false awakening

Alarm @ 0230
Bed @ 2240
Woke @ midnight, used bathroom, BTB


XKCD shirt
I'm somewhere with Allan (a coworker I haven't seen for about five years), and I'm thinking about XKCD. My initial thought is that he's a programmer, so of course he saw the most recent comic, but then I figure there's no harm in asking. It turns out he's never heard of it.

Now I'm ordering an XKCD shirt. It's white-on-orange, and they have a choice of about a dozen shirts. Now it's arrived. I'm pulling it out of the package, thinking about how I blew half my monthly allowance of "do anything " money on a silly shirt just to tell my coworker about an online comic. Oh well. I pull it out and look at it, realizing with horror that I must have ordered the wrong shirt by accident. It is an XKCD shirt, but it doesn't have a print of a comic, only some kind of list. I wonder if I can return it, but I probably can't, and the return shipping would probably make it not really worth it anyway. My wife sees it and asks me about it, and I explain it's to introduce my coworker to XKCD. She gets a sort of "wow, that's weird, but whatever" expression on her face.


Woke around 0100 with a crying baby. Woke around 0130, ditto.
Woke @ 0230, BTB @ 0245.
Woke @ 0320 after feeling something on my head. After flinging it away with my hand, I did a nose-pinch which indicated reality.


Smartish watch
I see an ad for a watch on sale: a nice Casio men's watch. It's not a "smart watch," but it is a very nice digital. It's got a lot of nice features, including an mp3 player, a stand (how does that even work?), something that changes how the watch acts depending on your current activity and time of day, and a bunch of other stuff. The list is very long, covering the whole right side of the page. I see a URL on the page, something like www.move2watch.com (whatever it is, it's two words separated by "2") and visit it. I see that that all the extensions for the watch are currently on sale. I didn't realize this watch even had extensions; that's pretty impressive. I glance briefly at the list of available extensions, but none of the descriptions make any impact on me. I wonder if I misunderstood the flier - maybe the extensions are the only things on sale, not the watch. Looking back at the flier, I see that the watch itself is on sale for e$49.99. I'm not sure what that works out to, but I'm guessing about $60.

I see a note somewhere indicating that if you're going to get a law changed, please do it before commissioning a new extension. If a law is changed and it requires updating an extension, you'll have to pay a re(something) fee. Email Allison (someone) <some dept>, Allison (someone) Heating Dept to request it. Reading further, I find details about the process. It says she creates a VM based on the current law to simulate how the watch will respond, so she'll need to make a new one after a law change. Her simulation uses four units: witches, guards, citizens, and <something>. I see a whole lot of colored wooden kids' blocks stacked on the floor in a bunch of piles: yellow for citizens, blue for guards, red for witches, green for <something>. Each pile has different numbers of each blocks, but each pile has all four colors and has them stacked in the same color order with the entirety of each color grouped together (e.g. 5 greens, 3 blues, 6 yellows, 2 reds). According to the rules of the simulation, witches kill citizens, guards kill witches but lose their own lives in the process. I see blocks starting to disappear from the stacks as the simulation runs its course.

Before returning to bed, I try to set the intention that in my next dream I'll see the watch and become lucid.


BTB @ 0345
Woke @ 0530

Long FA chain
I'm in a house, in a small bathroom, getting ready to leave. My wife and family have already left. I notice that something is wet and look up to find what looks like a pipe sticking out of the ceiling and dripping - but as I look, it starts pouring. There's a whole pile of clothing on a counter under the window, and it's soaked in seconds. I try briefly to think what could be above us to do this but I'm drawing a blank. I call my wife, but the connection is terrible - then I realize that I'm not talking to her over the cellular network but instead over a barely-connected Bluetooth connection. She's a couple of miles down the road - how is Bluetooth even working?? - so I hang up, intending to disable Bluetooth and try again. I realize something is off about this whole situation and nose-pinch, finding it really is a dream.

Now I'm driving on a four/five lane road through a commercial area with shopping centers to my left and right. I see an ad for something, and it seems really familiar. I do the nose-pinch test and realize I'm dreaming, though it takes a couple of iterations to really sink in that it's working - I can tell I'm still breathing with my nose pinched, but at first I think I'm accidentally breathing through my mouth.

Now I'm parked in my car in the parking lot. I find myself moving really slowly so as to not disturb the dream, and again I realize this is silly - I need to intensify the dream, not move as if on eggshells. I remember my goal for intensifying is to do the first few Fibonacci numbers, so - keeping my eyes open - I count 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 - which was as high as I'd intended to go - but it seems so easy I keep going - 13, 21, 34, 65 (I think I must have accidentally added 21+44 instead of 21+34). It's starting to get hard, and I don't want to lose the dream because I completely lose focus on it, so I stop there, pleased with how well I did.

