memorable

Bed @ 2225*
Woke @ 2330 /w nothing.*
Woke @ 0200 /w nothing.*
Woke @ 0345 - unknown reason

Remote pairing
I'm in "my room" talking with my team lead on the phone, using my Bluetooth headset. My phone shows me a notification that something's crashed, but I assume it's some background process since everything seems to be working OK. My lead is doing most of the talking, and I'm generally making "Uh-huh" noises. It's only when I actually try to add something that I realize he can't hear me. I start fiddling with the phone, trying to get 'unmuted.' Eventually, he asks me a direct question, and after trying again with the headset I disconnect it and hold up the phone to my ear. This time he can hear me and I explain what happened with the headset before getting back to the conversation at hand. He wants to spend most of tomorrow pairing with me on our project, some kind of radio hardware, and we're planning out what we want to accomplish.

Now I'm walking away from my building, crossing shopping center parking lots. I need to get some distance from my office to test something out. I'm concerned that radio signals are just too finicky, and that all the stuff around here will create all sorts of 'hot spots' and 'cold spots' and we just won't be able to make sense of our results unless we get much better testing hardware. At a minimum, we're going to need a proper signal strength meter, but we're also going to need ... something else (I forget in-dream). Now I'm still moving away from my building, but I'm somehow in a sitting position, sliding backwards over the ground, frictionless, though it's a very bumpy ride and I have to watch out for hedges lining the driveways.

Now I'm walking again, approaching the intersection of a couple of busy roads. A utility truck is pulled up onto the grass, and the utility guy is walking around. I can hear rock music blaring even though I'm still a ways away from him. This is my general destination - my lead wants me to test from here, though I don't think it'll work, since I no longer have line-of-sight to my building.

Now I'm standing on the steps of what seems to be a condemned tenement building. The whole thing is painted brick red, though the paint is peeling. There's another similar structure across the street, though it's actually made of brick. My lead is with me, and I point over, saying that we may be able to 'spike' the building across the street near its top with a radio repeater if we can figure out who to ask for permission. As I descend the steps, I look around, wondering if anyone still lives here despite the terrible condition of the building. The board I try to use as a railing turns out not to be connected to anything and I jump, not expecting it to pull away in my hand. I put it back down, then descend the steps even more carefully.I walk along a grassy area until I can finally look back to see the College of Computing, which is at the end of a shopping center strip. It's got a drive-around that I didn't remember being there.

Now I've walked back and gone inside, and I'm in the waiting room of a doctor's office, standing in line to pay. To my left, a frosted glass window opens and the receptionist spays me with water as if from a shower head. I yelp, dashing around, trying to get out of the stream, and she laughs uproariously. I'm not pleased, but I like the people here and I can't feel too annoyed at them. Back in line, I look around carefully, and no more ambushes seem to be forthcoming. The guy in front of me turns and hands me a wallet he thinks I dropped - it certainly looks like mine. I open it and find it's full of British pounds, not dollars, and I tell him it's not mine. Hearing "pounds," another man turns, sees the wallet, and exclaims that it's his. He gives me a hand-written note and some American bills he's been carrying, explaining that he wanted to give a reward to whoever gave found and returned his wallet. His English is good if rather accented - German, maybe. I'm not sure what to do - I wouldn't mind a few extra spending dollars, but I don't want to take advantage of him either. I make a very small effort to return the money, but he rebuffs me, and I don't press it. I'm having trouble counting the bills - at first, I think it's a five and a one, but each time I look at it it's different. At one point, I think it's a twenty, a ten, and a five. Eventually, I remember the note and look at it. It's scrawled in nearly unintelligible handwriting, a thank you for finding his wallet. Along the left side is his own recipe for something. I don't try to interpret the note or the recipe since the handwriting is so bad, but I do keep it for later study.

Now I'm talking to one of the doctors. He's amused, smirking, reminding me of the reason I trust him, that he doesn't take any of my personal information; but then he runs through all the various agencies, groups, and regulations they have to deal with which completely destroy any semblance of privacy I may have had.

BTB @ 0410; can't sleep until 0610
Woke @ 0715

Delta lucid?
I'm looking at a gray-on-gray "field," and I know I'm asleep. I'm aware of the feeling of my right hand. I manage to form an image of a hand and open and close it without affecting my physical hand.

Searching for sky; flight!
I'm in a rather plain room with a family I feel I know, a man and couple of teenage kids. I'm working with some food laid out on the lid of a large Rubbermaid tub. I take a small piece of fish steak out of a square Glasslock container where it's been sitting on wax paper and marinating in something dark. Someone asks me if I know how to handle fish and I answer yes.

I remember that I'm dreaming and reach out to feel the edge of the lid, its plasticy sharpness. The people are gone. I stay calm, moving slowly, breathing deeply, fixing the knowledge that this is a dream in my mind (I forget to rub my hands). I feel the top of the lid, then the wall near me, then start to head outside. I need to get outdoors so I can fly. I move very slowly, as if quick movement will shatter the dream or make me forget (I need to work on that ...)I walk through the doorway and find myself in something like a small enclosed garden - grass on the ground, other growing stuff around, 4 walls, and something overhead. I walk through another doorway and find myself in another small room, then in another enclosed outdoor space. I see a screen door (it's green all over) and launch myself through it, but I just find myself in another enclosed space. I start to get concerned - what if I can't find a way out? I calm myself and don't let myself get sucked into it. I reflect that I'm not yet very good at dream control, so I don't trust myself to bust through a wall, but I can still use simpler, more reliable methods. I stop, telling myself that there will be a doorway around the next corner, picturing it in my mind, picturing the sunlight shining through it. I turn the corner and find myself in a garden with a fence. There's still something overhead, but there's a gap between the covering and the fence, and sunlight is streaming through the gap. I'm so relieved, I feel a huge weight lifted from myself.

I launch myself up through the gap, and I'm out, hovering in the air about ten feet up. I'm so happy, but I keep control of myself. Buildings are on either side of me, and a kind of wide alley stretches out before me; but I can still see the blue sky above. I pause for a moment - I've never gotten beyond this stage, so now what? I focus on feeling confident, go into what feels like a natural flying pose - right arm forward, left arm cocked backwards - and start moving upwards and forwards, out beyond the buildings. I remember that part of my goal is to really feel the sensation of flying, of wind in my face, of speed and height, but I get nothing. I'm out in the open now, with nothing around me. To my left, I see a woman flying in, holding an umbrella. I wake, feeling amazing and slightly emotional.

Fragment: I'm holding my mini-massager, trying to use it; but the battery is so low that it can barely vibrate.

Points: 36

Bathroom hunt
I'm in a long, fairly narrow room. The walls and floor are all tiled a light green, and a doctor is with me. We walk from one end of the room to somewhere near the middle, and I realize I really need a bathroom. Sheepishly, I ask her where one is, and she vaguely gestures to one side while giving instructions that I don't follow. I head off in the direction she waved in.

Now I'm walking through a large area. In front of me, off to the right, I see a doorway labeled as a single-seat bathroom. It seems odd for such a large place, but whatever. Now I'm inside the bathroom. It's a large room, at least 20'x20'. I don't understand why a single-seater would be so large, but whatever. In the middle of the wall on my right is a door, and I realize it's a second entrance. I look to see how to lock it and see a long bar - as long as the wall - which can be rotated to block the door. I rotate it into the 'locked' position and latch it. I assume that the person who works on the other side of the door must use a wheelchair.

I turn back around to lock the main door and find that a whole crowd of people is coming in. A few people are already seated on the couches, and a couple more are still standing. I kick myself for not locking the main door first, but it's too late now. I can't kick out a whole crowd, especially not when they're here for a meeting. I leave, intending to look for another bathroom.

Now I'm in a kind of food court area. All of the tables are on a giant raised platform. I make the connection that food courts always have a bathroom nearby, so I find some stairs that lead onto the platform and take them.

Now I'm walking along a wide hallway with stores on each side, looking for a sign for bathrooms. This is a mall, so one can't be too far away, though it'll probably be down an inconspicuous side hallway. Now I'm running, and I can hear my pursuers as they talk to each other. They're confused by my running style - somehow I'm using my hands as well as my feet - and amazed by my speed. They admit to each other that there's no way they'll catch me, and I thrill in my speed.


Raising the sun
I'm in my bedroom with my wife. I start talking about the book we're reading (IRL) and something I didn't agree with in the last chapter. Now I'm in the hallway outside our bedroom, and I notice that the lights are off and the light-up light switches are dark. I realize that the breaker must have blown and start to head downstairs to flip it. Now I'm in the pantry, at the breaker box. The lights are off, and I reach for my cell phone to turn on its flashlight. As soon as I touch it, the flashlight turns on, which surprises me. I don't think about it too hard, since it's what I needed anyway. I hold it up and scan the panel, looking for a flipped breaker, and find it. I turn it off, then back on. It immediately flips back off, and my other hand feels warm and goopy. I worry that the breaker might have a short and start feeling the panel for heat, but the panel is fine. I decide to go back upstairs to see if I can find what's tripping the breaker.

Now I'm walking through our entryway on the way to the stairs. I see a bright orange flash and fear that there's a fire upstairs; then I realize that the explosion was outside, across the street. I walk over to the window to look out. It's dark, and I can only vaguely make out the shapes of children playing nearby. I have a vague thought along the lines of "I can't believe how bad everything is; this must be a dream" and something clicks. I don't yet believe I'm dreaming, but I do a nose-pinch to make sure. I can still breathe, and I realize I'm dreaming.

