non-lucid

I had this series of dreams after waking up early and going back to sleep, which is typical for my previous lucid dreams. I was familiar with some of the features of these dreams: a realistic environment not usually drawn from real life, realistic dream characters who are part of the scenery instead of the plot (and sometimes ignore me), and dream chaining.

I can't quite remember the beginning. Before I went to sleep, I recall deliberately daydreaming to occupy my mind, so it might have developed out of that. At some point I found that I could have WILDs really easily. All I needed to do was let my mind wander, I'd soon see some realistic imagery (or once, a geometric pattern), and at some point, rather than getting caught up in the dream's plot, I'd just go 'yep, this is a dream'. I was able to improve the quality by shouting 'increase lucidity' and so on. The dream chain included:

- One where I found myself in a large building with a vague 'institutional' feel, having corridors and a reception desk. Most of the dream characters seemed to ignore me, even after I did the "You're all in my dream, what do you think of that!?" thing, which I sort of felt like I wasn't supposed to do. I found an old lady who did respond to me and asked her something, but I don't remember what she said.

- A non-lucid false awakening in which a kid climbed through my window, much to my anger, causing me to go and get a sort of spatula in case I needed to repel the intruder.

- One where I found myself in a garden or courtyard surrounded by three-storey Edwardian architecture. There was a small, cubical brick building similar to a power substation. I decided to test my dream control abilities. Simply by telling the dream that my hands were sticky like a gecko's, I climbed up the brick wall and stood at the top. I then marvelled at the feat and pondered what to attempt next; I didn't want to try anything that might disrupt the dream. I considered trying to turn into an animal but rejected it, for example.

- Misc.: I also recall some SP-like sensations of shouting but having no voice coming out, being unable to feel myself breathing, or having a dry throat but being unable to clear it. I recall trying to shoot 'energy balls' out of my hands by sheer willpower and failing. I recall looking at my bedroom despite knowing my eyes were closed and sagely recognising it as a false awakening. I recall the realistic sensation of having an orgasm after doing nothing more than passingly thinking about it. I recall the sensation of partially separating from my body by sitting up in bed but failing to fully do so.

I don't know if the chain started with a real lucid dream, and I definitely caught onto one or two bits of false awakening imagery while still asleep, but as soon as I woke up in real life I realised that my supposed 'really easy WILDs' were actually all from a false awakening. I'd been dreaming about lucid dreaming the whole time.

The Thinker's Club

I don't quite remember the first part of the dream, but it ended with me in a cinema theatre ready to watch something. There must have been some form of social event or social club involved. I do remember a flash image of the outside of a building in the cold. Before it had completely ended, another film was scheduled to start; to see it, we'd have to usher ourselves out and into another theatre apparently popular with weed smokers. We were going to watch a second, cult classic film there. I don't remember actually seeing it.

Instead I ended up somewhere I thought I knew from a photograph posted on an online forum. Perhaps conforming a geeky origin, each seat had a sticker with the nickname of a previous class member or else a character quirk poking fun at them (e.g. I think a few seats were labelled 'anime nerd'); notably, I recognised one of them (in the dream) as someone's user handle. I remember, as people milled around, someone commented that a guy's 'discussion quality' was high enough that he should have been accepted into the club, but alas have not yet been. This was a workshop of some sort for teaching purposes. I'd thought it was the one I'd seen an image of earlier on the internet, even maintaining this when asked what I was thinking, but changed my mind upon seeing the wholly wooden floor, since I also remembered a grey part.

It turned out I was let into some sort of society's meeting. Like a debate club, but it was for polite discussion about light intellectual topics. Unusually, I was talking to people through the medium of speech and could actually hear my own voice, as opposed to using 'dream telepathy'. The speakers were a very varied group, and included Stuart Hameroff, the 'quantum brain microtubules' proponent. Some of the topics included ecology, evolution, the fate of the universe, 'haemoglobin-induced light hallucinations', and the amazing light contrast of either someone's laptop screen or the room in general (a lovely starscape on their desktop background!). The spotlight passed to me shockingly often, even when I didn't have much to say. Those latter two topics caused me to see images radiating brilliant, crystal-clear white light (e.g. white text on starscapes and nebulas) - incredibly vivid. Then the dream ended with a short debriefing, an image of a website giving a glowing review of my character and saying I was 'gatekeeped at Schmooze Island'.

Note: I am pretty sure these places are physical representations of the internet itself; the dream may be commenting on how both random geeks and famous people have blogs on the internet, allowing everyone to interact. The 'Schmooze Island' stuff is probably a reference to the Pencilsword comic about privilege, which I'd seen passingly the day before. I don't recall any emotional content during or after the dream, despite more social dreams seeming to have more of that.

Comet Visit

I was on a space shuttle bound to visit a comet. This was mostly a white surface, probably inspired by concrete more than ice. I don't remember any sky or starscape, since I was mostly looking at the ground. I came across some small red plants (similar to seaweed) growing in a patch. Finding plants growing on a comet would be an important discovery! Unfortunately, upon getting back in the space shuttle, it turned out that the plants had been put there previously as part of an experiment 'by a PhD student'. (I don't think anyone told me this - as often happens in dreams, I just knew.) Later I went out in deep space and ended up floating out there, somewhat worried about by prospects for getting back. I had a HUD which allowed me to scroll through possible targets, and upon selecting a target, my thrusters would slowly take me there. I managed to select the space shuttle quickly enough to get back before it got too far away, but only after hurriedly scrolling through many irrelevant targets.

I remember hearing some radio chatter between the pilot (a woman), and ground control (male voices), and peering forward into the cockpit. Skip forward to re-entry, and everything seemed to be going well. While we landed, though, I realised the wheels were beginning to smoulder and might catch fire. Suddenly, all of the crew of the space shuttle (including me) were outside sprinting away in fear that it would catch fire and explode. I saw a person or two I recognised from my memories in the crowd. The end of this scene seemed to be inside a very large warehouse where the spacecraft were stored; in the end the space shuttle was fine.

Note: Lately I'd been reading about astrobiology and speculation on alien life. Can't remember any other space dreams off the top of my head.

University Life

A senior member of a student society or 'panel' had resigned in order to make way for a new member, since they thought it would help the new member's career opportunities. They were mostly female and drawn from my memories. After watching this being explained, I went into a side corridor, and I knew that everyone had a small extra room here for 'emergency purposes'. My room was to the left, the first door off another side corridor, containing only a bed. A man came in to repair something, and watching this for a while, a man opens the door of the side corridor. For some reason I get it into my head that the second man thinks I'm in a gay relationship with the maintenance man, to my irritation. Later, everyone gathered outside on a lawn to watch a building's roof (a glass dome) explode. An announcer explained that this is due to its composition of silicon dioxide, which is said to be unstable in our atmosphere.

Note: I've had the odd dream set in a school or university, normally involving very different buildings or outdoors areas each time.

Awful Pixelated Game

I'm walking in the road in a random real-life location, with a skip on my right-hand side (and a lack of cars on the road) as the only changes. Someone is talking to me about a game. It's set with a light blue background, and I may have somehow seen the game by looking into the skip. I think the game may have involved bears or polar bears, and it had these weird low-resolution pixelated graphics, where one of the characters was a sort of blobby snowman marked by one-pixel borders and a face made of a few black pixels. There was nothing particularly good or special about the game (probably better than Flappy Bird), except that a sixteen-year old teenager had designed it. I didn't get why people were talking about it.