Now I'm standing on the parking lot, and I decide to fly. I remind myself that this is a dream, that everything around me is a creation of my mind, including my body (though I don't go so far as to remember that my real body is asleep in bed), then try to lift off. Nothing happens.

Now I'm in an alley behind the stores. Ivy is growing everywhere. There's quite a lot of exposed wood - something like trellises - along the side of the alley. The far end of the alley is completely blocked, though I know there's a road behind it. Again, I walk around touching everything, feeling it, yet remembering that it's not actually there. The ivy is a dark green with large leaves. I touch the ground, some wood, the leaves. I think about how I wish I had some way to record this so I didn't forget it after I wake up, and I remember my project with my DIY dream mask to attempt to record Morse code from inside the dream state and read it back later. Unfortunately, that project is benched for the time being, so I'll just have to remember everything as best as I can. Oh well. I decide not to fly back here but want to get back to the front of the store for the extra room, but the way back is blocked. Somehow I dig through a wall of dirt, but I'm not happy with the feeling of dirt clinging to my hands. I look at my hands and at the grayish dirt clinging to them, remind myself that the dirt isn't real, and mentally command it to fall off. To my immense satisfaction, the dirt does just fall off, leaving my hands almost (but not entirely) clean. I wake up.

As I lay in bed looking around the (well-lit) bedroom, my wife walks in. She's talking to John and Jenny who follow her into the room. She notices that I'm awake and asks if I've had any success with my lucid dreaming. I excitedly tell her that I actually just woke from a lucid dream, that I couldn't manage to fly, but that I did manage to get dirt to fall from my hands. They're clearly enjoying my enthusiasm, but my wife - who's always thought that the whole lucid dreaming thing is pretty silly - turns to them and mock-apologizes for me, saying something like "I'm sorry, he really is a good man." Something seems off, so I discretely nose-pinch and realize I'm still dreaming.

Details are really fuzzy for this scene. I'm walking through a field towards a small building build in an Oriental style. Getting closer, I see a patch of dirt under an overhang. Somehow I use my dream powers of dirt manipulation to dig down into it and/or toss it aside to form a path to the evil queen. I wake up.

I lay in bed with my eyes closed and try to perform a DEILD chain. I can hear the sound of the rain/ocean playing through my pillow speakers. I'm a bit disappointed when nothing happens (though not too much, since I've never gotten a DEILD to work); but then I remember that I had a false awakening just a few minutes ago and this might be another one. With my eyes still closed, I slowly reach up a hand and do the nose pinch, finding that I'm still dreaming. I have a moment of "what do I do now" since I'm in blackness; but then I open my eyes and find myself in a bedroom - to my sleeping mind, it's the one from my parents' house in Virginia.

I find myself in a house with a rather rustic feel to it. I walk over to the window and look out to see a landscape covered with snow. Trees stand out here and there, and dozens of snowmen - some large, some small - dot the yard. I think how much my kids would love to be here in real life. I have a passing thought that it would be fun to summon a blizzard. I give a brief mental "push," but nothing happens. I decide I don't really care and shouldn't spend my mental energies / focus on this. I can't really fly too well indoors, but then I remember Ophelia's story from one of her podcasts about how her eyes changed when she looked into a mirror. I head off down a nearby hallway in search of a bathroom.

I quickly realize the hallway is stretching off into the distance, and I decide I'm NOT going to lose lucidity to something stupid. I turn left, intending to try to find a bathroom that way, and come face-to-face with a mirror mounted to the wall of the hallway. Looking at myself, I'm dressed as I am for bed during the summer: wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else. Thinking back to Ophelia's story, I start out by closely examining the reflection of my face. The shape is a little off, the bottom half too triangular, the eyes too large, the skin too smooth and light, the whole impression somehow too childlike or perhaps Anime-like? I don't even watch Anime - but each individual change is fairly subtle. I turn away from the mirror to see what else I can do in the house, but I wake up.

