Recent DJ Posts

Morning of December 23, 2016. Friday.



I seem to be on Loomis Street, with my sister Marilyn still being alive though appearing as she was in the 1960s. However, her house’s layout is more like the Barolin Street house (in Australia), though the (Barolin Street) lounge room is a bedroom in my dream. In the last segment, the veranda implied to be at the front of her house is not familiar other than vaguely like the front porch of our present home.

There is a focus on beds (most obvious dream sign ever) and Marilyn is talking about a special purchase she made in buying beds at a local secondhand store. Her husband is also present but mostly remains in another room. Marilyn seems very happy and seems to think the beds are like a treasure or very valuable antiques.

I lie down to go to sleep on my “new” bed, but I am somewhat confused by its nature. It is actually only a set of elevated golden bed springs. Still, I am not nearly as uncomfortable in my dream as I would be in real life would this be the case. There is a period where I actually seem to be “asleep”, though there is still a level of awareness of my dream’s environment. I do find it somewhat odd that the beds are not complete but I consider that the rest may be delivered later.

At another point, I am looking out from the high (fictional) veranda, though it is more like an outer mezzanine combined with the porch of our present home. I also look through a west window and there is some confusion regarding the neighbors (unknown man, woman, and at least one child) looking out through their window at the same time and seeming annoyed that I am looking out the window (though I have no interest in what they might be doing). They close the curtains of their window.

There is soon an unknown male present (whom I have no association of being imposing in any way) who had found the neighbors’ act of closing their curtains as an amusing event. From the veranda, I watch a number of butterflies moving around, mostly downward. They (or at least some of them) seem oddly squarish (almost reminiscent of a postage stamp, as the wings of at least a couple of them seem perforated like a postage stamp) and almost as if they are made of orange paper. I get the impression that they may not even be alive, but there is ambiguity. Some of them must be alive or they would not be able to fly around. I watch one moving downwards, soon landing on an unrealistically located top of an implied apartment building roof (which would be an impossible perspective based on where I am) and consider that it had not been alive.

The unknown male seems to think they are all alive. I mention to him how they do not seem to be fluttering or moving their wings at all for the most part.

“They are oracular butterflies,” he says, which supposedly explains why they are not moving their wings even though some are flying back upwards at times. I do not understand the correct meaning of the word “oracular” and confuse it with it meaning something that is circular (even though the butterflies are squarish) though I also consider it might be the name of a species. I feel very peaceful and, although I find the scene puzzling, feel quite comfortable and continue to watch more and more of them move about above the street.

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• Most of the butterflies were pale orange although a few were white or cream-colored. Orange establishes medium waking priority (biologically) and is analogous to sunrise associations (the patterns of emergent daylight being linked to bands of emergent consciousness).
• Butterflies are a first-level flight symbol, which makes up at least twenty percent of all dreams I have had in the fifty years I have closely studied them. Return flight factors (including falling or rising), analogous to the consciousness shift of the waking experience, are often within or near liminal space (as here, rendered as the veranda).
• The personified preconscious most often is the most present in liminal space (as well as almost always being the last and most dominant character), which is here, the usual porch-like middle point between sleeping and waking. He tells me that the butterflies are “oracular” which is associated with dreams being potentially precognitive though was not confrontational here as is often the case.
• The butterflies being somewhat reminiscent of postage stamps relates to the communication between synthetic temporary dream self identity and emergent conscious self identity.

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Recent dreams included an appearance from Inanna and Dumuzi.

Today's:

Avoiding direct sunlight, I made my way into a bar where I'm surprised to find a certain man - I'll refer to him as my friend. That's a lie, but it entertains me and disturbs him when I adopt a friendly attitude. I sit down and address him by name, and say, "I thought you were going back to Australia."

"This is Australia," he says.

That explains a lot. My aim is terrible, but at least I've got him to serve as a guide now. But to my surprise, he's not at all impressed by seeing me here. I'd really expected more of a reaction. We talk at cross purposes for a while, until he says that he'd thought I'd disappeared with yadda yadda event - I realize he believes he's talking with the hallucinatory version of me who'd been with him for a while. I'm surprised that lasted so long, it wasn't intended to. I explain to my friend that I'm not his hallucination, I'm the real thing. He doesn't seem to believe me.

I sit down at the bar and wait for him to come around, and watch the sun go down through the window. A woman comes over and sits down next to me - on the bar itself, not a stool. We explain pleasantries, and she says a few things that don't make much sense to me until I recognize this as the opening moves of a mating ritual. I start to tell her that I appreciate the intention but our species aren't compatible in that way - and now my friend's hurrying me out the door. Oh good, it seems he's accepted that other people can see me.