My daytime daydream practice kicks in, and I remember what I'm supposed to do. 1) Remember and hold onto the sure knowledge that I'm dreaming. 2) Slowly rub my hands and feel the friction between them. 3) Look around myself, study my environment, and affirm that everything I'm seeing is created by my own mind. 4) Find a way outside. 5) Fly. I quickly go through steps 1-3, and I keep telling myself "This is a dream" for the rest of my dream. I'm in my entryway, so all I have to do to get outside is to open the front door. Curiously, the whole wall rotates as if it's a secret passage, but I don't really care - it opens the path to my front porch, and I go outside. It's still night, and I don't want to fly around in the dark, so I decide to pull a Truman Show and make it day. I stretch out my hands towards the horizon (I know it's not east, but I don't care), command "Sun, rise!" and lift my arms. The sun comes shooting over the horizon and disappears over my head. I turn around to see where it went, but I can't see it.

I turn back around and try again. I stretch my arms to the horizon and slowly lift them. The sun comes up with them, and I "stick" the sun to about 10 o'clock. Over the next few seconds, the sky fades from a starry black to a beautiful blue. I'm excited it worked, and I wake up. I try for a DEILD, then do another nose pinch, but I'm awake.


Fragment: My van is at the top of a driveway, and I'm doing something with the cargo in the back.

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0015 /w no recall
BTB @ 0020 /w water
Woke @ 0340

Bad timing
I'm in my bathroom in the middle of the night taking galantamine and choline. I'm having trouble swallowing them; I put a pill in my mouth, take some water, swallow the water, but just can't get the pill down. After a couple of tries, I can start to taste the pill and realize it's already dissolving in my mouth. Eventually I just give up and chew up the pill and hope that it won't mess with it. I chew up the galantamines but manage to swallow the choline (which I think is ironic given how much larger the choline is), but then I notice there's still a galantamine on the counter; I could have sworn I chewed up both of them, but oh well. I go ahead and take the one I "forgot." As I'm finishing with the pills I start to hear my wife moving around. I assume she's just woken up to use the bathroom, so I head out so she can use it; but as I leave the bathroom I'm shocked to find that it's 6:58, only two minutes before I'm supposed to get up to go to work! There's no way I can sleep and dream in two minutes, and not only did I just waste a dose, but it'll be another four days before I can try again! Arg! I can't understand how I could have done something like that.

Now I'm helping my wife by collecting laundry from our room. Clothing, along with a few blankets, is scattered on every surface in the room. As I'm trying to figure out what to do with my daughter's quilt, she comes in and takes it from me. As she's leaving I look out into the hallway and notice the baby gate at the top of the stairs: it has only its top and bottom bars left, with nothing in-between, and I can't imagine how it could do anything at all to stop my toddler from going up or down the stairs.


Breakfast conversation
I'm eating breakfast with Steve B. He asks how I'm doing with my Bible reading, and I confess that I'm actually not doing so well. He's concerned and asks why, and I tell him that when I'm trying to read it my mind feels like it's getting pulled in a hundred directions and it takes a white-knuckled grip to stay focused, and it's just really exhausting. He says I might want to consider reading other good books to build up my spiritual reading muscles and suggests a couple. One of them I've heard of, and I ask him about the other one. He explains it's a biography of <someone who did something.> As we're talking, I'm getting more breakfast. There's some kind of cooked banana dish, and there's some kind of bread-based casserole. Both are pretty tasty, though the bread one is starting to get soggy.


Infiltration observation
It's night. I'm 'hovering' behind a youth as he sneaks along some narrow walkways above water. I'm not concerned about his seeing me - I'm somehow 'present' without actually being here physically. I stay fairly close to him, hanging back far enough to watch what he's doing. He's pretty spry, hopping over locked gates with some fairly slick moves. Eventually he reaches doors to go inside somewhere and passes through, unaware that a lady (with dark skin and black clothes) is now following right behind him. As I pass through the doors behind them, she actually holds the door for me and looks straight at me. She's wearing a lot of fancy spy gear and must be able to 'see' me, or at least sense my presence. She gives me a 'so you thought you could pull one over on me, huh?' wry smile before continuing off behind the boy.


Honey map
I'm holding a wooden honey dipper and trying to place small dots of honey on a map where I believe the final battle of a campaign was fought. I know that the map will alert me when I've gotten the right spot, but despite putting dots in a number of places I thought were likely candidates, nothing's happened. Finally a 'touch here for a hint' button appears and I press it with the tip of the dipper, but nothing shows up. For a moment I wonder if it's broken, but then I realize I'm zoomed in so far that the battle sites aren't visible. I zoom out and try again, but the honey is nearly gone and I'm having trouble getting any to drip. I end up spinning the dipper, thinking that maybe centrifugal force will help honey get to the edge so it can drip down.

Now I'm 'hovering' over the roads I just saw in the map. Both sides of the road are packed with booths selling many different things. I can see little icons hovering above people, and I know that they indicate that the person is going to do something important, even if I don't know exactly what each of the icons is trying to represent. In a larger booth, I see two people with icons, and I somehow know that talking to one of them will cause a quest to succeed while talking to the other will fail the quest.


BTB @ 0405 /w 8mg galantamine
Woke @ 0520

Staying with my in-laws
I'm standing on the driveway at my in-law's house. My wife is loading our car, and my mother-in-law is getting into her car. I really need to use the bathroom, so I tell them I'll be right back and jog up the driveway to the house. The garage doors are already closed, so I call back to ask one of them to use the remote. Both of them try, but the garage door won't go up. We're all confused, and both of them try again, but still nothing. I look back at the door and see that it's open a couple of feet (though now it's become a single-piece garage door, so it's opened by tilting). I ask them to stop using the remotes so I can crawl under the door and not worry about being crushed.

Now I'm in bed in their guest bedroom, and I know that I'm dreaming. My wife is still asleep next to me, so I gently scoot down towards the foot of the bed. As I'm trying to stand up, my movement feels "off," and my arms are leaden. I have trouble getting off the bed and end up face-planting on the floor. I take a moment to pull myself together and get up, and I can move around OK now. I head down the hallway and out the front door and look around. With the house at my back, I'm looking down a (beautifully manicured) sloped lawn. The rest of the neighborhood stretches out below me, and trees surround the property. I remember my personal goal of flying above the treetops and jump as hard as I can. I go shooting up into the air and get at least fifty feet in the air, well above the nearest trees. Success! I look around and thrill at being so high, though I have a brief moment of confusion as I find that I'm still not above the roof. Oh well, dreams are weird. I try to go higher, but I'm not able to; instead, I start to fall. At first, I'm falling slowly, but I quickly build speed until I finally slam into the ground, feet first, with a tremendous thump.

That was fun! I look forward to doing more flying in the future, but I decide to try out other stuff now. I remember my 3-step goals and that my intended narrative was to summon my cell phone, use it, then disband it. I normally wear my cell phone on my belt, though it's not there now. Without looking, I reach down to my belt, to where I usually wear it, intending to grab it; but my hand comes back empty. I try again, and this time I come back with an Insteon module. Huh? Oh well, at least I summoned something ... I head back inside looking for something electronic to mess with to complete step two. I enter the kitchen and go to the dishwasher which I see has some kind of electronic display. I mess with the buttons on the control panel and manage to change what the display is showing; I end up in some kind of menu and manage to change a setting.

Now I decide to hunt for a bathroom - I want to see if I can use a mirror to change my physical appearance. I go down one short hallway, but all the doors are closed and I don't want to barge in on my in-laws. I try another one and, once again, the doors are closed; but I remember this is a dream and it doesn't matter. I decide to go through the door I'm at, but I'm surprised to see that it has only a deadbolt. I decide that, since this is a dream, that's not going to stop me and that I'm going to phase through the door. I make some progress, but there's resistance, and before I make it more than a couple of inches through the door bursts open. I'm a bit disappointed, but oh well. Whatever's behind the door, it's not a bathroom. I try a couple more doors before finally finding what seems to be a dressing room with a large wall mirror. *I stand in front of the mirror and manage to alter a couple of physical characteristics. Unfortunately, my rib cage looks emaciated, and I can't seem to do anything about it.*

Now I'm walking on a wide sidewalk next to a park. A tall, well-dressed woman is walking towards me, and *I order her to stop. She does, standing completely still, with eyes staring straight ahead. It's actually a bit creepy.

At one point, I hear something I assume is my wife's alarm. I steel myself, trying to stay in the dream. Once it stops, I assume I'll have five minutes before it goes off again.

Many times through the dream I lose sight. I rub my hands until it comes back.

BTB @ 0545 - though I never actually get back to sleep

Bed @ 2200
Woke @ 0020: Nothing
BTB @ 0025
Woke @ 0210 /w crying baby

Troublemakers in church
I'm at church, sitting in my usual spot. A group of young adults is behind me, and I don't know any of them. We're in the middle of Sunday School, and some of them are whispering and talking about the speaker, an older man I don't know. Later, I overhear the most disrespectful of the crowd, a late teens girl, talking to another of her friends and listing many perceived grievances she has with the teacher, and I take note of them. Now, I'm back in the sanctuary, and I've got her comments written down. I'm not sure what the best way to move forward is - or even, really, what I'm trying to do - so I leave them sitting on a chair where the teacher will find them. As it happens, someone else finds my notes - which have now become a hardback book - and brings it to his attention while he's teaching. He comes over, flips through it, and proclaims it wonderful - he wishes that other people would take the time and effort to write up their questions half as well as this. He thinks for a moment, opens the book back to the front, and signs it with a huge flowing signature that completely covers the page - Patrick something.