This time I'm expecting it to be a false awakening, but I keep my eyes closed (again hearing the speakers) and attempt a DEILD chain just to be sure. After a few moments, I again do a nose-pinch, and again I find I'm still in the dream. I open my eyes, get out of bed, and find one of my kids waiting for me. I pick her up, thinking to myself that if she starts fussing about something I'll just put her down and walk away - after all, she's not real. I decide that even if I can't lift off the ground, maybe I can step into space and not fall. I get up on the bed and walk to the foot, noting (but not questioning) the nice wood chest a few feet away and the stairs beyond. Disappointingly, when I put my foot down on the air I just fall to the ground (though somehow I remain standing). Oh well. I think about other ways to start flying, and I remember people talking about baby steps, of using means to achieve flight before you just will yourself into the air. I decide to go outside, hold out my arms, get a good running start, and launch myself into the air. At the very least I should be able to glide a few feet off the ground as I have before. I go down the stairs, turn right towards the front door, unlock the deadbolt, open the door, go out onto the front path (detached garage to my right, house to my left, lots of greenery - I note the snow is gone), and wake up.

Again, I try to DEILD chain, do the nose pinch, and find myself in my real bed. I note that my real bed felt different from my dream beds - rougher, perhaps, providing more sensory input than the fake ones did.

BTB @ 0605.
Woke @ 0730.

Fragments: Someone is playing a side-scroller on a console, about to fight a boss.

Side-note Lucid


Time snapshots
I'm driving in my car to go to my chiropractor. I realize it's still morning, and I don't have my appointment until early afternoon, but for some reason I don't turn around. I realize it's about ten thirty, and I know I have a conference call at eleven, so I just need to be sure not to miss it. I go through a light in the right lane which turns into a right-hand-only turn lane. I somehow end up letting the car coast to a stop. I'm really confused about what's going on. Two large trucks are to my left, also stopped. I remember there's an app on my phone that saves snapshots in time and lets me go back to them. I quickly pull it up and hit the Back button. With a sound like a timebug in World of Goo, I'm back at the last light, going through it. I know this is too late - I'm about to get stuck on the turn lane - so I hit the button again. Now I'm at the previous light, and I have time to switch lanes before I get stuck.

I'm really excited about this. If I can rewind time yet still remember everything that happened, the possibilities are endless! I can read all the books I want, then rewind time so that the reading took no time at all! I can spend a long time solving a difficult problem, then rewind time and remember the solution. I try to think if there's a way to bring something back with me, a completed piece of work, but I don't know how that could be done. Maybe there's a way to time-proof a USB stick? I start to think about sleep - surely being awake for a long time would take its toll? - but then I reason I can sleep whenever and then rewind time to before I slept.

I'm still driving. It's almost time for my appointment, so I can't turn around, but I'm still going to be pretty early. I'm on a two-lane road with lots of trees. Someone is trying to come out of a driveway on my left but waits for me to pass first. Now I'm walking into a strange structure. I'm in a short stairwell that's C shaped. The lighting is pretty dim. I start to walk up, then realize I'm still too early. I hear someone coming down and hurry out; I feel like I'd be embarrassed if I met them. Now I'm back outside walking down some steps. I pass a maintenance worker going the other way. I realize I'm wearing only my V-neck undershirt. He comments "nice neck." I'm a little embarrassed but I don't worry about it too much.

Now I realize that I can undo this whole trip if I have a snapshot from before I left. I go to pull up the time snapshot app, but I find that I have a bunch installed and it takes a moment to figure out which is the one I'd been using earlier. I'm disappointed to see that it only has three snapshots. The main listing only shows the time the snapshot was taken and not the date; I have to click the triple-dot icon to get a details page. One seems to be some kind of default snapshot - the date is 1-1-00 - and I'm not going to touch that. The next has a very strange label that I don't understand. In trying to get details about it I somehow put it into Sharing mode. I have no idea what it means to share a time snapshot, but I wish I hadn't done it.

Now I'm walking down a hallway in a building similar to the one I work in. Windows are floor to ceiling to my left, though there are occasional pillars and lots of moving boxes piled around. A wall is to my right, occasionally opening out into an office or other open area. I realize I'm now completely naked and don't have the phone any more. Oddly, I'm not embarrassed at all, more annoyed at myself. I have the feeling the phone is on my jeans on one of the piles of boxes further back in the hallway, but I'm not positive. I realize I have to get the phone: if I do, I can undo all of this. I turn around and start heading the other way. A couple of women come out of an office in front of me. I sidestep behind a pillar and use a hand to cover myself, nodding respectfully to them as they pass. Neither one takes any notice of me.

After the women pass without comment, I realize this is a dream. I do a nose-pinch RC to further convince myself, and I'm not surprised to feel air moving through my closed nostrils. I immediately try to remember my current goals. I know that number one on the list is to look at and count my fingers. I hold up my right hand and look at it. I have five fingers, but when I hold them stretched out, my middle and ring fingers are at a very obtuse angle - a little further and they'd be pointed directly away from each other. I keep looking and my hand kind of blurs; now it looks almost as if my left and right hands are superimposed on top of each other. I can see a thumb and pointer sticking out of each side, and there's a jumble of fingers in the middle. When I bend my pointer, I see it moving on both sides of my hand. I wiggle another finger and see both copies wiggling. I had been hoping I'd get an extra finger that I'd have conscious control over. Oh well, maybe another time.