In the parking lot outside the bar, I stop and stare at the stars. I'm absolutely in awe of them. I call my friend by name, and ask him, "What am I looking at?" Seeing them in this unfamiliar arrangement is astonishing. He doesn't seem impressed by them, and I can't figure out why - this arrangement must be the one he grew up with, the one he spent so much time trying to get back to, so he should appreciate it. Seeing them through an atmosphere creates such an amazing effect. There are a few wisps of cloud adding to the view - and for a moment a patch of stars appears to be moving, but then I realize there's a children's toy floating above our heads in the shape of a translucent butterfly, distorting the view. I look down at the kids - they're looking at the toy, not the stars. My friend is trying to hurry me along through the parking lot, and I try to impress upon him how moving this is. "Do you know how long it's been since I've been down to earth? Any earth?" He remembers, he was there, and he is not interested in reminiscing.

Short note from an earlier dream today: reading a description of "laurel leaves, called apollon," in which the author acknowledges that they cause strife but states that it's merely like the rebelliousness of an adolescent, and that they are indisputably sacred to Apollo.

Morning of September 21, 2014. Sunday.



There is supposedly a species of pink butterfly that attacks people. They are very large but not what I would call giant. They are about the size of a crow. Apparently, there are so many of them in certain regions of the world that people are no longer safe when they go outside. It seems that if they are out at night, they are attracted to light and reflective surfaces, thus windows (when the light is on in the house), storefronts, mirrors, porches, and so on. There is one point where I start to go outside during the afternoon (seemingly from the kitchen in Clayfield, though that door led into the hallway in real life) and one flies at my head in the doorway but I am not harmed. Instead, the butterfly damages itself in the attack and actually falls apart into about four pieces shortly after fluttering around outside the building.

There is a point where I am walking around with many other people. Over time, I am drinking a lot of carbonated pink lemonade (which is a product made from the mashed-up bodies of the pink butterflies), which tastes very good. It is similar to the real soda we sometimes buy but sweeter. It has a very strong taste in the dream. As I am walking around in an open field, a young male who is walking with his girlfriend asks for a taste. I give him the bottle but he immediately does not like the flavor, comparing it to some sort of Chinese beer - Tsingtao; a reference I do not understand. When I go to take another drink myself, I feel wary about drinking from the same bottle that another male just had. I worry that he might have a disease, but this idea fades after a time (especially as he seems okay and is walking around with someone else) when the scene changes.

The authorities set up some sort of trap for the butterflies that is an area between two buildings on wooden columns (similar in appearance to our present home but much larger). It is early evening but not fully dark out. People are supposed to stand around as “bait” until the large swarm of butterflies approaches close enough to be destroyed by the authorities - not sure how (fire perhaps). At the last minute, everyone is to crawl under the buildings as the authorities take action.

They soon approach and there are hundreds of them. I crawl under the building as a few people are directly attacked. It does not take that long before the task is completed.

When I crawl out, I find that I am still holding a bottle of carbonated pink lemonade (which I am drinking throughout the dream at almost every point). I notice that a television film crew is in the area and they want to film me in an unscripted commercial promoting it. I happily comply even though my clothes and hair are in disorder from being under the building in the dirt. I guess not that many people buy the product.

I don't know what to call this. It seemed that I was in a state between awake and asleep in the late morning in a somewhat meditative state watching dreamlets and my favorite one was this person with a coat of butterflies that flew off of the person with the multitude of colorful butterflies flooding my field of vision. Absolutely beautiful! It was more multi-colored than these images I found above and very vibrant.

Ritual: wtb 3:15am, last wbtb 9:15am, woke 10:38am, SSILD: WILD

Last sleep, last chance. It was already 9:15am, but since I'd gone to bed so late, and all my previous attempts that night had been without real motivation and had resulted in falling asleep before completing a single cycle, figured I could try once more. SSILD: tempted to mix it with other techniques, but if I was going test this properly, ought to do it straight up. My timing was messy and uneven, but remembered that was okay. Did maybe three cycles on my back, uneven length, afraid of waking myself up too much, given that it was already mid-morning, so turned on my side and prepared to let myself sleep. A few times I ran through the cycles very lightly and quickly, just to get back in touch with my senses. At some point in this process the cat jumped on the bed. I was getting closer to sleep but figured I could work with this if he settled down and didn't just start yelling. Fortunately he decided to sleep on me, and I was able to work that sensation into my rotation. I wasn't cycling regularly, just randomly once in a while when I felt I might be losing touch.

