JoannaB

I dreamed about how successful I am at fishing and at dreaming. My mind may be new to this hobby but do I expect success right away?

I decided to take a nap because I am home and I can, and because I am still tired after my sickness.

Before going to nap, I had sent a friend request and a pm to gab.

As ai lay there, I decided to try to WILD since I have not really tried before, even though I before did not think I wanted to. Changed my mind.

I remember seeing some images: an art work vaguely reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, a very bright corridor, but at that point I was not sure yet whether I was dreaming or day dreaming - whether I had actually fallen asleep.

The first thing I saw when I was sure I was asleep already was that I had a Notification in dreamviews. Knowing it was a dream I clicked on it. Sure enough as expected it was a private message from gab. However, when I opened it, it was actually a message that I had previously gotten from gab and not a response to my friend request.

Then I woke up. Upon waking up before writing my dream journal entry, I checked dreamviews, and yes I had a message from gab replying to my friend request (she said yes). I then proceeded to write this dream journal entry and only once I had written a lot did it occur to me to check whether ai am still asleep (no I am not).

Yay, I did it! I had an LD! My first after many years.

This fragment asked the question: Is seasonal hunting cruel?
My dream answer: No.

So I continue my lessons in what is proper as I call them, or another way of looking at it is that my mind is struggling with issues of right and wrong, and checking what is right in my opinion. Not that I am ever going to do seasonal hunting myself, but I don't judge people who do. My mind wanted to verify that. Interesting.

In this dream fragment I remember looking for non-catatonic fish in the petstore, but during the dream also thinking that fish may stand for dreams (!).

Note: This was not a lucid dream, but just another example of a dream about dreaming, which I have been having a lot of.

Also note that Fishkeeping is another hobby of mine, and looking for new fish is a regular occurrence right now (about once a month), since I am in the process of slowly stocking my aquarium. When looking for new fish, one looks for lively ones, and thus non-catotonic kind of makes sense for fish, though it is an odd choice of words.

However if fish stands for dreams, and the choose off odd word matters, here is an online definition of catatonic from word.com website:

"1 : of, relating to, being, resembling, or affected by schizophrenia characterized especially by a marked psychomotor disturbance that may involve stupor or mutism, negativism, rigidity, purposeless excitement, and inappropriate or bizarre posturing

2 : characterized by a marked lack of movement, activity, or expression"

It makes sense that I would look for dreams that are non-catatonic!

In my dream my husband is out of town (as he is in real life).

In my dream I asked a coworker out on a date, and he happily accepted.

See this is a perfect example of why I want to lucid dream. This is not who I am in waking life. This is not who I want to be. This is not who I choose to be.

Yes, I am lonely when my husband is out of town I get it.
I will also admit that I like this coworker ... as a coworker, as a buddy, as someone to share ideas with and to joke with.

Infidelity is a big no-no for me, and I also get that my mind therefore decided to present me with this scenario to shock me, to tell me "See I know how to push your buttons." Here is something that would really bother you.

But we already knew that! We already knew that I am struggling with self-esteem issues and with taking control over who I want to perceive myself as and deciding what is proper.

This however I know is not proper. And I refuse to think that I "need" this, so subconscious fuck off! I am going to relearn lucid dreaming, and make sure that I get to decide what I do and what is right for me.

If I am so fucking lonely tonight, why not give me a dream of my husband instead. That would have been nice, ok? But no, my subconscious, you decided to play games with me. Well, I don't appreciate that!

In an hour I need to get up and go to work and face this coworker, and forget that my subconscious asked him out on a date.

Frqgment: In my dream a real life acquaintance mine whom I usuelly see about twice a year were in a dream competition of sorts.

She was trying to learn how to "suck out" the nightmare part out of dreams.

I was trying to learn how to "suck out" lucidity out of dreams.

Upon waking I was struck by the odd use of the word "suck out". Did we mean like a succabus?

Meanwhile, my son was the one who had woken me up (at 2:30am) saying that his leopard and some other plush toy were stuck together and he did not know how it happened. I suggested he bring them to me, and I would look into it. He said he did not know where they were. Realizing that what was bothering was probably a dream fragment, I suggested he go back to sleep, and we would look for them in the morning.

This dream fragment was about dreaming. Upon waking it occurred to be that it was a chicken or egg type dilemma. But that that's all I remember.