I remember the next thing on the list was to try to become extra aware of my environment. To my left is what looks like a small section from a dollar store. Shelving units are filled with all kinds of junk. I decide to reapply the nose pinch (using my left hand) to help keep me focused, then start to look at the items on the shelves. The shelf nearest me has what look like baby bath toys. As I'm trying to slowly move my attention from one to another, I realize that I'm now holding my upper lip instead of my nose, so I readjust my fingers to once again hold my nose. I notice a couple of stacks of items on the shelf, and I realize they're shaking. I identify this as the dream not being as stable as it should be. I try to stare at them, willing them to stop shaking, but it doesn't work (in hindsight, focusing on them gave the vibrations more power; I should have just ignored them). I give up on it and keep walking along the corridor, coming out into a larger room. I get stuck with my eyes closed and I try to focus on breathing through my closed nose. After a few moments, the feeling of breathing through my nose changes subtly - more like my nose is stuffed - and I "realize" I've woken up so I can't breath through a pinched nose any more. I wake up for real moments later.


Fragment:
I'm trying to do something for a group of women. Nothing I do makes them happy, and I'm starting to feel really frustrated.

Side-note Lucid

Talking about lucid dreams
I'm standing on my driveway talking with my pastor and MB. The kids are sitting in camping chairs on my side of the garage; my car is nowhere to be seen. All of us are talking about lucid dreaming. I say something about WILDing and I'm surprised when my pastor knows what it is, saying that he'd once done it himself many years ago. I mention that one of my long-term goals is to learn to have WILDs quickly, on demand. My pastor asks how long it usually takes to get into a WILD. I explain that a skilled WILDer can do it in under twenty minutes, but that newbies can often take more than an hour. I confess that I haven't managed it at all, yet, but that I'm determined to succeed. The conversation continues for a little while longer.

Now I'm in one of the kids' bedrooms doing something. Now I'm downstairs. Bethany is unhappy with the kids - she'd told them they could be outside barefooted or in shoes but not just in socks, since the socks would get dirty. All of the kids wore just socks while outside, so now they're covered in leaves (from the driveway) and oil (from the garage floor). Even though I was wearing both socks and shoes, I check my socks anyway. They're damp from being sweaty but are otherwise fine. I take my socks off and put them in a nearby cabinet which seems to be a make-shift clothes hamper, as it has a small (but growing) pile of colored laundry. My wife tells me that if my socks are dirty like the kids are then I need to put them in the separate "dirty sock pile," but I tell her they're just sweaty.


Gift of a hymnal
After a failed WILD, I'm trying to sleep. I'm laying in bed and remember that I just had a conversation with friends (JB and BJ) in my kitchen. I realize that that can't have happened, that I must have dreamed it. Something feels off, and I do a nose pinch RC. I can easily breath through my pinched nose, so I know I'm dreaming, experiencing a false awakening (my first!). It's pitch black. I decide to try voice commands and try to command LIGHT, but my voice is hoarse and I can barely hear myself. I try again with STABILITY, but again, it barely comes out. I realize that, even though I'm convinced this is a dream, I'm still hesitant to shout in case I'm wrong and I woke up my wife. I decide that this really is a dream, so it doesn't matter, and even if it's not a dream we'll just laugh about it and go back to sleep. I really don't want to lose the dream, so I keep my nose pinched and keep focused on the strange feeling of breathing through it. I keep trying my voice commands, and eventually the light in the room (especially near the door) "dims" up. It's dim, but it's enough to see by. I shout STABILITY and LIGHTS again for good measure, and I find that I can actually shout now.

I'd just been listening to the podcast where they were talking about extending the dream, and CanisLucidus talked about just looking at all the detail the mind comes up with. I look around my bedroom, trying to take it all in. I notice that it's larger than life, but it's decorated pretty much how my real room is. The doors, windows, bed, and dresser are all in the right place, and I think the walls and floor looked right, though I'm not positive. I notice a small shelf on one wall that's not there IWL, with some very small framed pictures of people. I walk over, pick one up, and look at it. It shows couple of people, including a woman in a purple dress. I don't recognize them, and I realize the danger of putting too much attention into the picture, so I put it down. For some reason, it ends up on face down on the shelf. I kneel down and run my hands through the carpet - it looks and feels exactly like my real carpet. I think about what to do and realize that one of my simple goals was to try the "internal nose pinch" and see if it was reliable. I tried it, and alas, I couldn't breathe while doing it. So much for that RC. I consider phasing through the wall and flying off, but I decide that that's a little too advanced for right now: I want something I know I can accomplish so that I can boost my confidence.

