scared of things like that. Yet that wasn't enough to clue me in to lucidity. But it was close. Ish.

I need a new reality check. Checking my watch hasn't worked in years, and attempting to fly worked a few times, but it simply hasn't occurred to me during a dream. And I'm not doing the trying to breathe with your nose plugged thing, because the idea of not being able to breathe scares me. o.o Maybe I'll try the one where you push your finger through your hand. We will see.

...and the coolest story idea ever! I only remembered one dream from last night, and sadly it wasn't lucid, but it was still really awesome.

My family and I were going to the Haunted Islands (which is a placeholder name for a foreboding archipelago in my imaginational world that will be used in one of my novels at some point).

But they were significantly different than how I designed them in my conscious, waking life. For one thing, they were more of a theme park or tourist attraction. In fact, as we were going to visit, we weren't sure if the place was really dangerous or if it was just a fun attraction. We went in the evening, when the sun had already set, so it was already pretty creepy.

There were two large mountains that embodied the spirits of the island. The narrative temporarily faded, and instead I was looking at a coloring book with the mountains outlined on it. I started coloring them in with a gray marker. Then, they became real again. One had the head of a snake, with glowing eyes which switched from yellow to blue every few minutes or so. The other was another monster, more mammalian: I can't remember precisely what it was, but I think it was either a bear or a wolf or something. The snake-mountain was really cool. It was almost seductive in the way that it spoke, inviting us to the island. However, it also creeped me out, even though I absolutely love snakes in the waking world. I think I just got a really bad feeling, and so did my parents. Like we shouldn't be there.

The snake gave us one last warning: We had a short increment of time in which we could still leave. The gates to the haunted world were closing, but we had like a minute to rush out.

My sister was really excited by the prospect of exploring this haunted world. My brother usually goes along with her IRL, and he did so in the dream. However, my parents decided to leave. At the very last second, I decided to as well. A silver analog clock read 10:25 PM, and I had a lot of homework to do even in the dream. We rushed out the gates and just got out before they shut. Barely. Narrowest escape in a dream ever. xD

And then I remember vaguely something about Scooby-Doo.

This is oddly symbolic of what's going on in the waking world. Suffice it to say that my sister was doing some rather unhealthy things...think drugs and sex as a high schooler. And my brother isn't doing anything crazy., but he is losing his faith and is really struggling emotionally.

I'm using this dream as a creative idea. Either for a novel or a theme park ride idea, or -- better yet -- both! I'd like to be an Imagineer one day, but I don't think this idea would work particularly well for Disney.

Oh, and I also had two more dreams, but I couldn't remember them. I know I had them, but I had zero recollection of the content upon waking.

I'm actually going to go to bed in just a few minutes. It's almost 1 AM here. But yeah. I need to report on last night's dreaming.

Dream 1: (Non-Lucid Fragment) There was a swimming pool with swirling water. I remember that its floor and walls were comprised of white tiles. They had a pretty floral design on them.

Dream 2: (Non-Lucid Fragment) My aunt was in this dream. Which is fun because she is pretty cool. We were watching bluebirds flying free, or something.

Dream 3: (Non-Lucid Fragment) My notes from this one are so nonsensical...I'm just going to reproduce them. Nightmare lair, stolen item, [something I can't read] out, trying not to get choked etc. o_o

Dream 4: (Non-Lucid Full Dream) So, in this dream we (me and some others) were supposed to take something back from an evil demon ruler of some sort. This happened twice for some reason; I think we were either defeated or had to retreat the first time. At any rate, both times I was terrified.

A former co-worker of mine and some other guys were working hauling rocks. Funny because IRL he graduated with a degree in IT, so why would he be doing construction work? We slowly walked by them. I remember wanting to walk slowly to avoid combat -- not with them, but rather I wanted to put off having to confront the demon. The day was sunny and pretty, but it felt ominous. They were working in a sort of shaded picnic area, and we were following a trail that was leading up the mountain where the demon lived. We were still near the mountain's base. There was light green grass and dirt all around, and both evergreen and deciduous trees. Yet I was pretty much terrified beyond all reason throughout the duration of this one. However I thankfully woke up far before any combat happened!

3 fragments; 1 full non-lucid.

And that's it.

Well!

Since I've last updated my DJ, I've only had one lucid dream. It was during a nap, which occurred after a night of only 4 hours of sleep. It was a few weeks ago. The nap wasn't long at all - maybe 25 minutes - but apparently it was still sufficient for my body to go into REM sleep.

I don't remember much about it now, due to poor note-taking on my part (hence why I've resolved to get better! see below). But what I do remember is this: Some other people and I were going to go into the "belly of the beast". We went inside the stomach of this monster. Inside, there was a whole world. Aside from a short period of time, it didn't really feel like we were inside of something.

There was a ghost inside one of the chambers. It was green and vaguely hominid, but cartoony. I remember it singing in a haunting voice. It came closer to me and grabbed me, but oddly enough I wasn't afraid. Just entranced. It started dancing with me, swirling me around this chamber inside of a beast, and I remember thinking there was something very beautiful about that. Apparently my heart was racing too quickly out of exhilaration, because I woke up after that. My body was still in sleep paralysis when I woke up, so I kept it there, not moving at all. I tried to go back to sleep, but despite being able to stay paralyzed I wasn't able to get to sleep again.