Later, I'm talking to him one-on-one, and he's sharing stories of the old days. *He says that medicine has come a long way since his youth.He starts talking about how he really started to feel his age when he hit seventy or so, but some new pills made him feel young again, and that was many years ago now.

Now potluck is laid out. I notice the cake we brought and take and eat a small hunk that's fallen off. I walk into the next room and see more food, including the cake we brought. Huh? I notice with some surprise that there's much less of it than I thought, so I decide not to take any.


Pizza delivery submarine
I'm seeing inside a car as an old-timey (20s-30s?) pizza delivery woman talks to her boss while on the road (I wonder how, since they didn't have cell phones back then ...). He's telling her about a problem with a customer, and she responds that she'd hate to lose their most responsible driver (I wonder what customer and driver have to do with each other). He asks her to pick up the slack, and she sadly agrees. Now I can see the driver holding up pills in a blister pack. The top half are blue, for the driver, and the bottom half are red, for the customers. Somehow they help to ... something? Now I see the driver, dressed in an evening gown, embracing a man dressed in a suit. She's holding a small flower bouquet, but when she tells him she has more deliveries, the flowers instantly wilt in an almost comical way.

Now I'm watching from above as a girl (who my mind labels as the pizza delivery girl) pilots a small submarine up to the beach near my youngest daughter. She opens the bubble hatch and hopes out, asking my daughter to come with her. The sub is parked in the surf, with the opening just barely above the water line, and my daughter doesn't want to go out to it. A particularly large wave comes by and knocks the sub back out into the water. Its hatch automatically closes so it doesn't get wet inside, and both girls look on with dismay as it floats away from them. A fighter jet passes by low overhead.

Now I'm wading into the water, going after the sub, but now the sub is a large friendly sea creature with a gentle face and large paws. I'm not chasing it at the beach but instead in a very attractive zoo exhibit that has a little branching river passing here and there under the walkways. I'm almost to it, but it swims into a little tunnel. I consider following it but decide it would be better to head it off. I think for a moment to remember where the other end is and then head there. Sure enough, it comes out, and I gently take it by the paw. It doesn't try to fight or escape, so I lead it onto a small island. I call the girls over, telling them to get in before it decides to swim off again.


BTB @ 0235 /w SSILD
Wake @ 0500

The auction house
I'm in a majestic old conference center. It's paneled with a lot of dark wood and has high ceilings and carved pillars. A large amphitheater-style area has been roped off, and there's a long line of well-dressed people waiting to get in. There's an odd system in which each participant tears off the bottom part of his ticket, drops it into a jar, and gives the top half to a guard. My father-in-law is nearby, and I ask him what's going on. He says these people are here for a very prestigious auction which is by invitation only, and that we shouldn't even try to get in, because these people are very particular about their auctions. However, a nearby guard overhears us and lets us know that, since we're employees of the company, we can go in once everyone else is in, as long as there's still room.

Now we're walking through the theater area looking for seats - we're the only ones still standing. The seating arrangement is very odd, with small clumps of chairs - anywhere from about 2 to 8 - scattered around without any apparent design. He heads for a small clump near the edge of the room, and I follow, even though it looks like that clump only has two seats which are already occupied by a mother and daughter. As we get closer, I see that I somehow missed a couple of empty seats next to them.

Now we're seated. Unfortunately, from where we are, we can't see the stage; but there's a fairly large TV (which is set into a strange boxy cabinet) in front of us which I assume will show us a video feed of what's going on. However, right now, it's panning in extreme close-up over what seem to be company logos rendered in bas-relief. I look away, fearing that subliminal messages have been implanted in the video. After a while, I look back, and now the bas-relief logos are actually formed out of human bodies which have been painted with metallic paints. It gives a very odd effect. Now the TV is showing a beautiful tropical beach, and the painted people are running along the sand.

Now, I've been sucked into the video. I'm on the island, naked except for a blanket I've got wrapped around myself. A strange woman comes up to me and tells me that she can help me get back to the real world. Now I see my wife, in the real world, sitting in stadium seating, with the strange woman leaning over the back of the chair making smooching faces as if to kiss my wife - but now her mouth is perfectly round and filled with rows of rotating teeth (it actually reminds me of a Sandworm from Dune). Naturally, my wife refuses the "kiss," and so she ends up getting pulled to the island as well. I kiss her instead, and we end up back in the real world.


BTB @ 0515
Wake @ 0630

Fragment: I'm in bed with wife, talking with her. *


Nap: 1500 - 1630

Dark (Chocolate) Lord's castle
I'm walking on the coastline of black, rocky island with a group of adventurers (something like a D&D party). The island stretches away ahead and to my left as far as I can see. Off to our right, out in the waves, is a dark castle - the home of the Dark Lord we've come to defeat. As we walk along, I realize that not everything we're stepping on is rock - scattered here and there are huge chunks of dark chocolate, large enough that I need two hands to hold them. They're smooth and sharp, as if the world's largest chocolate bar was smashed with a sledgehammer. I motion to the party's wizard and we walk a little way to the side, out of hearing of the rest of the party. I tell him that I know that trustworthy sources have said that the chocolate is meaningless, but I can't help thinking that all this dark chocolate is the source of the Dark Lord's power.

Rambling dream
I'm standing in what I believe to be a Home Depot watching some kind of laser cutting large wooden rounds into doughnut shapes. Each round is around six or eight feet across and about a foot or two thick. They're very rough-cut, and they still have their bark on. The rounds are hanging from a track in an upright position. One at a time, the machinery moves a round in front of a laser, cuts out the center of the round, and moves it onward. Each time, the bright orange laser stabs through the round, moves in a wide circle, and lets the slightly cone-shaped center drop out. As this keeps going on, I watch more closely. Oddly, the later doesn't leave a nice clean cut - the remaining hole is just as rough as the wood itself. I turn my attention to what happens to the scrap pieces and am surprised to see that they fall then seem to dissolve. My wife is standing nearby, and I call her attention to it. After a couple more times I look more closely at what the scrap is falling onto. At first glance, it just looks like a fairly industrial metal table but, looking more closely, I realize that it's supposed to be a replica of the Last Supper: most of the table is empty, but one place setting has a plate of bread and a cup of wine. Even though this is just idolatry - we're not authorized to use religious symbols like this, nor to profane the Lord's Supper - it's clearly having an effect on the wood.

Now I'm sitting at a small table with my wife. I'm still facing the same direction, and she's sitting across from me. A chain-link fence and gate are now standing where the cutting machinery had been. The gate opens, and a police RV drives in and parks. I wonder what's going to happen. Now I see a police officer trying to handcuff a man. He surprises the man and gets one wrist into the cuffs, but the man struggles and holds his arms straight out. Another officer comes over and helps pull the man's arms together behind his back so he can be cuffed. Another young officer comes over to my table and, in a lightning move, cuffs my wife's hands to the table. He's young, friendly, and very apologetic, explaining that they need to keep witnesses to <something> around for questioning. I put my hands on the table to show I'm cooperating and won't fight, but he doesn't cuff me. Instead, on older officer comes over and starts talking to me almost as an equal and asking my opinion on things. I realize I must be the main character. I make a gaff and he assumes I'm just joking and scolds me, telling me to be serious. Now I see the female lead getting ready for a fancy gathering, wearing a fancy blue dress, and somehow I know this is important to the case.

Now I'm watching a commercial for a TV show. The guy talking is the main character, though he's addressing the audience directly, talking about what a fool he gets to be on the next episode. The camera is showing him from the waist up, and behind him is an aerial view of a tropical island in a deep blue sea. He uses a couple of strange terms to refer to himself, referencing some other silly show, but I don't know enough about it to understand the references. Now the camera passes him and starts to zoom in on the island. Eventually the perspective is from ground level. The main character is with a bunch of old guys, and they're all lining up their motorcycles in a small front yard. They've all got some piping hooked up near the backs of their motorcycles to shoot water in the air up behind them as they ride, kind of like a speed boat's rooster tails. Even though they're not riding, they've got them turned on, and they're all getting wet. The main character is looking pretty goofy and has a rather long-suffering look on his face. Now the camera cuts to a dog in the street. It's gotten all wet from the bikes, so it prances around for a while, lays down on its side, and sends a stream of urine high in the air in an arc. Everyone laughs even harder and says the dog won.

Now I'm the main character, and I'm climbing the steps to the house, heading to a party thrown in my honor by a bunch of people I only barely know. I don't really want to go, but I can't very well back out of my own party. I go through the outer door, through a small laundry room, and out into a kitchen. I see my paternal grandparents and instantly know I'm dreaming, since they've been dead for many years. I hug my grandfather, wave to my grandmother, then look at them a bit, enjoying their presence. They both look really (really) old and, though spry, also look very sickly with pale, age-spotted skin. *I decide to try to fly and focus my efforts on soaring into the air. The only thing that happens is a feeling of a slight "shift." Oh well.