I remember I want to do the basic TOTM be given a gift by a DC, so I walk towards the hallway. The stairs are in the right place, though the hallway layout is odd. I remember that, to get something to appear, I need to not just casually think "It'll be there" but to really strongly picture it, almost as if I can already see it. I start trying to imagine in detail that my wife is around the corner in the hallway; but as I'm doing it, she comes up the stairs. She says something and goes back down; I follow her.

Now I'm near the bottom of the stairs. I feel like I'm in a mansion. Downstairs is a huge area, well furnished, with a very high ceiling. I'm on a grand staircase, at least 10 feet wide, flaring at the bottom, going straight up behind me to the second story. My wife is a couple of steps below me. I ask my wife if she has anything for me. She says she does, but she wants a quick kiss first. I kiss her, and she walks off towards the kitchen to get whatever it is. I realize that I shouldn't let her out of my sight, since she might disappear if I do. I go after her, following her into the kitchen (which is outfitted with lots of shiny black appliances). I don't see her in the kitchen, and I get worried. I shout a dream command WIFE, but nothing happens. I walk through the kitchen, though the dining room, and back into the living area. I pass an older, well-dressed man carrying a Psalter; I completely ignored him, but I think he was the butler. As I'm walking into the living area, my wife comes out of the kitchen carrying one of our old hymnals. She gives it to me, saying it'll go well with the hamburger.

Often, when I wake out of a dream, I'm aware of it fading first. Not this time. Poof I was awake. I tried to DEILD, but nothing happened; I was probably hampered by a strong desire not to lose the dream memory.


Fragments
I'm looking at pictures of different people. I have a program(?) that lets me alter reality by altering pictures of the reality. I'm trying to copy an aspect of a person from one picture and paste it onto a different person in a different picture, but it's not going well. The perspectives of the pictures are different, and the pasted image isn't lining up right.

I'm outside, in a park-like setting, watching people. There are nine people who have successfully done ... something ... but they need ten to fully win. They're pleased at having come in first again, yet disappointed that, once again, they failed to get the full ten.

I'm looking at Gunnerkrigg Court. Annie is watching two forest dwellers talking to / examining a boy from the Court. He's strong and somewhat puffed up, and the forest dwellers (a youth and an old man) are pondering over him. His muscles should only be about half the size they are, and they want to know how he made himself strong, if he used some kind of magic or trickery or what. The old man especially is throwing out more and more strange theories about the boy's strength. I (or Annie?) starts to wonder if there's something to it, and if this is how Eglamore gets some of his abilities.

I'm driving on a 4 lane road in the right lane. A tan van is to my left and starts to come into my lane. I stand my ground, but she keeps coming, eventually scraping against me. Now I'm in the left lane and she's in the right, ahead of me. I can see a silver line running along her driver's side where she scraped me. Somehow I see the driver's side of my car, and I see a long scuff mark but no scraped paint. I'd been trying to decide if I should chase her down and get her insurance information, but since my car isn't actually damaged I decide just to let her go.

Church wierdness
I'm at home; Frank is at the computer, watching a video stream from my church. The volume is almost all the way down, but the audio is only slightly too quiet. He clicks half way up on the volume bar before I can stop him. I know that this will make it WAY too loud; it does, but it does it by raising the volume at the church. On the stream, I can clearly see everyone looking around with surprise as the speakers get so loud they distort. I quickly click it back down to where it's supposed to be.

Now I'm walking on the path that runs around the sanctuary. A group of older teen girls is waiting near one of the windows. I can hear one of the guys inside. It's a serious topic, but he's trying to ad levity to it. At the prearranged time, the girls go to the window and start making "ghost sounds." It's pretty obvious to everyone inside, and they laugh. The speaker says something about trying to fix the audio, again to much amusement. Eventually he "fixes" it and the girls stop.

Now I see a bunch of large cooking pots near the front, one of which has a burner built into its base. Something is wrong, and flames are licking around the side. Linda sees it and heads over with a giant cloth napkin. I think she's going to try to smother the fire, but instead she drapes it over the whole thing. I don't think this is going to work - the fire will eat through it in a couple of seconds - but she realizes this too. She quickly bear-hugs the whole thing and carries it over near the door.