Then I had to wake up and take a final. D:
________
Now I have resolved to get better. I've bought a new dream journal for my bedside - a 90 page spiral notebook. I had a mini composition book, and that was too small for me to record everything without having to turn pages in a sleepy fog. It didn't go over well. This one, though, is a lot nicer, and it has anchors on the front of it, so I can prepare to sail on the sea of dreams.

Last night's dreams are as follows. Unfortunately, they were all mild to moderate nightmares of some sort. -_- And they weren't lucid. On the bright side, I woke up after each and was able to record them!

1. I was with my dad at an airport (possibly - it was some sort of public transportation, most likely an airport). He was in a rush and getting angry at me for getting too slow. Then, I was with this other girl. (Never seen her before in real life) She was in a rush, too. I knew that she would also get angry if I was late. But I kept forgetting and dropping stuff. At one point, I lost a suitcase completely. She was getting angrier by the minute. There simply wasn't enough time for me to keep up with her.

2. I was living in this house/shack. There were a few people living there, supposedly the same religious faith as me, who were doing drugs in the house. (Drugs aren't exactly okay for my church!) One of them was a man. I don't remember who the others were. They spoke of a red-eyed ghost cat who lived in the basement of the house, but I didn't believe them until I went downstairs. And there it was, staring directly at me. Looked kind of like Bunnicula in cat form. I freaked out, hardcore. (This is funny because I actually love cats in the waking world. Just apparently not ghost ones.) Aaaand then I woke up.

3. I was inside of this large, white, tower-like structure. A green forest surrounded me. I was trying to get away from a group of "bad guys", as my sleep-fogged notes say. I am not sure why they were bad or what they were trying to do. It was very difficult, nearly impossible, to evade them. I somehow managed to lose my (left?) shoe and my insole to that shoe. It floated up into the air and I couldn't get it. My younger sister, standing on a platform a short ways above me, caught it and gave it back to me.

A few more things happened (mainly being chased) that are too fuzzy right now for me to recall. Then, someone made a joke about God and Adam (or some ancient prophet? idk) being converted to the gospel. That someone looked a lot like this guy Zach from back in high school (on my sports team).

I don't remember exactly when, but I believe that I woke up sometime during a chase scene.

And that's it.
____

As an aside, I really hope this next semester doesn't kill me. -_- Last semester was exhausting and I didn't get enough sleep. This coming semester I'm only taking 12 credits, but I'm trying to apply for a major that only accepts 40-45% of its applicants, and I've got a lot of work to do in order to get my portfolio to an acceptable level. We will see what happens.

To anyone who may have actually managed to read this entire thing: Hope you have a wonderful day.

Yes, I remembered nine dreams from last night. I think it has to do with it being a Saturday and being able to sleep in - I remember dreams better that way.

I can't remember the entire order though.

Dream 1: Hypnagogic imagery. It had something to do with a car. That's all I remember.

Dream 2: I was indoors, in a bedroom of some sort. I was with a kid who looked kind of like my brother and kind of like a friend I had in middle school (I think he kept changing). He was wearing a black sweatshirt. There was a spider hanging down from a web next to him as he sat on the bed. The spider kept moving around; it was scary and disgusting. Apparently the kid wasn't sure if he wanted to kill it or let it stay alive. It was red and black and changed from mostly red to looking like a black widow. It was really creepy.

Dream 3: I was at a restaurant. There was a girl who was in love with a guy that were sitting at a table either with me or near me; I honestly can't remember. I was at the restaurant and saw a group of friends along with the two people who were in love with each other. I think the girl was blond and the guy looked like Orlando Bloom or that one character from the Princess Bride with the black hair...but I can't remember fully. -_- I had chicken nuggets on my plate. I was around people for a while, then suddenly I was at a more solitary table, and I felt a bit lonely. Then I went to the bathroom or something, and when I came back, almost all the lights were out. Everyone was silent and the doors and windows of the restaurant were shut; you couldn't get out. For some reason my brother was there, sitting at a table. I asked him what was going on, and he told me. I don't exactly remember what he said, but I think the restaurant had been taken by an evil group or something.

Why must I have so many nightmares? D:

It must've been right around this point when I realized, although sleepily and hazily, that this was a dream. Which leads me into

Dream 4: As soon as I realized I was dreaming, the scene fell away and shifted to something nicer. I was with a girl and I wanted to travel with her into a place where we could fall in love. I was lucid at this time, but my awareness was kind of low. We looked at a few places: a foggy city, a beautiful urban city with black buildings and yellow/multicolored lights (reminiscent of LA), and over a nebula thing in space. Yes, we were flying. However, for some reason, I got scared (this happens a lot when I get lucid, which is dumb because it's a dream; what is there to be scared of?) and I woke up.