Now I "wake up" and find myself in the same living room, but with all the people gone. I remember that my wife and I are house-sitting for friends, and I feel bad about how everything looks. I go hunting for paper towels, but every roll I find - in the kitchen, in the utility room, in the bathroom - has exactly one sheet left. I finally get a grocery plastic bag and a length of toilet paper and return to clean up the mess. I notice that there's a bit of water coming down from the ceiling, but I ignore it for the moment. The toilet paper is single ply stuff, so it doesn't work well, and by the time I'm done it's squashed into something the size of a marble.

Now I hear someone yelling something from the second story. Now there's something about a fish and what a struggle it was to reel it in. I look over and see a strange fish, very flat and angular (as if it were cut out of a piece of wood and painted) sitting on a small table nearby. My wife comes over and I show it to her, explaining how it got here - something about the guy upstairs. Initially, I hadn't thought it had any usable meat on it, but on second thought I think it does.


Monster in town
I'm in an unfurnished house with someone else talking about the monster that's recently invaded the town. We're trying to figure out what to do - maybe hide in a closet, or maybe barricade the doors. Now a police woman is talking to the townspeople, letting them know that the monster has been defeated but that the police have decided that all female officers must quit.

*
Fragment: I'm at a concert. Two guys are singing - The Rock and someone else - and they're having mic problems. The Rock's singing is much better than I'd expected. *

Bed @ 2230
Woke @ 0540

Leaky ceiling
I'm in my master bathroom relieving myself. As I start, I notice that there's a drop of water on the ceiling. This concerns me, but I figure that maybe there's an explanation that's not terrible, though I'm not hopeful. My first guess as to a cause is that something is wrong with the weather sealing around the window. I'm surprised by how full my bladder is, and as I keep going, I notice more and more wet drops hanging on the ceiling. They seem to be popping up constantly. By the time I'm finished, the entire ceiling is covered with large droplets of water. I'm saying something like "no no no no no" and call out to my wife "Honey, we've got a problem!!!" As I continue trying to find out what's going on, I notice a place where the ceiling changes levels. Inside, I see some small pipes and immediately jump to the conclusion that they're the source of the problem.

Missed meeting
I'm sitting at my computer in my office. I realize it's eleven thirty and that I didn't dial into the daily meeting earlier; but then I look at my daily calendar and see that it's been moved to five PM. I hate it when my team lead does that; the new time is after I'm done for the day! Now I'm on the phone with someone. Now I'm closing browser tabs, trying to get things organized again. I'm really confused by the contents of the tabs - there's lots of gaming stuff. I keep closing them and finally notice a stylized blue E at the corner of the window. Oh, of course, I'm in Windows, which I only boot up for gaming. When did I boot Windows?

Contaminated food
I'm at a party with some people I know. Everyone else has food, but I don't. Now I'm in the kitchen to see what's available, but all I see is a half a rolled-up something on a cutting board near the sink. I try to nonchalantly look around to see if there's a plate I can grab to get some, but I don't see anything. Suddenly, weird stuff starts happening. Little statuettes start exploding and everyone starts behaving very very oddly. I realize their behavior has something to do with the food and am thankful I didn't have any. Somehow I manage to talk to some of them and snap them out of it. Now I'm listening to a group of them talk afterwards (mostly older women I don't know, though Jen is also in the group). Someone is saying that the stuff in the food is pretty nasty, that even touching it will let it enter your DNA and make changes to your aging process, and that it affects women more than it does men.


Lucid in the lab
I'm watching the opening credits for a TV show which takes place in some kind of laboratory. In the footage, a lot of shining stainless steel and a variety of fancy-looking instruments are pretty constantly in the frame. Now the credits are showing a character who's young, strong, and not quite all there. He's used for simple manual labor, moving stuff from one place to another; but really he's used for comedy relief, always banging into things and messing up the other characters. Sure enough, he comes through a door pulling a giant metal cylinder that's much bigger than he is, acting as if it's nothing, but as he makes the turn he swivels it into another character who gets stuck between it and the wall. I recognize this guy from something he did much later - I hadn't realized this is where he got his start. Now I see another guy in what looks like a glass elevator, but he's rotating slowly around. When his capsule lines up with the door he has a brief moment to connect something, but he keeps missing his opportunity and having to wait until it spins around again.

Now I'm walking along a hallway in the building. Strangely, many pieces of equipment have handwritten signs on them with very strange, humorous (to someone) instructions written on them.

Now I'm walking down another hallway with a group of people. Over the PA, someone announces that they're going to drop meat on our heads. What kind of lab is this? What kind of experiment is this? The ceiling starts to open up, and something starts to fall out. People start screaming and running for the far end of the hall, but balloons are already falling out of the ceiling. Balloons? Strangely, they pop the moment they touch anything. At first, I'm relieved they weren't really dropping meat on us, but then I look behind me and see that the balloons did actually have stuff in them, and that the floor is now littered with unidentifiable bits of red chunks and red stringy stuff. Ewww.

Now we've entered an area with some other people. A woman dressed only in white bra and panties starts swaying her way towards my group. I don't make eye contact and try not to stand out, hoping she'll ignore me. She ends up fixating on the guy right in front of me and starts making out with him. Somehow she ends up sitting on my chest (she's very soft) while she's kissing him. I'm repulsed and try to think of a way out of this when I realize I'm dreaming. I shout out "This is a dream!" and wonder if any of the DCs will try to argue with me, but they just ignore me.

Now I'm standing again, and I'm by myself. The dream is rather dull, and I know I need more vividness. First, I look at my hand. It's got four fingers and a thumb, but all my fingers are too long, and the thumb is pointing almost straight downwards. Colors are better now. Now I start to go through my memorized list. First, to help activate the logical side of my brain, I calculate the first few numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. Getting to 13 is easy, but the jump to 21 takes some effort, and I stop there, not wanting to focus too much and lose the dream. Next up, I try to activate my creative side by singing Mary Had A Little Lamb. I manage to sing one verse, though it somehow gets muddled together with B.I.N.G.O. I know it's wrong, but I don't care - I sang something and that's good enough. Now, onto the real tasks. I know I need DCs for both basic tasks, but I haven't seen anyone since right after getting lucid, so I'm a bit worried that I won't be able to find anyone. I turn around (I'd been facing the hallway) and find that I'm now in some kind of cafeteria area. Tables are scattered around haphazardly along with large ornate pillars, and lots of people are milling around.

The closest person to me is a really cute, impeccably dressed (sweater vest, long sleeved shirt, slacks) little black kid. I ask him what a good task of the month would be. He very clearly enunciates something, but it's not a task. I go to a nearby woman and ask her, and she also says something that's not a task. I round one of the pillars and talk to an older man, and he says something that, again, is not a task. Oh well.

I move onto the second basic task: I throw back my head and do my best mad scientist laugh (Mwa ha ha ha ha ha). The guy looks at me like, did I really just do that? But off in another part of the cafeteria I hear an answering high pitched cackle (Eeeee hee hee hee hee hee). Score!

Onto intermediate one. I pull out my phone and will that Frank will call. Nothing happens. I decide that I'm going to count down from five and that it'll ring when I reach zero. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. The moment I count "zero," the phone starts buzzing (it's quite a strong sensation in my hand) and the notification light starts blinking white, but the screen doesn't come on. I press the power button and it turns on to reveal an RPG. In the dream, I recognize that it's a smashed-up mess of at least two different games, and the city names shown on the map clue me in on what they are though I can't remember them now. Flush with excitement over successfully completing both a basic and an intermediate task in one dream, I wake up.


Fragment: I'm walking through what I know to be a college campus. My wife is with me, and she mentions going to visit a place on campus "now that she can put the baby in the Ergo." I don't understand what that has to do with anything, but whatever.

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.

Patrick Stewart's hockey gang
I'm in a house with a group of street toughs who have just helped "us" out. I'm in their room, and I see a tiny record player on the bed. For some reason, I think briefly about stealing the record - somehow I know it's valuable. I decide not to - besides just being wrong, I have no desire to cross a group of street toughs - and leave room. As I'm walking out, one of them walks in. He gives me a suspicious look, and I wonder if I have a guilty look on my face from my earlier thoughts. Now I'm in my room, talking with my wife about making copies of records. She's sitting on the edge of the bed working on something, while I'm laying on my side facing her. She doesn't understand why it would be all that hard, saying that surely wax would do the job. I explain that normal wax is too soft, that while it's easy to push into grooves it would deform when removed and so wouldn't be useful for making a good copy. Instead, we'd need some kind of wax that's easy to work with when warm but which hardens completely when cool.

Now I'm at an ice rink watching the group of toughs play a hockey game. I'm excited to find out that they're led by Patrick Stewart - except where I see his name written, it's something like Patrick Steaus. I get a look at his face and - even though covered by a helmet with facial bars - I'm sure it's him. His face is more angular, more lined than I've seen it before, but it's still him. I only got a quick glance at his name earlier, so I look around trying to find it again. I see it out of the corner of my eye - again with that strange almost-spelling - but it always changes to something else before I can get a really good look. Maybe this is his "pen name" that he uses to hide from some of his fame? At one point the names of all the players appear on the wall near the ceiling, moving around in a circle, each name separated from the next by a ♠. Even so, I never get a clear look at the name. Now the game is over and he and his team are skating around the rink on an exhibition lap. As they're leaving the rink I take note of how incredibly smoothly they're skating - it looks unnatural. I also get a better look at their armor/uniforms - they're covered head-to-toe in something that's shiny, hard, and completely black. After they're gone, I belatedly kick myself for not taking a picture - my friends would have loved this. I pull out my phone and open the camera app, hoping my battery doesn't die, looking for something with his picture and/or name. I can't find anything with either. Oh well.