Now there's a whole pile of large pots and pans near the door, many with fire seeping out of them in one place or another. She's trying to figure out the best way to deal with them. I'm standing nearby, trying to figure out if I can help, but not being able to bring myself to. I tell myself it's because I don't want to get in her way, but really it's because I don't want to get hurt.

Now I'm outside. My wife and I are talking to another couple. The woman is remarried after her husband divorced her. My wife makes a heated comment that she doesn't trust the woman's x-husband. I have to think for a moment to remember who it is, but when I do remember I nod my agreement.


Taking the train
I'm with my oldest daughter in the car, driving to the subway station. I have some kind of thought about rerouting the major roads to be more direct, but when I picture it on a map, I realize it won't work. We're waiting at a light inside a steel and concrete structure. The ground is a steel mesh. My daughter is excited because it looks neat, but I'm not because it's hard to drive on the stuff (you have to pay a lot of attention to make sure you keep going straight). Up ahead, the passage turns 90 degrees to the left.

Now we're on foot in a hallway, waiting for the train platform to open (a physical gate is blocking the way). There are a couple dozen people ahead of us. I'm telling her that we'll need to hurry if we want to get a good seat on the train. I realize that, since we have to wait to get onto the platform, this is clearly the beginning of the rail line, so they should park the train here for a while, meaning we should have an easier time getting good seats.

Now the gates are opening. They're sliding straight into the walls, multiple segments going different directions. It's actually a really ycool effect.

Now we're walking on the platform. I don't see a waiting train, though I do see a bunch of trains nearby at the train yard. The platform is C shaped, wrapping around two different tracks. I don't know which track we need, so I look for signs. Walking on one arm of the C, I see machines that look like coin operated newspaper dispensers, one of which has the line's name. This isn't the one we need, so we walk to the other arm of the C. The sign there shows our line.

Now the train is here, and I'm boarding; except my daughter isn't here any more, it's my coworker Scott K.

Now we're on board. I'd been planning on taking the first row, since that's what my pastor had advised; but going in, the first row doesn't look that special, and something actually turns me away from it. The last row is pretty special, though, wrapping around from one side of the car, along the back, to the other side. It even looks extra padded, in black as opposed to the gray of the rest of the seats. It's clearly popular, since a bunch of people head straight for it. A couple of people head for the first row, too, so we end up taking the fourth or fifth row. We're close to the middle of the car - there are fewer than a dozen rows.

Now we're on our way. Nearby, a group of coworkers is talking. D?? is saying something about thirteen being unlucky. I turn and say that sometimes thirteen is considered to be the luckiest number. The other guys seem a bit skeptical, but D?? laughs at the idea, saying that anyone who thinks that thirteen can ever be lucky is in for a world of hurt.


The new van
Frank is driving the rest of us somewhere. At the bottom of a hill, he has to pull off the road for some reason. The rest of us get out as well. We were in his car, an older-style red SUV. A sedan comes down the hill, slows, and continues off the road straight for us. It stops at the last moment, coming within inches of driving over my oldest daughter's foot. The driver - a woman - gets out and asks Frank for some kind of assistance. Something seems a little fishy, so Frank and I try carefully to find out more about her. In the end, we figure out the car was stolen from one of the houses on the hill. We get the owners of that house to come out and check, and the husband quickly recognizes his car. He runs a car dealership, so he knows things most people don't, and he's able to recognize his car's VIN. His wife comes up to me with tears in her eyes and gives me a big hug. I hug back, though it feels a little weird; I know she's doing it partly out of gratitude, partly out of shock from having her car stolen. Eventually, she breaks off the hug. She doesn't fully break contact, so I keep a hand on her shoulder as well.

Now I see Frank driving down the hill in a new vehicle. It's a van, courtesy of the dealership owner. It's not much to look at, being rather blocky, but it's large, so it should fit my family nicely.

Now I'm walking around inside the van. I'm amazed at how well everything is packed in here - I see a bathroom and at least four bedrooms, plus a kitchen and living area. I walk into the master suite and see that it's a number of rooms all in a row. The first room is a bathroom of sorts, with a sink, mirror, hair dryer, tiny wall-mounted coffee maker (I hope this isn't the only coffee maker in here), coat rack, and other odds and ends (but no toilet). Passing through there I come into the master bedroom proper. Past it I see a room with the toilet. I walk back out of the suite to the "hub" where all the rooms come together.