In this dream I was in a bagel shop waiting for a man to finish glazing bagels I wished to buy. I knew the bagels were for my father and stepmother. In fact they were there too (though they may have appeared only after I knew who the bagels were for). Even though they were there, I did not acknowledge their presence. Instead I facebooked on the iPad. I was looking at pictures they had placed on Facebook (in reality neither of them is on Facebook and they are opposed to it). I liked one of the pictures. My stepmother broke the silence and said, see she does not acknowledge even that we are here, but at least she liked one of my photos. I then did acknowledge them, went over to where they were sitting. My stepmother said that my father was wondering how I can read anything on the iPad, so I showed her that it was actually very easy to read on an iPad. Meanwhile the man making the doughnuts wanted me to decide which kind I wanted to buy, and I realized I wanted Boston cream donuts, but they did not appear to have any. Some of the donuts they had were pretty weird, including a giant cake sized donut that the man had just finished glazing. Even though the donuts were supposed to be for my dad and step mother, I did not consult them what they wanted, but rather tried to base my decision on what I liked.

In hindsight, I found it interesting that my stepmother knew I had liked one of her photos even though she was not sitting next to me yet, and she was surprised that I could read on an iPad suggesting that she did not have such a handy device to read Facebook on. I guess she just "knew" when someone liked her photo on Facebook.

This dream was awkward, but not a nightmare. Definitely not lucid.

I also remember that the guy glazing donuts looked familiar in the dream but I could not place him. Upon waking I no longer remembered his face, so I could neither confirm nor deny whether he actually was familiar.

In this dream I was not myself. In fact, I saw it kind of from a distance most of the time like watching a movie, though I vaguely identified with one of the participants.

The dream starts with the watching of a movie, a documentary prepared by a company about a valued employee of theirs who died a while ago in something that was either believed to be an accident or a suicide. On the anniversary of his death, they were gathered outdoors on a mountain. The weather was nice and sunny. Lots of greenery. The person whom I sort of identified as was the man's sister, and after the movie she/I speak(s) up and says that this was neither an accident nor suicide, but murder.

One of the men pulls her aside and asks how do you know it was murder. He does not wait for an explanation, but proceeds to attempt to kill her/me. His attempts though are completely ineffective and harmless, like he can't touch her/me. So he proceeds to account how he killed her brother in this very spot. (During the retelling I could see the murder happening as clearly as any other part of the dream.) The motive was that the brother had discovered something he should not have, and would have told those who should not know. The murder weapon seemed to be glass tubes, the kind used by scientists for chemical experiments. The murderer broke them, and proceeded to stab his victim repeatedly, but the man refused to die for a while so there was a lot of stabbing needed until he finally did. While being stabbed so many times, the victim did not struggle, or try to defend himself, or even cry out in pain. He just kind of took it.

I have no idea how anyone could interpret or cover up such a murder as an accident or suicide. This was not a nightmare. Even though I vaguely identified with the sister, and the murder did in effectively try to kill me too, but I was throughout this dream watching it like a movie and ai had no emotional response to it - I was not committed not judgmental. It kind of was, even when what it was was a gruesome murder.

Even though I was careful not to move as I remembered this dream, and I thought I had it, but when I did move, the fragment became even more fragmented.

This was another dream about dreaming. It started out with a question asked on DV. I don't remember the question but it was asked by someone experienced for the sake of helping teach beginners. It had to do with differentiation of dreams, categorization of them.

I remember thinking that the distinction was easy for me, and answering the question.

This was not a lucid dream.

EDIT: after more sleep around 7am did not remember additional dream or fragment, but remembered a bit more from this one:

Question: Experienced dreamers, how do you change entries in a dream journal to help prepare for lucid dreaming? (Note: Upon waking this question is weird to me and has no clear and easy answer, but in my dream I thought it was easy.)

My dream answer: Focus on dream signs. Do not concentrate on what makes this dream unique. (Note: I know there was more to my dream answer, but that's all I remember.)

In this dream I was myself and I was in the women's room of my actual work place. I was with a bunch of women whom I had never seen before and one man (in women's room!) whom I had never seen before either.

In my dream I rationalized their presence that they must be new recruits, people who just got hired. And I rationalized the man's presence that he was there to assist a handicapped woman (whom I did not see but just inferred).

Some of them were dressed in formal attire as appropriate for after interview or first day of work. The man was wearing dress shirt and tie. However some of the women were wearing jeans.