Impressive office
I'm leaving a stairwell and stepping into a long hallway. A foreign couple is pushing a cart towards me, seemingly looking for where they're staying. I move around them and continue on, coming to an open elevator. Looking inside, I see a roughly 10 year old boy. I realize I'm on the wrong floor and decide to take the elevator, but then somehow feel uneasy about getting inside. I realize I'm only one floor down from where I need to be and decide to just take the stairs.

Now I'm walking through another hallway. A light yellowish wall is to my right; the left wall is glass, looking out into some kind of fancy lobby area. Small potted trees dot the hallway. A strange vehicle is coming towards me, and I somehow know it's an automated cart that moves through the halls carrying people and/or things, and that normally it has wheels on the end of long legs (which let it pass over almost anything in the hallway) but that it's currently in a collapsed state. Looking further down the hallway, I see another one coming towards me. This one is extended to its full height and is carrying a handful of people in business suits. I immediately feel that I'm not comfortable with having this thing drive over me and look for a place to get around it - problematic, since it takes up the entire width of the hallway. Thankfully, I realize there's a spot in the hallway in front of me that does actually get quite a bit wider - as if someone cut a larger circle out of that area - and I'm confident that I'll get there about the same time as this thing (it's traveling at about walking speed). As we get closer together I realize that it couldn't have gone over me anyway, since it's criss-crossed horizontal and diagonal struts underneath itself. I'm impressed by its appearance - so spindly, with shiny chrome struts and black wheels that seem much too small for its size - yet it still seems very stable. I move to my right, it moves to its right, and we circle around each other, continuing on our ways.

Now I'm walking through the lobby. This place is gigantic and very attractive. The floor is shiny, pedestals with small statues are dotted here and there, and the walls and ceiling are glass, revealing a beautiful light blue sky. I "remember" that the ceiling didn't used to be this high, that they recently did construction to raise it up, but I can't remember when that construction happened, even though it must have been a significant project.. I walk near a group of seated bigwigs, stopping to hear what they're saying. I notice a woman in a white dress standing nearby - a secretary? - but I don't really pay any attention to her. Individual conversations stop and someone important - maybe the CEO? - starts talking. As I'm listening, I get a feeling that my chest is exposed. I look down and realize that my white button-down shirt has its top button undone, that I'm not wearing a tie, and that I'm not wearing my customary undershirt. All this is odd, but it doesn't explain that strange sense of exposure I just had. I pull the flaps together, somehow feeling self-conscious about actually buttoning the top button without also wearing a tie, then walk off.


Super chase / failed joke TOTM
I'm standing knee-deep in water. I'm in some kind of urban setting, with buildings all around. At least one building directly borders the pool. I see other tall buildings nearby, but I'm also able to see the sky through gaps between the buildings. It's dusk. As I walk along, I come to a strange bump in the water. As I get closer, the bump stands up and reveals itself to be a woman dressed in something resembling Super Girl's costume, with the addition of a mask. She starts playfully chasing me. I generally manage to keep away - neither of us can move well through this water - but she manages to grab an arm or a leg every so often.

Now I'm near a wall (tiled with small green tiles, each a slightly different shade) and realize that I'm dreaming, and if I throw myself through the wall she can't follow. I jump backwards towards the wall, but I have a moment of concern - I judged my distance poorly, and I'm not going to hit very hard. Will it work? I decide it will - this is my dream, after all - and as I hit the wall it shatters and I pass through. For a moment I see only black with green bits whizzing everywhere.

Now I'm seeing what appears to be an ancient monitor. The background is white, and a handful of words and/or a simple graphic (can't remember) is drawn out in giant black pixels. I have no presence here - no body - and this screen takes up my entire vision. I figure this is related to "the void" I've other LDers talk about, and I just need to approach it calmly. I picture the screen splitting down the middle, moving to the side, revealing a new dream world; but all I get is a pixelated animation of the screen sliding apart. I remember that one of the best ways to escape the void is to imagine physical sensations, so I imagine what it feels like to spin around and around.

Now I'm sitting across from Mom at a cafe table. Behind her is a small coat room painted a light beige; I see a coat rack to the left. She looks good, wearing a black and red dress with a red jacket over it. As I'm trying to decide what to do next, I remember that I have dream goals. I remember that the first thing on my list is remembering where my real body is, but I just don't feel like doing "you're not real" all over again. I don't have any recollection of my second intensification exercise. Once I dismiss the "sleeping body" exercise, I remember about the current TOTM, so I ask Mom if she can tell me a joke. She gets a really serious look on her face and says "No ... no, I can't," then launches into this weird philosophical monologue about how telling a joke really exposes the depths of your soul, especially when you're in a dream. I wake up.

House full of distractions / You're not real!
I'm with my wife walking through a dark, mostly empty parking lot. Now we're walking somewhere else discussing something music-related. Whatever it is, we have differing opinions.

Now we're in a house getting ready to go somewhere. We need to take showers before we can leave, but first we need to pack a change of clothes. We're in a smallish (10'x10') room putting clothing into small reusable grocery bags, planning to change into them after taking our showers. Now I'm dressed in my bathrobe walking down a long hallway towards the bathroom at the end. I see my sister-in-law (wearing a bluish dress) preparing to sit on the toilet, door still open, and turn around - I don't want to see that. As I turn, I see I'm next to another bathroom, but for some reason I decide to wait for the one at the end of the hall instead of using this one. Now I'm walking through another part of the hall and pass a doorway into a living room. Looking in, I see my children and my sister-in-law's kids (her oldest son stands out in my memory) watching TV. They don't see me.

Now I'm at a coffee table flipping through a magazine. An ad catches my eye - lots of text, very colorful. In fact, the page with the ad seems to be really long, longer than the magazine. Now I'm watching something on the TV. It's some kind of weird documentary. Women in very ornate clothes, with an Asian cast to their features, are swimming with dolphins. They've got something metallic covering the fronts of their torsos - it seems to be that they're making metal molds of their chests by getting in the water and letting it cool the metal against them. Now I'm watching a different documentary about two kinds of bird that are very physically similar and differ only in their behaviors. Both birds are smallish, blue, and seem too stocky. The narrator shows two nests and asks which one is which. After a few seconds he points out that the bird in one nest is making one kind of sound while the bird in the other nest is making another kind, and identifies the breed of each bird. One of them makes a very odd, un-bird like noise for a moment. Something else happens and one bird flies of the nest holding a wine bottle cork, and the narrator comments about the decoy nest and being fooled, that it's really hard to tell a decoy from a real one unless you know that male birds only ever sit in the decoys - but from a distance you really can't tell which is which ...

Now I'm playing a video game. My character is running downhill quickly, and a friend's character is to my right and slightly ahead of me. As I'm running, I see heaps upon heaps of equipment, BL2-style. The equipment is probably 50% white, 40% green, and 10% blue. At one point I see a couple of oranges to the far left but can't get to them in time. There aren't any enemies - just this endless downhill run - very odd. Now we're no longer on the loot covered hill, and enemies are near. I equip a fusion canon and something else. I don't remember getting any ammo for either, but I think I must have. Now I'm firing on someone, but the fusion canon is just a tiny beam of purple light that doesn't seem do anything. The other weapon is also a flop, so I change weapons and try again, still to no effect. I try every weapon I have, and I just get laughed at.

Now I'm dealing with a home intruder, still using the weaponry from the game. Again, I try everything I have, but he just ignores me, laughing, and does whatever it is he's come to do. Now we're in the kitchen. His accomplices are taking a friend hostage, saying they'll release him when I publicly post a bunch of embarrassing information about the current operation. He puts sticky notes on the fridge detailing what I need to release. As I'm looking at some envelopes he left, wondering if the return addresses are legit and could use them to track him down and find my friend, I remember I have a real weapon - not just virtual - upstairs. I run upstairs to get it, afraid of using it, afraid of not, hoping I can get it and get to them before they leave and it's too late.

Now I'm upstairs, standing in front of my closet, and I realize I'm dreaming. I do a quick nose plug RC to check, and it works. I slow down, trying to stay calm but not become too detached. First, I shout "INTENSIFY DREAM!" a few times. Nothing really seems to happen, but it feels good. I take in my surroundings and see that I'm upstairs in a kind of open loft. The closets are behind me, the stairs (and a wall-railing) are to my left, walls are ahead and to my right, and I'm standing on a dark green carpet. The ceiling is very low, and a pair of ceiling fans are hanging down even lower. It's dark up here, so I try to cause one of the fan lights to turn on. Nothing happens; oh well. I remember that I'm supposed to remember that my real body is asleep in bed and that everything I see is fake, so I tell myself that I'm asleep in bed and that everything around me is created by my mind. I really get into it and start getting dramatic. I touch the back wall (which is textured drywall) and shout "YOU'RE NOT REAL!" and the wall moves back a few feet. I turn around and (with no fear at all) grab one of the spinning fan blades, stopping it instantly, and shout "AND YOU'RE NOT REAL!". I place my hand on the ceiling and shout "AND YOU'RE NOT REAL!" and move the ceiling up a few feet. I'm having the time of my life, and every time I shout at something I feel like I'm going to burst with laughter.