Back at the hub, I chose a different path. Now I'm in a room with two bath/shower combos side-by-side. I wish they'd put them in separate rooms with doors, but I know they were under severe space restraints, so I understand. I take a closer look at the left-hand shower. The curtain is clear, which I find odd in this kind of shared setup. Inside, it's deeper than a usual bath, going back about 5 feet. It's got some steps leading down into it. I assume there's a place inside to take off your clothes once you're in the shower (and somewhere to keep them dry), but it's not obvious from where I'm standing. There's a nice large shower-head on the wall, controlled by a normal looking shower knob. There's also a sprayer (controlled by its own knob), though it doesn't look very nice - it looks exactly like what you'd find on a kitchen sink. As I'm looking at it, I realize that water is coming out of it. It's not a torrent, but it's more than a drip. I pick it up and fiddle with it and its knob, trying to get the leak to stop, but I can't manage any improvement. I put it back down, resolving to deal with it later. I notice a funny construction on the front of the main knob and fiddle with it, causing it to shoot out a stream of soap. I'm impressed. Now I'm looking at the other shower. It's identical to the first, even including a leaking sprayer.


Arriving at the nurserey
I'm pulling into the small nursery near our house. It's not a very nice driveway - it comes off the street at an angle, going downhill, with a small parking lot to the right. I turn left off the road, swing down the driveway, then look for a parking space. The only space available is right next to the driveway, so I try to pull a tight U-turn to get into the space. I manage to avoid hitting the car next to me, but I run into a little warning flag right at the edge of the parking lot, knocking the flag off of its pole. Now I'm getting the kids out of the car. It's now a church, and some of the ladies have come out to help me. My wife wasn't able to join me today, and this is the first time I've been to this church, so I'm feeling very awkward.


Fragments
I'm sitting at a table with another man. He asks me who I work for, and I run through my usual story about where I physically work, then about how I was hired by a company that was bought out by my current company. After I finish, he starts to make me an offer. Now there's something going on in a convention center. I see some security people talking about preparations.

Third-person | Lucid

Dark ride
I'm driving to church on a motorcycle in the dark. I'm on the surface street near the church and all the traffic lights are out. I know people are supposed to treat such intersections as 4 way stops, but since it's dark I don't know how many people will even realize there's supposed to be a traffic light. I realize my headlight is off and turn it on, but it doesn't work very well, only shining a small pool of light a few feet in front of me. I have some loud music playing on my phone, so I hope that will help people notice me.


Military home
I'm in a beautiful old home that's been "borrowed" by the military. The home is clearly very expensive, with lots of dark reds and browns of hard wood everywhere, with lots of high quality fabrics hung and placed everywhere. Mom (who used to be in the RAF) is showing me around. She shows me the men's room and decides to make use it; the men's room guard completely ignores her since she's well known on base. Now I'm in one of the bathroom stalls by myself. Someone else comes into the bathroom.

Now it's not a bathroom stall, it's a bed alcove. I know I woke up at about 4 AM and now I'm trying to get back to sleep. As I'm lying there, I'm going over my dreams, trying to increase my recall. Suddenly, I realize I'm dreaming. Now I'm standing near the bed, and I realize I have a task of the month to do. I think about doing the ask-a-DC task, but that requires having someone nearby; but since it's night, everyone's asleep, so there won't be anyone to talk to. Instead, I decide to count the months backwards. Since I've been practicing this one in real life, I had no trouble counting backwards from November to January. I still want to try asking a DC what he's thankful for. I realize the guard should still be awake, and I can ask him; but I need clothes first, so I go to the open closet and start looking around inside for something to wear. Unfortunately, the light isn't working, and I can't see inside well. I try to use my key-chain flashlight, but it barely casts any light at all - I'm surprised it's working so poorly and figure the batteries must be almost out. This also surprises me until I remember that they're rechargeable, so of course they're almost dead.


Electronics and groceries
I'm working on electronics with the kids. We're going to make a simple LED+resistor circuit on the breadboard, but I decide that it would be better if each child had an individual cut-off button. I decide to implement it with my microcontroller so that pushing a button cuts power to the LED for a few seconds before automatically bringing it back on. I have some trouble getting everything hooked up right - I'm having trouble remembering which way the connections in the breadboard go - but I get it eventually.

Now I'm riding my bike to the nearby grocery store. Going up the hills is a lot easier than I remember - I attribute it to not pulling the trailer with the kids in it. Riding on the roads with cars goes well.