So I started to explain that our boss (who was the boss I actually do have in real life, and who actually does have this preference in real life) that our boss prefers more formal dress code such as dress shirt and tie from all employees every workday. Someone asked for clarification: "even for women dress shirt and tie?" Me: "No, but not jeans, more formal than that, nicer." I went on to explain that even though we are an IT shop, but more and more often we do get important visitors, and the place and people thus need to look presentable.

I remember this dream was very vivid, and definitely not remotely lucid. I remember I accepted the rationale for man in the women's room without questioning it, and I was not remotely bothered by his presence there. We were all kind of hanging out there, relaxed, and bonding. My explanations of dress code were received by the others the way they had been intended as friendly advice / tips to new coworkers.

I was at a high class resort of sorts, and I was not me, though I don't have a a good sense of who I was.

The most memorable part of the resort stay was the tutorial they did mostly directed toward men of "How Do You Dance With a Lady" when there is a wine bottle involved. It appeared to be a formal evening dress code event, with classical dancing. So the men were given a multiple choice quizz:

Do you "Dance with a Lady" and a wine bottle
(a) by renaming your wine bottle "lady" and dancing with her
(b) try to pour or drink the wine while simultaneously trying to dance
(c) you enjoy your wine while the lady dances
OR and this was the "correct" answer
(d) you pour the wine for your lady and yourself, you both enjoy it, then put down your glaces, and then you dance together

A later scene at same resort (this one woke me up):

I was sitting on the veranda or a large balcony of the resort, and I was not paying much attention. All of a sudden I hear this terrible looming noise, and a loud voice saying something from a loudspeaker that sounded like "Ally Action" though I could not figure out what they were actually saying. At first someone else blocked my view, but then they moved, and I realized that a helicopter was the source of this noise and loudspeaker too. Then I realize that the helicopter was going to land right where I was sitting/lounging. I moved quickly to avoid being squished. In fact this was so vivid and realistic that upon waking up, I immediately sat up in bed and got out of the way.

This was not a lucid dream but it was vivid and detailed and long with more than one scene.

And upon waking I remembered a previous dream also which I shall record separately.

I believe I remembered the dream that I forgot earlier tonight, and I remembered the Significant Insight that I had reached before. This dream is actually about dreaming even though it may not appear to be!

In my dream I was an actress in theatre, just starting out. And an experienced actor had taken my under his wing and was showing me the ropes. During a break in rehearsal I had been chatting with another less experienced actor. My self-appointed mentor saw this, and afterward took me aside and reprimanded me, saying "Why are you wasting your time with that nobody? To succeed in this trade, It matters who your connections are. It matters who you are seen with, and he is not someone you want to be seen with." I rebutted him with "I am not in this for the usual reasons: I am not in it for the money nor for the fame, and I choose who I hang with."

While analyzing this dream after it happened it occurred to me that this dream was about why I am putting this effort into dreaming now, why I want to lucid dream, why I am here at DV:

I am not doing it for the usual reasons. Or maybe these are the usual reasons for some people, who knows. An important motivator for me is to regain my self-dignity and self-respect, to regain control of my dreams so that I do not do what my subconscious tells me to do. I get to choose who I hang with. For me the an important motivator for lucid dreaming this time around is moral reasons: I want to do what I perceive as being right (which of course does not mean I won't do something like shoot someone in a lucid dream because it feels right to do so , I need to do empowers me, and I need to not let those more experienced than me dictate what is right for me. This is what attracts me to DV is because it seems to be a place where people generally support this kind of attitude, and do not try to impose their way on others.

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Friday March 1 2013 I took NyQuil for my cold, and went to bed early. Around 8:30pm I woke up. I remember having some profound insight into my dream recall or something like that. I remember feeling very self-satisfied with my progress and how it was not just a fragment this time. After all this patting myself on the back, I almost fell back asleep without writing anything in my dream journal. I startled myself back awake in order to write it down, and it was all gone, except for this.

I have been struggling with basic dream recall, but I am up to at least remembering a fragment every time. This one made me grin.

First some background: my other hobby is Fishkeeping, and in Fishkeeping there is a practice called "culling" which is the euthenizing of fish that for example would die any way (putting them out of their misery).

In this dream, I was culling dreams. I was evaluating and sorting them to figure out which are not worthy of recall, etc. this was definitely not a lucid dream, and I just remember a fragment of it, but it made me smile, and hope that my mind is on its way to re-embark on this lucid dreaming adventure.