Now I notice what seems to be a short pull-chain coming out of what looks like a smoke alarm and focus on it, focusing on my desire to have light, and the room becomes much brighter. I remember that I had three things I wanted to do, and that remembering the true state of my body and of the dream was the first. I try to remember the second, but I have trouble - and I think I'm starting to lose the dream since I think (and don't catch) that I added this goal to the list when I was dealing with the people a few minutes ago. I wake up.


Inappropriate ads
I'm watching an ad for something sleep related - maybe a better mattress? It shows people who are well rested and compares them to people who aren't - but the weird part is that all the comparisons are sleep related. One shows a woman rolling over in bed showing how easy it is for her, contrasting it to someone who can't seem to roll over. Another one shows her sitting up in bed, contrasting to the woman who's slouching. After a few like that, it switches to toilet-related stuff. These ads are actually showing people using the toilet, putting black bars over inappropriate bits. I'm surprised they're able to put this kind of thing on TV, or that people would view the ads favorably. I do actually briefly consider the toilet, but then I remember we have a dual-flush toilet and that doesn't seem to be an option for thees, so oh well.


Battling lava creep
I'm standing with @Jakkarth next to a pond. I know I'm dreaming, but I believe he's also lucid with me, and I'm completely absorbed in the plot of the dream. On the far side of the pond is some kind of temple building. It's kind of like a pyramid skyscraper, looking like a normal office building except for the slight slope to its walls and the staircase coming down the middle of the building. Something like hardened lava has worked its way down the steps and across the water, and it's almost reached us. I believe @Jakkarth and I have had a continual battle against this lava stuff, and that if we don't beat it tonight then we will have completely lost. We decide to give it one more try. I thrust my hands forward (I believe he does the same), close my eyes, and really push with my mind. After a few seconds I open my eyes to see if we've done anything, and I'm amazed at the transformation: the water is now crystal clear, and from what I can see there's no remnant of the stuff on the building. The sky is also a gorgeous light blue, and the sun seems to be hanging directly over the building. It's beautiful, but it's so dazzling I can't look up past the base of the building without being blinded. I try to hold my hand over my eyes, but most of the building remains hidden by the light. I ask @Jakkarth if he can see any better than I and he confirms that the stuff is gone. I'm overjoyed and jump into the water to swim across. Even though the pond is fairly wide I swim across in just a few strokes. I don't know how I managed to do that, but it felt great! I consider that it felt as though I were larger than life swimming across a much smaller pond. Now I'm standing in what seems to be a fire escape balcony. The railing is at the wrong height, as if I'm way too tall for it, as if confirming my theory that I'm too large for this world.


Leaked artwork
I'm looking over a booklet of leaked artwork for a new game. I keep flipping page after page, but it seems to be the same couple of pictures repeated over and over. Now I'm using a blank sheet of paper to write out a spell that will turn someone into an anthropomorphic bear based of off one of the sketches. As part of the spell, anyone affected by this form will be unable to sew.

Lucid in the ocean
It's the middle of the night. I'm in my bedroom, laying in bed, looking at my phone. My wife is straightening the pillows on the window seat, and we have a brief conversation. I notice light coming from the office and decide to check it out. Now I'm in the office turning off my monitors. Now I'm back in the bedroom walking towards my side of the bed. The floor is remarkably clean of stuff, but my son's inhaler chamber is in the middle of the floor. I pick it up, put it on the dresser, and continue on.

Now I'm standing in the ocean with water up to my mid chest. It's a beautiful day - cloudless, but not too bright. The ocean is a translucent blue and is completely calm. The shore is behind me; I'm looking out towards the horizon. My wife is about 10 feet away to my right. Other groups of people are scattered around. There's maybe 50-100 feet between each group, and the groups go as far as I can see in any direction. I look to my left and see a VERY tall wave heading perpendicular to shore towards us. It's a literal wall of water: each edge is straight, and (I don't know how I know) it's only a few inches thick.

I realize there's no way this is reality. I decide that the oncoming wave will be a portal, and that as I pass through it I'll change form. A couple of seconds later, the wave passes over me and I barely feel it - I'm not pushed around at all. I lean back in the water to expose more of my body check over myself and see that I look a bit different, but not to the degree I'd imagined. Oh well. I see another wave coming and enjoy the sheer ridiculousness of the situation as it again passes over me with no effect. I decide to try something totally different, so I loudly say "Nazrax to Enterprise, Nazrax to Enterprise, one to beam up" and try to imagine the white swirly effect of being in a transporter beam. For a moment I even close my eyes, but then I get scared and open them again. The scene is unchanged. I'm a bit disappointed but glad I didn't lose lucidity with a stupid mistake.

Now I'm further along the beach, still up to my chest in water, and my swim trunks are down around my ankles. I reach down and try to fix them, but I move really really slowly. After a moment I realize I'm instinctively moving slowly to avoid disturbing the dream and realize that A) that's kind of silly but B) maybe it means that my dream and/or lucidity is fading. I remember that my current goal is to remember that my real body is asleep in bed, so I tell myself that my real body is asleep in bed, that everything around me is a creation of my mind. I hold up my hands, look at them (they seem perfectly normal), and tell myself that even these hands are just creations of my mind.

I see a couple near me and realize I know them. I greet Mike, then Nan; then I realize that Nan is actually standing right next to the woman I'd just greeted. I greet her, assuming the first one was her sister, but then I realize that she's the sister and the first one was Nan. I get really confused, then I wake up.


Fragment: I'm with a group of people standing on a grassy field. It goes as far as I can see in any direction. It rolls gently, going up and down gradually and no more than about 5 feet. Thin, bright streams run over it here and there. I have the impression of a lot of yellow, though I don't know what it's from.

I go to bed at 10:50, intending to get up with my wife's 6:30 alarm. A few hours later I wake for some reason (no recall) and return to sleep. At 3:10 a kid makes noise and wakes me. I jot down a fragment then return to sleep. At 5:50 a kid wakes me as she uses the bathroom. She's coughing once she returns to bed, so I take her some water. I can't seem to get back to sleep, and I hear my wife's restlessness and know she can't either. At 6:15 she gets up and showers, and I fall asleep while she's in the shower.


Beer in space
I'm on a very traditional star ship (or maybe a space station?), walking through the corridors. It's a very traditional design, with identical gray corridors meeting frequently. I'm totally lost, but that's OK: I'm wandering around the place trying to get a feel for it.

Now I see the officers in the conference room, where everyone is looking out the windows. Captain Picard looks out last and gets a disgusted look on his face when he sees what the rest do: a giant brown beer bottle floating in space, spinning slowly. As the label rotates into view, everyone can see it has a goofy picture of the captain, and the name of the beer and its catch phrase are poking fun at the captain. Everyone immediately knows this was done by Q.


Scanning stations
I'm watching as defense stations around the world are doing some kind of scan. As I'm initially watching, there are 5 stations, but the number keeps growing as the dream continues. At first, I'm watching from inside some kind of control room. I'll see a quick clip from one control room, then I'll see a clip from a different control room in a different station. I can tell I'm seeing different stations because the people in the room change, but the room itself stays exactly the same. I'm surprised they'd use such an obvious trick to try to save on production costs; even the camera angle stays exactly the same! The last room I see is being run by a stocky Russian woman, and everyone is speaking in (what I identify as) Russian (though I can't understand a word of it).

Now I'm looking at a map of the earth that has all the stations marked out on it. I see red arcs appear from every station to every other station, then start to shrink. I assume that whatever is still under the arcs still needs to be scanned, and the places the arcs have shrunk away from are already scanned and determined not to have anything interesting.


At the hotel
I'm in a nicely appointed bathroom. It's long and thin; one wall has a long row of sinks followed by a long row of urinals, while the other wall has only stalls. I'm walking back from the urinals towards the sinks. Initially I think I'm alone, but then I realize there's a woman at one of the sinks closest to me. I'm very surprised to see a woman in here, but I just walk around her and go on my way. She's doing something at her sink (washing her teeth, maybe?), and there's stuff on the floor around her (towels?).

Now I'm in the (impossibly huge) foyer of a hotel, standing in the middle at what I first assume to be a concierge desk. I'm with other people I know, and someone is talking about coffee. I realize that this isn't a concierge desk but is rather a tiny Starbucks. While he's getting his coffee, a woman in my group who's standing near me tells her friend that she's never had Starbucks and wonders what it's like. I tell her that Starbucks coffee is too heavily roasted, almost burnt, for my tastes.

Now I see a couple of people with small plates of food. I look around to see where it may have come from and realize that on the other side of the Starbucks is a small table with lots of fruit on it - I specifically see strawberries and chunks of pineapple. Despite being right next to the Starbucks, I think it's actually provided by the hotel, so it's probably complementary. I think about going and getting some.


