Pog's Dream Journal

Woke early and drifted in and out of sleep/dream - a number of times I couldn't tell if I was awake or dreaming ...

Last night I recall the following:

I had to go to town to buy books. I travelled to a smaller town that I remember from my childhood, but it is not the same. I need to get a bus from here to town before the shops shut - it is already 4pm and Sunday. the shopping centre where I am closes, I get asked to leave - but am sent a back way so I am late for the bus I need. I see it drive away, but I am not too bothered nor do I make any effort to catch up with it or stop it.

I wake - and suspect (for some reason) that this dream is to do with my career and work life ....?

So, a 'normal' dream that would have Freudian psycho-analysts falling over themselves to offer me interpretations.

All very blurry until the part where I am fighting against 3 or so people who are trying to castrate me! I fight quite viciously but am losing, and am trying to reason with them. Even more oddly (perhaps) the three trying to pin me down are UK magician/mentalists (Drew McAdam; colin McLeod and Pete Turner). Seriously; wtf?

Anyway ... I think it best to forget this dream

So, last night I had a range of dream phenomena linked together.

First, I had 'normal' dreams that blurred into an especially vivid and convoluted 'dream-within-a-dream' (I dreamt I was dreaming etc). Secondly, I then awoke and started checking because I was really unsure as to whether I was still dreaming or not. I became satisfied I was in reality, but a minute later I realised I was in the 'wrong' house - I was dreaming. It starts to get a little blurry here, but I think I then tried to initiate a WILD or WBTB or something similar even though I had recognised I was dreaming (odd) - but it seems that it 'worked' in that I entered another dream (or dream-within-a-dream, or continuation of the original dream, however you want to see it) where I knew I was dreaming ... a round about way of doing it, I guess, but lucidity reached nevertheless

Knowing I was dreaming I started to panic a little about losing lucidity, so I tried to stabilise. People had posted on here that one method to stabilise was to concentrate upon the senses, and this advice had obviously struck a chord with me because I concentrated upon the feel of a sock I was holding (don't ask). This worked; although I did not have the elation-sensation or the hyper-real sensation I'd had with previous LDs, I was dreaming in a dreamscape that was as 'real' as the waking world, I knew I was dreaming, and I had stabilised it.

Lucidity didn't last as long as I wanted, and soon I was awake (I think something disturbed my sleep from outside, grrrrr!), but all in all a successful LD.

O.K, last night I had a really bad and fitful night's sleep. The silver lining was, though, that with many interruptions and night-time disturbances I was able to try WBTB (or something similar) quite a few times

The result was that I had a lot of time with some great (and often quite beautiful or surprisingly clear) hypnogogic patterns/images. It seems that since practicing LDing I've had more and better pre-sleep imagery like this (another cool effect from greater dream awareness). A few times these patterns seemed to bleed into full dreams, and on a couple of these occasions I was lucid. The downside was that even though I was lucid I seemed weak and unable to control much, and that these dreams were so unstable that they lasted only a very short time (dreamlets?) before I woke again. I suspect this was because of the bad night I was having and how tired and stressed I was.

Oh well, at least I've learned that a) greater dream awareness enhances hypnogogic imagery, and b) that pre-sleep hypno stuff can be turned into LDs.

All I need now is a decent night's rest with unbroken sleep!

Last night, following a WBTB return to sleep, I was dreaming (non-lucid) when the dream started to fade. I've never had a normal dream fade like this before - my normal dreams just seem to run into each other or end abruptly. But this one started to slowly fade out like a couple of my lucids had.

This turned out to be a good thing, because it triggered an in-dream recall: I realised I was in a dream and that it was fading! So I exerted some effort, no system just willpower saying 'Don't fade; keep dreaming' and the dreamscape came back - this time I was lucid, however

Woke and was a bit dissapionted that I hadn't had LD. Thought it must be late, quite bright outside. Looked at clock in bedroom: 1:04am - 'What!'

"That can't be right," I thought to myself. Looked again. 4:40am. What the ... shrugged my shoulders and carried on. Then woke up for real.

Took me a minute or two to figure out that I was in RL and had just had a false awakening ... and then another minute for me to chide myself over my total failure to turn an obvious dream-sign, and one I regularly RC, into a LD. D'oh!

Note to self: When doing RC with clocks use electronic ones like the one in the bedroom as well as the analogue ones at work and on my wrist!!! False awakenings = bedroom, not work! Silly me.

No LDs or similar for about two or more weeks (just 1 false/unsustained lucid), which is disappointing. But during WILD attempts I've had a lot of positive psychological insight, childhood memories and emotional healing. So I wonder if I'm going through some adjustment process before a renewed mental development.

Note to self: keep going; enjoy and value what your subconscious is trying to process for now; be ready for another leap in the near future!

I've noticed that I often have animals in my dreams: usually threatening ones. The most common are bears and sharks!

I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me?

Note to self: If you see a shark or bear outside of a zoo or TV, do a RC. You're dreaming sucka!

My dream was a strange and silly miss-mash of stuff from life and my past, the usual stuff, until I exited a mansion and looked over the mountainous landscape of 'China'. Instantly the realisation hit me, "I'm dreaming."

As soon as I said it I felt a rush of energy and happiness, the vividness of my dreamscape seemed to increase, and I flew into the air instantaneously with the desire to fly. I flew into some trees exulting in my new power and liberty, feeling great. I turned and headed back to the mansion and began looking in through the windows.

I wanted to explore and push the boundaries, see what I could do in the dream. I opened a window and climbed into what appeared to be a little storeroom. I noticed a bottle of drink, some non-specific alcoholic beverage by the look on the bottle, inside a mini-fridge. Possibly a sherry or wine. I became quite thirsty, and thought to myself, "I wonder if it is possible to drink in a dream?"

I opened the fridge, took the bottle, and began to take off the plastic wrapper on the outside of the screw top. It was strangely sticky and wouldn't come off my fingers. "Odd," I thought. It took a great deal of concentration and effort to get the plastic to fall off my fingers.

I unscrewed the top, but then I woke suddenly. It is still a very vivid memory to me, although I'm disappointed by the brevity.