I must have been already dreaming without knowing it, because I thought I was only thinking, and it never occurred to me that the presence of sustained visuals suggested otherwise. I was replying to posts on some online forum made my a friend—nothing to do with DV, no one even connected with dreaming, just an old friend I haven't talked to in a while (AS). He was posting something about falling asleep a certain way and used an acronym like "TILD," and I wanted to reply snarkily with something like, "Does TILD stand for 'talking to yourself in bed'?" At the time, I was convinced this phrase perfectly fit the acronym, so I was apparently already touched by dream logic. So I was trying to type out my reply, and I simply could not type "TILD" properly. I tried over and over, and my fingers kept slipping and hitting everything else on the keyboard. Technical difficulties like this are one of my dream signs, but since I was convinced I was still awake, it didn't occur to me to RC. On the contrary, I thought I was having this trouble typing because I was getting too sleepy! This was precisely the opposite of a false awakening: instead of losing dream awareness by believing I had woken up, on the contrary, I failed to realize I was dreaming because I thought I hadn't fallen asleep yet! (If there's no acronym for this yet, I propose FFA for "false falling asleep," as it pairs well with the more familiar term FA.)

Around then the music started. I could hear a Pixies song. At the time I was sure that it was a song I knew, and it was playing perfectly down to the last note, even though I hadn't heard it in years. (I can't remember now what song it was, if it was indeed a real one.) I knew the music wasn't coming from outside me, and figured it must just be hypnagogic activity. The whole time until now I had been aware of lying in my bed, which was part of the reason I thought that I hadn't quite fallen asleep yet. After the Pixies song played in its entirety and then concluded, a new song started. This one intrigued me even more, because I was sure it was a song I had never heard before. It was lively enough to make a good follow-up to the Pixies, but the singer had an accent that sounded African. It reminded me of the song "Rise" by Seun Kuti, one that I downloaded free from Amazon and put on my running mix—but I'm not familiar with his other work. This song, like one before it, was crystal clear... like so often before I regretted that I am not more musical in waking life, because I felt sure if I were musically literate I could wake up and recreate it. But I didn't feel like rousing myself and trying to hum the melody into my iPhone when I hadn't even gotten to sleep yet.

WILD: At some point around here the transition finalized, and I realized, hang on, I think I am asleep now! I'm in my dream body! I could probably just 'get up' without disrupting anything... so I got out of bed, and even though everything felt extremely lifelike, there was a lightness to my body that I was sure meant I was dreaming. I was impressed how bright and clear everything was, and how mobile I felt, unlike a lot of WILDs where it's dark at first and I'm crawling over the carpet trying to get traction. But perhaps integration wasn't perfect yet, because hardly had I gotten out of bed when I was disturbed by a loud rhythmic noise that threatened to disrupt the dream state and wake me. At first I thought it must be the mailman knocking on the door, because I'm expecting a package. But as it continued without abating, I realized it must actually be construction on the house up the hill. How foolish it was, I chided myself, to do my dream practice so late in the morning! The world wakes up and starts making loud noises; at least during the night it is quieter. (RL: It turns out there's nothing at the door and no construction going on outside, so despite these very reasonable hypotheses about bleedthrough stimuli, the sound appears to have been largely or entirely internal.)

The sound was extremely disruptive and I felt alarmingly close to being woken by it. But I had just gotten into a perfectly good dream and had no wish to lose it so soon (like that time recently when I was woken from an otherwise fantastic WILD by my own snoring—come to think of it, this is another possible culprit for the sound!) How can I deal with this and remain in the dream? The answer occurred instinctively: dance! So I started dancing to the noise. It was a bit like dancing to the sound of hammers, and my dance was correspondingly jerky and spasmodic, but it did the trick! After a while I felt that the dreamstate was no longer threatened, so I paused and looked at myself in the bedroom mirror. Once again, as in the last SSILD, I was impressed how much like my waking self I looked: the hair was different, shorter, but the same face, same eyes. I smiled at myself and could see the smile in the reflection. Interestingly, even though it was a full-length mirror, I have no conception of what I might have been wearing. I wasn't curious about it at the time I was looking, so I have no impression of it now. If I had to guess, I would suppose it was a loose white summer dress of the sort I've been wearing around the house lately (I don't wear these to bed though).

Even though I had come to terms with the noise, it was still loud and annoying, so I decided to leave the bedroom and move deeper into the house, hopefully away from it. It might have diminished slightly by the time I got to the kitchen, but only a little, so I keep walking through to the living room. I notice my fluffiest down comforter is heaped up on the couch for some reason. I pull it off, and as the folds of cloth open I see the dark silhouette of a butterfly within them. I am momentarily confused: is butterfly a dream figment, or is it real? That is, just as I thought the sound might have a source in waking life, it didn't seem improbable at that moment that a butterfly might have accidentally made it into the house. Dream logic prevented me from realizing that, even were that so, how would I realize it when I was asleep in my bed? The butterfly flutters up and flies into the kitchen, so I follow it. Around this time I am too distracted to notice the noise anymore, being completely engrossed in the butterfly. When I enter the kitchen, I notice that in place of the little black one I followed, about the size of an ordinary monarch, there are now two very large butterflies, their wingspans about 16 to 18 inches across. One is slightly larger than the other, a very pale greenish yellow. The other one has the same base color, but its wings have black borders.