Now I'm at the store and find a table set up with my electronics; one of my daughters is sitting at it. I still haven't finished the programming, so it doesn't work right. I head home. As I'm preparing to make a right onto the large road near our house, I see a huge store on the corner. It doesn't look very nice, but it claims to be a runner's emporium with everything a runner could ever need. Looking more closely, I see that their front room is filled with random riding toys - it must be because we're close to Christmas. Turning onto the road, I'm looking behind me and using a rear set of pedals - but car pedals, not bike pedals. I face forwards but I'm still contorting my body to use the pedals behind me. I want to switch to the ones in front of me, but I can't remember which is gas and which is brake. I think the big one the left me is brake, but I'm not sure, so since I don't want to hit the car in front of me I just stay stopped by putting my feet on the ground.

After I get home I realize I left my daughter and my electronics at the store. I don't want anything to happen to her, and I don't want the store to trash my electronics, so I head back out.


Coleson's recovery
I'm watching something about Agent Coleson being on life support, waking up, and pull tubes out of his mouth. He should be dead but he's not. The tubes he's pulled out are dripping various things - gastric juice is making a mess, and some unfertilized (human) eggs are producing little red sacks where they've fallen into some water.

I'm looking at a Facebook page for a pastor. At the top, it's talking about the pastor's amazing recovery, except it's describing word-for-word what happened to Coleson. Further down, comments are going back and forth between praising the pastor for his good work and throwing insults at him for his views.


Workers and doughnuts
A bunch of men are at our house to help with some work. There's a really nice breakfast laid out for everyone. I'm particularly interested in the pastry table, but I'm disappointed when I see that most of the really good doughnuts are gone when I get there.


Experimental radish cure
A guy with little time to live tries an experimental treatment made from concentrated radishes. It's a partial success: he grows large and strong, but he's covered in wrinkles and looks like an old man.


Pizza zombies
I'm walking around a house filled with pizza-eating zombies.



Analysis
Dreamsigns:
* Very dim lights
* Bathroom weirdness

Lucid awareness: Poor. I didn't realize dream control was even an option, but I did remember to do the TOTM
Lucid control: Non-existant. I didn't even try.

October 4, 2013

Challice Strategy
I'm watching medieval/fantasy soldiers talking about what they need to do. There are lots of large "challices" scattered around. Somehow, hitting them makes the area safe from a dangerous gas, and if the challices in the area are close enough together, the effect chains.

They're coming up on an area where one of them is missing, so they'll have to cross a dangerous space, and when they reach the next one, it could be dangerous to hit due to the buildup of gas. The leader points to a tiny guy - probably about a foot high - and says that he'll be the one to hit it, just in case. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a shirt of chainmail that's sized for the tiny guy (I remember hearing it clinking). He seems sorrowful as he hands over the mail.

Now I have more of a tactical view and I can see units moving around the 'map'. At the top (north), there's an opening into another area. For some reason, I can't scroll through it, but enemies are coming from it. Towards the south-east of the map, I see some greenish swirly stuff that's slowly growing. I realize it's our spent resources that are somehow regenerating. It's regenerating, but it's also moving towards the enemy's pass, and it would be bad for them to get all those resources! Somehow, I (or maybe the commander) redirects some of them to our troops, but some still make it to the enemy.

Now I realize that I can't scroll into the pass because I can't scroll past where the challices have been activated, and there's one near the pass that's inactive. Now it's active, and I can scroll up through the pass.


Sick pastor
I'm at church, sitting near the front-right. Our pastor is walking around near the chairs - this is unusual, since he's normally behind the pulpit, but I don't give it much thought. Instead of his normal almost-invisible mic, he's got a big announcer-style headset, but I don't think much on that either. His voice is off, and he explains he has a cold. He got it from Ben ... Ben ... he points to one Ben and says "not that one, the real Ben" and "that one"'s father is mock-offended. He finally remembers it was Ben C that got him sick.


Popcorn at the vacation house
I'm at a vacation house with my wife and her parents. Things are overwhelmingly white. She's in the kitchen with a huge bowl of popcorn. Her father and I start munching on it, and she's not happy with us. I do something with a bottle of BBQ sauce. Someone says something about a family watching a baby, that it's a bit unusual but that it'll be good for them.


The train
It's dark. I'm going to try to sneak onto a train - one of the little ones like you find at amusement parks. As I'm nearing the crossing where you get on, it's just pulling away, and I'm annoyed. I end up waiting with a few people for the next one.

Now I'm on the train, near the back.

I think the train was pink.


Recording dreams in a false awakening
I have a false awakening in which I'm recording my dreams. I'm using my bluetooth keyboard as usual, but I'm surprised that I'm recording the dreams on my phone instead of my tablet. I don't think much of it.

I'm really pleased with the recall I'm having. I'm getting good detail from many different dreams.

Then I wake up for real and most of it is gone