Dream 5: I was chosen to be in a piloting class, with only 3 or so people in it, for whatever reason. The instructor asked if we had read the assigned textbook material. I hadn't, but flipped to the back of the book, where there was an astronomy section. Then we went outside in some sort of hover vehicle to go around town, and that's when I looked out the window and saw a shooting star! I've never seen one before (I've caught glimpses of them, but was never sure if it was just my imagination or not), and in the dream I couldn't remember if I had seen one once before or not. Anyway, the meteor was a giant gray rock with little pieces coming off of it, and it glowed this beautiful shade of electric blue. IT WAS SO COOL! When I saw it, I yelled out "WHOA!" because I had never seen one before and because it was so enormous. My friend and the instructor, who were in the craft with me, were so happy for me.

Dream 6: I was on this psychology forum that I go to. One of my friends' profile said that you must tame the beast and it will choose you. And for some reason, I thought I was getting a dragon. XD Instead, I got a creature that looked like Barney. My subconscious is so bizarre. O__________O XD

Dream 7: Someone was telling me I was addicted to the internet, and I got (understandably) very mad at them. That's all I remember.

Dream 8: We were supposed to be driving somewhere, even though that day was apparently going to be "Carmageddon." (This has its basis in reality, because my brother went to a cross-country race on that day, today.) I figured that (for some reason) there would hardly any cars in the morning, so we should just go then. But we weren't going...for some reason.

Dream 9: My mom got interested in personality theory! And I think she was looking at a typology forum. I highly doubt this would happen in real life - I've tried to tell her about it - but you never know, I guess.

That took forever to type. xD

I was at some sort of tourist attraction. It was a bay connected to the ocean. The water was a weird shade of turquoise, but a nice warm temperature. I was in the water, swimming or treading water or something, when my dad and mom floated by on this tiny little boat thing and told me to hop on.

Oddly enough, the boat was tiny, and I barely fit in. I had to lay down sideways in order to fit. It was also made of rubbery material, which was weird. My dad said something. I remember that the ocean was beautiful and that my brother was in the ocean too, trying to find us. But it took him a long time.

Then we were on a pier, walking. When we reached the end of the pier, there was a pirate ship show and my family joined the crowd to watch it. I wasn't that interested, so I pulled out my mini sketchbook and was about to draw something when suddenly they came out and forced me to be a volunteer for the show. They just said something along the lines of "Any volunteers?" and then grabbed me (even though I didn't say anything) and dragged me on board. They said I was going to be a volunteer, but didn't tell me what I was supposed to do, so I was really, really irritated. And also scared, because I would be standing in front of a bunch of people without knowing what I was doing. IRL, this wouldn't have happened. I'd have forced my way out of the ship.

Eventually, when I was supposed to go onstage, they realized that I had no idea what I was doing and so replaced me with some other guy. But I couldn't leave the ship. Then I got really angry when the guy did it and it wasn't anything that hard at all. I don't remember what he did, unfortunately.

Then everyone in the ship started partying and coloring - yes, they seriously got out activity books and started coloring - except me. And I had a really hard time forcing my way out of the ship. Luckily, it was still docked, and I was heading out when either I woke up or the dream stopped. Ugh, I hate how many of my dreams involve me getting captured and forced to do things. ;___; And everyone having a party without me. Not cool, man. x_x

This entry should've been written on Wednesday, but I got lazy. >: (

According to my hastily scribbled notes on my bedside bookshelf, "Looking photos family." I can't remember this, but apparently it happened, so I'm recording it now. xD Now for what I actually remember. It may have been two dreams, but I'm uncertain; they sort of blurred into one another.

I was at the beach with my family. I was trying to take a shower, because there was a building with a bunch of individual shower rooms there and I wanted to get cleaned up. The building was brown with a lot of different doors on it. The day was sunny, and I remember the sand and watching people come in and out of the rooms. But I think all of them were taken, because I didn't up taking a shower, and I was uncomfortable because I was all sandy. It was really annoying.

Then this is where it turned into a nightmare. Ugh. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to forget these...:S

We were having a campfire outside. It was nighttime. I think all my family was there. We were in a pine forest, and we had just come out of this cabin thing to go out into the woods and have the fire. We were sitting on picnic blankets, and then suddenly I felt this really hot sensation on my legs and rear end and I realized that the ground under my blanket was on fire. It was on fire under all of our blankets. Then it caught a nearby pine tree on fire, causing it to fall over. I tried to warn my mom, because she was right by the tree, but before I could it fell and hit her on the head. :c Thank goodness it was really skinny and didn't crush her. Of course it was just a dream, but it still freaks me out.

Then - get this - my dad looks around the forest and started laughing. I think it randomly changed to daytime or early evening, but the fire was still burning in random patches throughout the forest. He yelled out something like "THIS IS HOW NATURE WORKS!" as everything was catching on fire. This is NOT how my dad usually is, I promise you he's a lot less...spooky? Then this creepy oversized yellowish-brown frog thing was staring at us, with blank green eyes, and by this time I was reaaaally freaking out. I wanted to go back into the cabin (as though that was actually going to save me, lol )

And I woke up after that with significant relief.