I am reminded of the task I had been intending to work on next, "creo animál." However, it seems that the dream has jumped the gun and already created the animal for me, so I roll with it and decide to experiment with "rego animál" instead—apparently forgetting I've already done this one numerous times. I know I should try "intellego animál," as I've never tried anything with that technique, but I'm not sure how to go about it, so I decide to put it off until later. I hold out my hand and command "Rego animál," focusing on the larger, lighter-colored butterfly and intending for it to land on my hand. The butterflies flit around and ignore me. I try again. Doesn't work. What's the problem? They are "animals," aren't they? I mean, in the broad sense of the term, I'm pretty sure insects count. Do I need the "auram" sphere for this, as they are creatures of the air? But I've worked with wind before—I've found it quite straightforward to conjure all the elements directly—yet somehow this is harder. I'm forgetting all the times I have commanded animals very easily in other dreams, and am probably just making it harder for myself by all the Ars Magica rigamarole, but truth be told I like rigamarole... it's more stylish and satisfying than just making things happen in a perfunctory way. I conclude that the main problem is that I'm just not putting enough focus into my intent, and so the third time I sing the command. For some reason, I always get the best results in dreams when I sing to shape them, and sure enough, now the butterfly comes over and lands on my proffered hand.

What next? I walk the few steps back into the living room, and command the butterfly to fly up again and go land on the small table by the window on the other side of the couch. Again, it takes me a couple tries, but the butterfly finally obeys. As it lands there, it turns into a young light-haired woman. I am distracted from this transformation by a young blonde man who is now at my side. He is not the second butterfly, the one with black-bordered wings: around this time she transforms into a dark-haired woman who is standing near the closet. With all this transformation going on, I am inspired to try "Muto animál," so I direct this command to the young man, intending for him to turn into a butterfly. He stands there looking a bit obstinate or confused, so I sing the command in what I intend to be a very persuasive manner, and he finally complies—sort of. He lies down on his right side in a fetal position. He is not lying on the floor, but on some platform a few feet high that doesn't exist in RL (there would just be a wall there). He produces a bundle of red yarn that he stretches along the length of his spine. I watch, waiting for the transformation, but nothing happens. I command him again, and he respond that he is doing his best, but that it will take a very long time—maybe up to a year!—because the timing isn't right.

It's possible that the guy is just dicking me around, but he seems sincere, and he does offer that he could transform more easily into a goat. (OMG! I hadn't even realized until I wrote this that my first SSILD also involved a goat... odd coincidence, as I don't remember dreaming of goats under any other circumstances.) I say that this would be fine, so he gets back up, discards the red yarn, and transforms at once into a brown goat of ordinary size. He warns me that when he is a goat, he speaks in a strange high voice—which seems contradictory at first, because he has already turned into a goat and is still speaking in the same voice as before. However, after delivering the warning, his voice does change. From his description of a "high voice," I was expecting him to start speaking in falsetto, but instead he sounds more cartoonish, like his voice has been sped up. With his new voice he introduces himself to me, telling me his name is "Hemm." I find myself wondering how this is spelled. I imagine it with two 'mm's, but having only heard it spoken, I can't be sure. Should I ask? Well it can't hurt, and might help me remember the name better. "Is that spelled H-E-M or H-E-M-M?" I inquire. He replies that there's no way to know: he was just a blacksmith's son and never saw it written down.

I realize that I should get the names of everyone in the room, because then I'll be able to write a more detailed report when I wake up. So I turn and ask the girl sitting on the small table, formerly the pale butterfly. She tells me her name is "Anna." She is now holding a painting, a vertical rectangle about 24x36 inches, and turns it around to show me the back. "And his name was 'Jakachibe', he was a Japanese thief." I gather that the guy she mentions is represented on the front of the painting, but I barely had time to glimpse the image before she turned it around, and now she is just showing me the back of the canvas, where something like 'Jakachibe' is written in large sloppy pencil letters on a wooden crossbar. I say "something like" because the transliteration of the name is even worse than what I've rendered here—there was another 'h' in it somewhere, maybe even a 'q', something more like "Jaqhachibe," but I can't remember precisely—and I have to bite my tongue to refrain from telling her that "Jaqhachibe" doesn't sound like a proper Japanese name and even if it were, it certainly wouldn't be spelled that way in English. I just smile and nod, then turn to the dark-haired woman who has continued to stand by quietly. She tells me her name is "Caroline." After I hear each name, I am repeating it aloud, to better impress it on my memory.