Unclear traffic signal + Flying and pumpkin hunt
I'm driving a car of some kind, maybe an SUV (I've never driven an SUV IRL). I'm stopped at the top of a hill, waiting on a ramp to join with a larger road that's down and to my left. Between the large road and my ramp is a HUGE board that reminds me of a scoreboard at an athletic event. Most of the middle of the board is taken up with rows that look like they should be holding team names and scores; around the edge of the board I see more than one set of red/yellow/green traffic lights. Initially, the board is completely blank. Nothing is on the rows, and all the lights are off. Eventually one of the greens on the left-front of the board turns on, but since it's away from me I assume it's for the other road. Other lights start cycling, though none on the right. Up to this point I've been alone at the top of the ramp, but I still start to get concerned that maybe one of those lights was supposed to be for me, and I'd hate to hold up traffic. As I'm thinking about this, I realize that a motorcyclist is going around me, tired of waiting for me to go. I check my mirror and am horrified to see a long line of cars waiting behind me. I decide to ignore whatever the strange sign is trying to tell me and just go.

Now I'm on a three-lane, one-way street. Somehow I'm aware of the driver behind me not liking the left-hand merges he has to do on this road. I think nothing of the strangeness of knowing what another driver is thinking/talking about, but I do try to figure out what he means. If you're switching left, you merge left; if you're switching right, you merge right; so what's the big deal? I can't see how this road changes anything.

I start to get a vague sense of "wrongness" and decide to do a nose-pinch RC. Initially, it only seems to deepen the sense of wrongness; something's not right, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I keep doing it, eventually realizing that, yes, I'm still breathing through my nose (left nostril only), even though it's pinched. I do it a couple more times to confirm that, yes, I'm really dreaming.

Now I'm standing in front of a house on a kind of rock path made of very coarse white gravel and small rocks. The scene is very fuzzy, and I know I need to ground myself in the dream. I start by looking at my hand, but it's badly out of proportion, and I really want something to keep me here and not convince me I shouldn't be here. I kneel down and pick up one of the larger chunks of white rock. As I feel its solidness and hard edges, look at its shape, and study the sparkly flecks in it, the dream becomes crisp. I stand up and recall my goals for this dream: the basic challenge to cut open a pumpkin and see what's inside, and my personal goal of better flight.

Nearby, I see an open door into what looks like a small shed. I look inside to see if there any pumpkins here. As it turns out, there are two: a medium-sized one on a table to my left, and a small one on a counter near the back. I don't like the look of either of them and continue on my way. I remember reading about someone finding a pumpkin patch and decide to check if there's one behind the house, but there isn't. I change my mind about the pumpkins in the shed, figuring that any pumpkin will do, even if it's sickly looking. I return to the shed and take the larger of the pumpkins, but in my hand it changes into a collection of small orangish guards connected by strings. It's useless to me now, so I leave it.

During this first part of the dream, I frequently stopped to re-ground myself. Sometimes I studied my hand (slightly different each time), and sometimes I picked some part of the scenery to look at. From this point onward, I forget all about doing any further groundings.

Somehow I end up back in the house. I'm in what's probably a living room, though since the house is completely empty it's hard to tell. I'm standing on hardwood floors, and in front of me is a wall that's mostly window. Even the doors are mostly glass. I'm getting a bit frustrated with not finding my pumpkin, so I decide to move onto flying. After all, there's no reason I can't fly and look for pumpkins at the same time. I decide to start out by jumping. Last time I tried jumping in a dream, something really strange happened, and I want to see if I can do better. I manage to jump all the way to the (fairly high) ceiling, then gently float down, That was fun, so I do it again. But, jumping isn't flying, and it's time to fly!

Now I'm outside (not sure how I got here), flying about head-level off the ground. I know I'm flying, not just gliding like I have in previous dreams, so I know I can go as high as I want. I head up to about roof height, then come back down to head-height. Now I'm flying along above a field. To my right is a high school athletic field of some kind (baseball, maybe?) with a high chain-link fence around it. I see a few small groups of people talking near the fence. I know some of the people in the groups, and in one group I see Amy. I feel sad, thinking on how we used to be good friends but that she left all her old friends (including me) behind. I decide to give her a scare, so I fly by her and somehow pick her up in my wake so that she's flying behind me. Her additional mass slows us down, but I don't mind too much. We fly down the street into another neighborhood. I see Sarah H. standing by the street, and she sees me and gets an amazed, incredulous look on her face.

Now I'm in another house, in a small hallway. The outside door (some kind of side door) is behind me, and a set of bi-fold doors is in front of me. The doors remind me of the bifold doors in my wife's parents' old house that hid the washer and drier. I decide I'm done trying to "find" a pumpkin, and I'm going to add one into the dream. I know that asking DCs for something tends to work well, so I decide that I'm going to find a DC behind these doors, and that that DC will help me get a pumpkin. I open the doors and walk through to find a mother and daughter working on laundry. The mother looks like an old-fashioned washer woman: she's wearing an off-white blouse with a darker off-white skirt and has her hair pulled back and up in a floral handkerchief. I think the daughter is wearing something similar. I see that the mother has a rather tired, hard-bitten expression on her face, but I go ahead and ask her for a pumpkin. She gives me a look that says "I don't know why you're in my house, and I don't know why I'm talking to you at all" and eventually drawls that there aren't any pumpkins around here. Behind her, I notice a small table designed like a pillar, and I see that it has a small misshapen pumpkin sitting on it.

I consider calling her on her lie but decide not to. I look over to her daughter to see if she'd be any more help, but then poof I wake up.

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

A strange test
I'm flying in a large military plane - an old bomber? - to meet with some of my work team. I'm a passenger. First we fly to Aaron's house. He's on a cul-de-sac, near the end. We fly a circle around his house and try to figure out if we can land on the road. His house has a lot of antennas. The pilot is talking to Aaron's team lead on the phone, figuring out when we can meet. Aaron's currently really busy, but since we're here in a cool plane, he should be able to make time.

Now I'm in a car with someone driving back. They think I lost one of my shoes, so I'm a security risk; but I still have both my shoes on. Someone got confused. Now I'm back. The final test in some kind of competition is going on, and I've missed one of three hours. I think I still have time to do it all, but I'll need to hurry. I try to calm my nerves. Now I'm in what looks like a living room. Behind me a door leads back into the school. Somehow I accidentally stumbled across a kind of apartment while looking for the school's bathroom. I apologize to the occupants and leave.

Now I'm taking some kind of math test. Now I'm printing some kind of recommendation form sent by AW. Now I've finished everything and I'm looking over it. I read the recommendation letter and am horrified by all the typos. I decide I have time to pull it up and fix it. Something very strange happens with the text editor; it's not cooperating at all. I think I finally manage to get it working. Now I'm editing stuff by playing some kind of game. Things are going well, but then an internal timer reaches six hours and the game becomes much, much harder. Enemies who were previously easy now become strong enough easily to kill me. I'm having real trouble, and I don't have much time left to fix the document before the contest is over. I try to figure out if I can reset the timer to make things easier again.

Two contestants before me sing their final thing. They do a lovely duet in harmony with accompaniment. I congratulate them, and they say that others won't be able to do it since you need accompaniment to sing in harmony. I disagree, but I don't say anything. One of them - Mom? - wants to know if I'm interested in her final score. I say I am, but she doesn't hear me and walks off.



Walking at the park
I'm walking on a path entering a fairly crowded park. I see my pastor talking to a group. This park allows most activities, but if you're going to run, you have to do barefoot running. I don't know if he knows this or if he knows what that means, so I intend to pull him aside later and demonstrate. On my left is a building with an open door. One woman leads a dog out; shortly after, another leads a dog in. I realize the owner of the house must do dog-sitting. I overhear the new lady say something about keeping the dog for an extra half-day this time, and the owner of the business says how much it'll be. Now I'm still walking on the path, but I've got a dog walking with me. It's a Scottish Terrier, very like my step-aunt's old dog Brandy. We're in a park that allows pretty much any activity, except that if you run, you have to do barefoot running. I'm walking him along a path that runs next to a wide stream that leads into a lake. At one point, I realize I've lost him; looking ahead, I see him up ahead, just sniffing a HUGE black dog (I know he's 500 pounds). Both dogs are acting very friendly to each other. I catch up and apologize, and the lady walking the other dog says it's no trouble. Later, we're trying to cross a narrower part of the sidewalk. A lady is three with her slightly disabled adult daughter. They're letting people coming towards us get off the bridge, trying to empty it of people so the daughter will have an easier time getting across. I don't want to wait behind them so I just go around a different way.

Now I'm in a bathroom. I go to use the urinal on the far end (on the left) but realize it has no bottom. I quickly shift one over. Now I'm washing my hands. I'm in the same place as before, but the urinals are gone and sinks are in their place (I don't realize this at the time). I look over at the leftmost sink and get a little confused when I see it has a proper bottom. I notice some buttons along the side - three, with the middle button already pushed in. I press the bottom button and a kind of waterfall out the front of the sink starts, running right onto the floor. I notice a label by the button asking not to use that for too long or it'll flood the bathroom. I press the top button and get a blast of hot air - a hand dryer. An "awooga" alarm also starts up to remind the user to turn it off. I wonder why they didn't have that with the waterfall feature, since that seems much more dangerous. JG is there; we say something brief.