After talking to each of the women in turn, I notice that the young man who had transformed into a goat has returned to his former human appearance. He is of average height, with wavy blonde hair, short but not too short, a bit tousled, and he has a pleasant, open face. He volunteers that his name—in this form—is "Viryec." Or at least, he says something that sounds like that phonetically, but is probably spelled very differently—"Virjece" occurs to me as the most likely possibility—so I start inquiring more about it. He tells me that his name means something like "sincere effort." This rings a bell—both in sound and meaning, it reminds me a lot of the Pali word viriya, which has been on my mind lately, so I ask him if that term has any relationship to his name. Although he and his name both strike me as coming from northern European stock, perhaps there is some ancient Indo-European etymological relationship with the Pali... but before he can reply, I wake up. I don't know why my dreams so often seem to end just before what promises to be some interesting revelation, but here we are again. Still, I'm not that disappointed because I have so much to write down!

.../Some kids are sitting around a table discussing the best name for a puppet character which was a TV show during the 90's. They all agree it would be named "Teddy the chubby friend". I "remember" it was always the name for the TV show and I think it couldn't be more accurate/...

* It wasn't at all. The TV show name was "Karina y Timoteo".

.../I see the sequence when a friend of mine receives a tattoo machine as a gift/...

Nap after work:

.../I'm in the room where I lived during my school times. I want to go to sleep when I realize some spiders have built their web between the ceiling and the window. I take a better look and see there are at least 10 spiders in a mass of webs, the bigger ones are deep in the mass, I remember some used to be the size of a little peach . I remember the big ones gave me the creeps. The webs hang above half of my bed, but they are too close that my hand gets stuck in one of them. I decide that I have to clean it up. My wife/ex-girlfriend (who I will call from now on, Simili) helps me. I want to use the vacuum cleaner but I don't remember where it is. I go to my older aunt's room, and see some other spiders there, but they are not many although the webs are huge. My aunt tells me something about some people were pruning trees in the street, now it's all clear to me. I see through her window some webs hanging from the street lighting.
Simili tells me the vacuum cleaner is in my Aunt-mom's room. I go there and my aunt-mom tells me she put it into her closet. I take it "remembering" there was something about this thing. I get back to the room. The spider webs are huge now and there are more and more spiders. I see one of them walking on the floor. I want to take a picture of it. I try to focus the camera but the spider on the floor moves too fast. I can't, it's enough, I step on it before it hides under the bed. When I see the spider webs again I see a lot of multicolored butterflies hanging there too. I have to take a picture of that spectacle, it's amazing. When the automatic focus of the camera tries to focus the image it pulls the webs to my hands. It's disgusting, I put the camera back and all goes back to its place. I try a couple of times more but always the web gets attracted to the camera and it's impossible to take a picture/...

* Woke up remembering spiders used to be a dream sign.

Me and Erana (of QFG) are in a cave we believe to be the entrance to hell. I'm looking at something in a glass case near the entrance, she's looking at things hanging on the walls. We found this place by chance; we were supposed to be heading somewhere else, but I believe that other place would have wound up being a dead end, and this cave is our best bet. There are these blue butterflies that live here that are known for flying against the wind. The opening that we believe to be the entrance to hell is unreachable for us due to the wind, but these butterflies can go right in, and as I watch them, I'm planning out how we can use that.

(Woke up. Went back to sleep.)

In some small city. Erana was killed, but she reappeared in the form of a child and grew up within a few hours. This happened twice, and we think it's a result of the time she died and I retrieved her soul from hell - now hell won't take her. I'm not sure it'll take me, either, but I'm not in a hurry to test that. Sitting in our hotel room after the second time it happened, I'm trying to think up a way to use that child form to our advantage, but this annoys her.

We're in a series of tunnels, and we split up to try to work out the correct answer to some kind of game that involves finding the right combination of drinks, or in another room, the right meal. We're meeting back up in the main tunnel to compare notes - Erana's solved the drinks room, I'm still working on mine. I mention that it reminds me of kumiko, meaning that it's partially a guessing game and the solution involves rather poetic references, which amuses me; it's kind of nostalgic, even though I'm frustrated. There's a voice in the distance and I say something about how it must be the guardian of this place. I spot him standing on a balcony over a gate we've been trying to get through, a guard with a head or helmet shaped like Anubis.

(This is from September 26, yesterday.)

I awoke into a lucid dream, however I didn't perform any reality checks, I just knew immediately I was lucid. I looked around and saw I was in some kind of run-down building in a room on the second floor. It was nighttime. I walked out onto the balcony, which had an old wooden staircase leading down to the sidewalk, and saw a man standing under a street light. He looked suspiciously like Karr, but had black hair and giant black holes where his eyes would've been, so I decided to avoid him because I didn't feel like dealing with creepy stuff. I jumped off the top of the balcony and glided down to the street, facing away from the creepy guy, and remembered a few new tricks I'd read about for summoning people in dreams. I attempted to summon Afiel by calling behind me "Hey Afiel, can you help me with this?" like he was already there, however it didn't work, and instead I heard Karr's voice say "I'm not Afiel!" That's when I realized the creepy eyeless guy WAS Karr, so I spun around to confront him but he was gone. After a few more calling attempts, I gave up for the moment and went out to enjoy the dream. For a while, I just flew around the night sky... more like glided, really, because I couldn't keep myself up. I kept slowly gliding back down to the ground, and had to push myself off the ground with my hands to get back up. I wound up at some kind of horse race and took the opportunity to ride a horse, which was super fun. I even won the race and had my name engraved onto a high score board on a wall by the track. I wandered away and into a nearby building, another rundown place made of rotting wood, and saw my mom sitting on a couch next to a bunch of plants. She said hi, but then just sat there like a statue and wouldn't respond to anything, so I ignored her and attempted summoning again. I tried another trick where I walked up to a random closed door and said "Hey, this is the door Afiel is behind!" and then open it expecting him to be there. The first few times it didn't work, but I finally opened a door and there he was, standing there looking confused. He walked around the building, looking at random things, and then we decided to head outside. On the way out, we passed by statue-mom sitting on the couch and her plant collection, and Afiel was immediately sidetracked and went to go look at all the plants, because he's a total geek about that kind of thing. He told me to come over and look at one of them, and when I got closer I noticed the collections of seeds on the plant weren't actually seeds at all, but hundreds of tiny bugs. I thought it was gross and backed away, but he was all excited and kept watching them. When we left the building, it was daylight out, and he suggested we fly to a particular place, but I can't remember where it was he said. I think it was some kind of religious place. He spread his wings and took off, and I followed after him but I had trouble staying up. My body kept doing the gliding thing, and kept wanting to drift back down to the ground, but I didn't want to lose him so I did these awkward jump-glides after him. Soon we were in the wilderness in a big grassy field that was fall-colored. In the background were mountains, and hills covered in colorful trees, and the sky was clear and blue. I saw Afiel pretty far ahead, so I landed and did the lucidity shout to gain more control. It worked in that it made the scenery super vivid, and I forgot about him for a moment and sat there in the grass enjoying my surroundings. I wondered about the "ACME lucidity pills" I kept hearing about online, so I reached into my pocket for them but felt nothing. There was nothing in my other pocket either, but then I saw a large beige bottle on the ground next to me. I picked it up and took the pills inside it, and suddenly everything came into laser focus and I felt more in control. I flew up, now able to fly without gliding, over some telephone cables and up over the mountains, but I could no longer see Afiel. As I kept flying, I came upon an old Mayan temple, so I landed on the steps and walked up to the top to find a door. Behind the door was a pretty Japanese water garden, with lots of people and animals but no Afiel. On the wall was a laminated piece of paper with rules about the water garden and I remember being surprised about how clear the words were, since usually words in my dreams are blurry. I walked out onto the water Jesus-style, among all the lily pads and fishes, and saw weird little mice and cats under the water attacking each other. I reached down into the water to pull out a mouse that was about to be killed by a cat, but I noticed the mouse had worms for eyes and for claws. I freaked out and dropped it, the cat grabbed it and bit it in half. The mouse was actually a robot and had a map inside him, and when I picked up and unrolled the map, I realized it was telling me where Afiel had gone but I woke up before I could make anything of it.

A dream where I had to go retrieve postage stamps from dad's house, but I was scared of going inside because he'd want me to stay forever. I think I was able to get the stamps.

A friend and I were walking down the sidewalks at an outdoor shopping center, and there were these shimmery rainbow butterflies that kept landing on my shoulder and following me around. Then we saw some pretty hummingbirds, and my friend could match their pace and keep up with them on her roller blades. I, however, could not, and just ran behind her and the hummingbirds awkwardly trying to keep up, dozens of butterflies flying after me. We stopped in front of an interesting restaurant and decided to eat there, but there was a wait, so we stood outside until it was our turn. The butterflies kept messing with me, and everyone around me marveled over how pretty they were. I think I remember seeing Dale from King of the Hill leave the restaurant and he made some comment about me being an alien. When we got inside, we were seating at separate tables, so my friend was at a table to the left of me and I sat with strangers, and there were TVs at the tables along with piles of DVDs. There was also a big plate of chicken nuggets in the middle of the table, and the waitresses would hand out bags of chips to anyone who raised their hands. I turned on the TV and there was a Disney movie playing, but a guy walked over and said I wasn't allowed to use the DVDs, only employees could. I told him I wasn't watching a DVD, and that the movie was just on cable, but he didn't believe me and turned off my TV and took the DVDs away. I also saw him to the same thing to my friend's table.