Now I'm leaving the bathroom. As I turn the corner, I realize I lost the dog again. I see some straps and I decide the easiest way to get him back is to hold one of the straps and really believe that it's a leash and he's on the other end (at this point I know I'm dreaming but there's no real awareness). Before I try it, I remember that I wanted to try lots of RCs next time I'm dreaming. Now I'm in an area with some giant windows to my right; the bathroom is to my left. I realize I'm getting that slightly "tipsy" feeling that indicates the dream isn't as stable as I'd like, but I remember that RCs help stabilize, so I start off with the traditional nose-pinch. The feeling of air passing through a pinched nose is one of the most amazing feelings! Next, I remember someone (Sivason?) talking about the importance of remembering the reality of the dreaming body without dwelling on any of its senses. I take a moment to think about that, to remember that this body isn't real, that I've got a real body back in my bed. I move onto the RCs I haven't done before. First, I try to push my left pointer through my right palm. I have a great sense of expectation; I know it'll work and I want to see what happens. There's some resistance, but I can see the back of my right hand bulge some, then my finger pops through. The hole my finger goes through isn't smooth; it's uneven, looking like it really did punch through.

Now I'm trying to remember other RC techs, but I'm having trouble. Finally, I remember the jump test. I jump, expecting to float down; instead, I find myself hanging in mid-air as if caught by the waist, head towards the floor, legs out behind me. I decide I should easily be able to transition to flying. so I stretch out horizontally and fly towards the window. Somehow I get it open. Beyond the window I see a fly screen, but I figure I can punch straight through it, so I fly at it, expecting to go through. Instead, it catches me and starts to stretch and stretch. Somehow I end up going down. I was many stories up, and now I'm going down towards the ground caught in the ever stretching net of the fly screen. Finally, a couple of stories up, the fly screen won't stretch any more and I'm just stuck hanging there. I try to think if I can get back up to the window to knock the flyscreen frame off. I get stuck with my eyes closed and start to panic a bit, but I calm down and start pinching my nose to keep myself grounded. After a few seconds I'm able to open my eyes again. The flyscreen is gone.

Now I'm on something floating, some kind of one-person soft raft. Hundreds of people around me are on similar things, and we're all floating along. I still know this is a dream, but all awareness is gone. I manage to do something impossible to jump up onto a wall running next to the water. Now I'm downstream. I jump from the wall onto people's rafts and use them to cross to the other side, onto some kind of small pier.


Fragment:
Vertical slits have been cut in the side of the microwave cabinet and knives are stuck through them like a strange knife block. The largest knife is just touching the side of the microwave.

Side-note | Lucid

[LUCID] Grocery store task
Before bed, I was running over my known dreamsigns, telling myself that "If I see X, I'll know I'm dreaming" I don't remember how this one started, but I think there's a good chance it was the "huge room" dreamsign. After waking up, I couldn't remember anything for a few moments. Just as I thought all was lost, I got a flash of this one. I'm sure I forgot parts (like how I got lucid in the first place).

I'm in a grocery store. Some kind of event is going on at one end. I'm at the other end, getting snacks. Lots of junk food is hanging in front of me; nothing is too my back. A friend is with me, but I knew that as a DC he can't be as fast as me, because he's bound by the rules of the dream. I'm still waiting for him at the snacks, and I know that once he arrives and gets his own snacks it'll still take him a while to get back to the event. I start thinking about how I can help him. I decide that adding moving walkways to the store would be a good start, but I don't actually try it.

Now, I'm looking at the store's safe. I pick up something that would let me open it (maybe the key? I don't know), but then I decide, that I'm in a dream, so I should use my mind! I stare at the door, trying to picture the gears inside it spinning, unlocking, and opening the door. Nothing happens.

Now I'm with my family in a kind of hallway next to the windows. It's wide enough for a line of cafe tables and enough room to walk. We're sitting on the floor, looking out the window. A couple of bulky men are standing outside the window. Beyond them is the parking lot and road, and beyond the road is a steep embankment going up. My wife and I are sitting right next to each other, my right arm pressed against her left. I remember the task to close my eyes for ten seconds. I get an odd feeling of excitement, that I'll be doing something I know I shouldn't be doing, but I KNOW it'll go well. I close my eyes and start counting. I focus on the feeling of my wife against my side and on the memory of what I saw. I almost see a kind of "after image". The men's shirts particularly stand out as blobs of color. I reach 10 and open my eyes. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. I consider trying it again, except visualizing a different scene with my eyes closed; but I don't do it.

Now I'm looking at the embankment. People are climbing up ladders to the top, but something is going wrong. They're complaining loudly about it, even though it's their own fault. (I don't know how I know they're complaining; they're across the street where I can't hear them). Eventually, some other activity has to stop because their complaining is just too much of a pain.

Now I'm walking with my third daughter on the road, just like everyone else. We're still following the rules of the road and get into the left turn lane behind a line of people.


New directions
I'm walking through a grassy field (some kind of park, I think) sending a text message to Jakkarth, telling him that I've moved to a new place. I try to give a thumbnail sketch of where it is, but I'm still not familiar with the area and I can't provide real directions. I tell him that I'll send proper directions once I get back to the house. Now I've just come down from being on a play fort. I realize that my phone isn't in my pocket and look around for it. I see it on the ground under the fort, and I realize that it fell out of my pocket somehow as I was coming down.


Lost ties
I'm walking around outside church Side-note(which looks nothing like the real one)[/COLOR] when I see JB, one of our deacons, holding a wad of ties in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He's using the cell phone to talk through the PA system, announcing that he's found some ties and that they'll be going in the trash unless they're claimed soon. He shows them to me and asks if they're mine; I take a quick look and tell him they aren't. He gives one final warning over the PA, then starts to throw them away, but I stop him. I tell him that it always annoys me that the policy is always "Claim your stuff or it goes to Good Will." I wish there were a short period during which the stuff stayed on display but where anyone who wanted it could take it. He thinks about it, then agrees with me and hands me the ties to look through again, to see if I want to keep any of them. He warns me that there's trash in the middle of the wad of ties. I see that he's been going around the property, picking up trash and wadding it all together. On closer inspection, I really don't like any of the ties and start looking for a place to throw them away.


Parking deck excitement
I'm in the passenger seat of a van driven by people I'm staying with. I don't know them very well. The father Side-note(who looks like Iron Man 3's Killian - something had reminded me of Extremis the night before)[/COLOR] is driving, and his kids are in the back. We're in a parking deck, trying to get out. The main exit is backed up, so he decides to take a "short cut". He drives over a curb, knocking over some glass jars that had been placed along it. Following this path around the deck, we reach what should have been an exit, except that it's been mostly walled off. There are still gaps around and under it where we can catch glimpses of the outside. I see tires under it and hope it's not a police car, and that if it is they won't realize what we've done. He backs up back over the curb. I see that the unblocked exit is right next to this one, and that it's currently clear. I don't think he should take it yet - if it really was a police car out side, we don't want to tip its occupants off that we were the ones who jumped the curb - but he just takes the exit. Sure enough, it was a police car, and they start following us, though their lights aren't yet on. The father starts slowly accelerating. I ask incredulously if he's planning on getting into a chase with the police, but he denies it. By this time, he's going recklessly fast around the parking lot, trying to lose the police before they actually turn their lights on. I consider bailing out of the car, but decide that would be just as dangerous as staying in.


Fragments
It's night. I see something about a ghostly apparition - some kind of advanced technology - that jumped on / through a helicopter and brought it down. An investigation is ongoing into what it was. I see a pool of some kind in front of me. An artificial animal - a cow? - is helping fill it. Suddenly, I realize that the plot to bring down the helicopter was from the artificial animals, and that it lets them fill these pools over and over, becoming rich and taking all the power as they do so.

Something in a house.

Side-note | Lucid

Here are some lucids that I never got around to putting in my journal.

Duke Nukem - my very first lucid, from before I knew such a thing existed
I'm standing on a platform elevator holding a large weapon. I realize that I'm inside Duke Nukem 3D and that I'm dreaming. I try to make the elevator move just by thinking at it, but nothing happens. I figure "oh well" and "let go" of lucidity.


No pants in an ancient temple
I'm in an ancient temple, Indiana Jones style. After going through a long room on some kind of mid-air trolley, I'm walking down a hallway. I stop to look at some carvings on the wall and become lucid for no clear reason. I realize I don't have any pants on, so I try to create some. Looking away and imagining myself wearing some fails. Believing that there are some behind be and turning around fails.

Now I'm in a parking lot near my car. I decide this is perfect, since it's much easier to believe a spare pair of pants is in the back of my van than it is to believe they're laying on the floor of a temple. I try to really BELIEVE I'll find some pants in the van, then go around and open the back. I find it packed full - it seems we're going camping, so we have all the camping supplies, including duffle bags with our clothes. I pull out a duffle bag and start looking through it. I find clothes for everyone in the family except me.


Eaten by a shark
As I'm swimming underwater, surrounded by colorful fish, a shark swims up to me. It's very cartoony, with lots of nice straight teeth in a menacing smile. I know I'm dreaming, so I try to make it go away, but it it doesn't go anywhere. I remember reading a dream challenge about being swallowed and seeing what's in the body; the next thing I know, I'm plunging down the shark's esophagus. It's mostly pink and red with a little green mixed in here and there. I think it's pretty disgusting, and I realize I have no idea what to do next or how to get out.

Now I'm back in the water. I'm impressed by the blueness of it. I find I can't move, and I realize that means I'm starting to lose the dream. I try to focus on the feeling of water on my skin, but I realize I can feel my sheets and pillow. I wake up.