There was a guy who worked inside a huge dumpster the size of a house. He was in charge of sorting trash into recyclable containers, and he worked 24 hours a day and never slept. The dumpster was also full of dangerous snakes that would always bite him. The news channels caught wind of his predicament and kept trying to interview him, but he would always hide from them. Soon, other people were offering to work at the dumpster part-time to take some of the burden off of him, but many of the new workers were bit by the snakes and had to be taken to the hospital. I applied because I had been dating a girl who'd broken up with me because she said I wasn't independent enough, and became a part-time worker in the big dumpster thinking it would make me more self-reliant. I would walk across wooden floors covered in snakes, but they wouldn't bite me and I wasn't scared of them. Instead, I'd pick them up in handfuls and toss them off the walkways. As I sorted trash, I noticed that someone had thrown away a perfectly good TV and the 24 hour guy had taken it and put it in a weird makeshift break room. However, the TV was covered in orange slime and was gross, so I cleaned it up for him and he was super happy for it.

In my dream I seen this pretty woman. I decided to make her my girlfriend, so I went up to her and asked her out. She was willing to be my girlfriend and seemed pleased that I asked her. It didn't take long before we were holding hands and I would put my arm around her. I realized I had fallen in love with her, it was great. She was much shorter than me, only coming up to my shoulder height and me being 6 foot 2 inch tall. Her hair color was a dirty blond, and shoulder length. The place we met was this large house, or probably a mansion. I don't know who owned it, but by the rooms we were in it looked expensive. We were with a group of people who were traveling by bus, this just happened to be a stop we made. We had to get ready to travel on the bus again, so we couldn't stay together. I tried to keep an eye out for her at as much as possible so I wouldn't loose sight of her. I think I kind of knew in the back of my mind that she could just dissapear out of my dream for no apparent reason, and I didn't want that to happen.

Even though she went into the next room with some of her friends for a bit, she did come back. I was so glad to see her again, and I could tell by her expression that she was pleased to see me too. It is a little hazy of all the dream events that were going on. I think there was a table of food and I was trying to eat something before we left. There wasn't much left, but I noticed some cheesy bread which looked like it had fallen off the table and somehow gotten under it. I picked it up and ate about half of it, it was just as good as it looked, even though I suspected it might be a little dirty from laying on the floor. I didn't care, I knew it wouldn't hurt me. I think I was eating while she was off with her friends. When she was back with me, we were able to pack more stuff up and be on our way.

The dream scene changed as I was now on the bus in one of the front seats on the left side of the bus. I was saving the spot to my right for my girlfriend. About five or more people got on and went past me down the isle before I seen her coming. I smiled at her approach and she beamed back at me. I picked up the item I had laying there to save her spot and she sat down next to me. I put my right arm around her and drew her close. We got to talking again, though I don't remember exactly what we both said. Then I remember showing her a map I think, probably where we were going next. She must have thought I was hungry still, because she made me a hamburger for me to eat while we were sitting there on the bus. She must have had all the items in her pack with her. I appreciated it very much. It seemed to me I was with her for a long time on the bus ride.

The dream scene changed again, now I think I'm all by myself in what looks like farm country. I am on higher ground around some farm equipment. I have a good view of the surrounding area for miles around, pehaps as far as five mile distant. As I look around I know I'm waiting for some people to show up, and I'm hoping my girlfriend is with them. I'm standing by this red grain bin when a long van pulls up on the other side and stops. Some kids get out first, I know they don't see me. When they come around the corner I manage to give 2 of them a scare. Before the other people get out of the van I wake up.

Now that I'm awake it really feels like I had been in love. I realized I had fallen in love with some random dream character and now the relationship is over. I know it isn't rational but the heartache still feels real, knowing that the relationship I had with her can never be reality.

Sadly, this was one of those dreams I almost entirely forgot as my daughter shook me awake. This is a normal problem.

I was a secret agent, and even better, I was a bear. I had fellow bears that were also agents. Our job was to investigate the activities of the pigs, and stop their nefarious plans.

I really wish I knew what those plans might have been.

I recall carrying a briefcase that had information on the plans of the pigs, and I think I was at a trainstation.


I had another dream, again about being a secret agent, but this time I was a butterfly. I was surrounded by other butterflies, and we were all flying into the sky, presumably towards the sun. The other butterflies were all kinds of pastel colors, mainly blue, and as a group we formed a twisting column rising into the sky.

Some of the images reminded me of what I saw (and posted pictures of) at the Umlauf Sculpture Museum, particularly the Butterfly Project.

I liked this dream but I would have loved to recall more detail. Darn kids.

I feel I should point out that I know nothing about agave plants and so don't know if the information in the dream is true or not.

I'm in a truck with two other men and we're driving out in a kind of desert/forest environment. The man driving is showing me and the other guy around. The man sitting next to me asks the driver, "What do you use to pick 'em?" The driver answers, "We use cherry pickers and scissor-lifts.", to which the other man replies, "Really?" with a surprised tone. The driver says, "Yeah sure, I'll show 'em to you." He stops the truck and we get out and sure enough, there are a few scissor-lifts sitting around. We start walking around and he is talking about agave plants. I ask the man, "But don't agave plants grow on the ground?" He replies, "Some do, but they also grow up in the trees. That's where you find the best ones." And he points out several around us that are very blue in color and tells us that the bluer they are the better the plant is. I notice a patch of blue up in a tree that at first appears to be alive because it's moving. But the I realize it's actually butterflies flying all around the surface of it. I point at it and say, "Wow, the butterflies are really going after that one!". The man looks at it and tells us that the butterflies actually suck up all the nectar and ruin the plant.

The next thing I know, I'm in a room sitting at a table with the same man, who appears to be a teacher, and two girls. One of the girls has short dark hair and is really cute. She looks familiar somehow and I find myself attracted to her. The girls are sitting together and appear to be friends. The man is talking about agave plants and we are all taking notes. I notice, though, that while the girls and the man have paper to write notes on, I don't have any. All I have is a newspaper in front of me, so I scribble some notes on the newspaper. I feel a little put out, like I'm being ignored by the group, so since I feel I'm already familiar with all of the stuff the teacher is talking about, I browse the different sections of the newspaper.

The teacher leaves and I leave the table and walk over to a couch that's close to where the two girls are sitting and talking to each other. One girl has her back to me but the cute one is facing me. While they're talking I notice her feet because her toenails are painted different colors. They're also painted on both sides. On the top, they're all blue. But on the bottom, one foot is painted green and the other foot is painted yellow. The girls are talking about her toenails and the other girl is admiring them and asks what kind of nail polish she used. While they're talking, I am putting on a pair of shoes. They look kind of like water shoes, and I notice that the sole of the one I'm trying to put on has come off. So I pick it up and press it back on into place. Then I notice the sole has come off the other shoe so I fix that one as well. All the while, I'm looking at the girl with the short hair because she is very cute. But she doesn't seem to notice me. That's all I remember because I woke up after that.

October 31, 2008

Dreaming Lucid Awake sidenotes

I was in the cafeteria where my school variety show was. We just got finished with the last show. I then became lucid and started to think of the things I could do. I picked up a nearby water bottle and dumped it on one of my friends head. (just because I could!) I laughed and said to her, "Ha, it doesn't even matter because this is my dream!" I then went over to the window to look at the outside and it was dark out with stars. There was smoke coming out of the building so I bragged to my friend Cat that I could make all of that smoke disappear right out of the sky at my own will. Using my power I did it and made all of the stars really visible. Then I made a bunch of butterflies come out of the bushes and I could control them around. Then the dream started to fade. I awake and then I'm laying there thinking, I really want to continue that dream. It all came back to me except my location was different. Hey, I'm still lucid! I thought. I went and looked around and it was as if I was in a big living room with a tall ceiling. There was blue carpeting and a couple vending machines and couches. There were people on the couches but I don't remember their faces. I walked over to a light switch to see if it would actually turn on a light. I flipped the switch and a light shined on my friend. It was weird to me because usually in dreams, this doesn't happen. I remain lucid, and walk over to a vending machine. I waved my hand at it and out came a pop. I gave it to one of my friends and then looked at my hands. I counted five fingers on each but they didn't look right. The last thing I remember thinking is, In reality, I'm really just laying in bed dreaming all of this. Then I woke up. I had fun though!

I realize now that this is not a good method for being lucid. Distorting reality makes the dream bland and blurry. It was not a very clear lucid but it was still good. I also realized later on that I performed a DEILD without even knowing it. If anyone reads this, I'm warning you now not to do this in your LDs because it makes the dream fade, FAST. You should always find an excuse to why you have the powers. i.e. when I controlled the smoke I should have picked up something that gave me that power. Or have someone teach me how to do it. You get the picture... If not PM me and we'll talk!