28th May 2021 Fragment: Outside, night time. There's someone else with me. We're on top of a short building, flat roof. There's a curving road that comes down on a hillside and then back up a bit further along. Relative to me, this is to a 90 degree quadrant in my front-right. 29th May 2021 Fragment: Long dream, there's a hill and a big manor or castle on top? Some interaction with other dream characters. Something about walking a path, something about nature. Get the feeling of dawn or morning. Notes: - I'm having trouble recalling dreams despite clearly remembering being in them. Dream recall just seems to have completely faded by the time I'm sort of aware of being awake. My first thoughts on waking are fairly random and not seemingly related to my dreams. - I also have little or no recall of my alarms going off earlier in the morning. I wonder if the issue here is the same as what has made me feel unable to see things in/with my imagination of late, a somewhat frustrating problem. - It occurs to me that H's alarm has been different for a while; I used to think it was particularly annoying before, perhaps it was raising my awareness because of being annoying.
I am walking on a path that is about to fork and incline up a hillside. I think Mom or someone else is with me. There are also two middle aged or younger women that have been walking fairly close to us. They start talking with us, asking if we think they can manage the uphill. They seem kind of sketchy to me, so I try to get them to take the path in the other direction. They end up choosing to do so, and I think it is so they don’t have to keep walking awkwardly close to us. On the uphill now, the path is narrow and sandy. I see the women walking off in the other direction and one is pulling a cart behind her, so I guess it’s good they didn’t come this way anyway. I am outside somewhere with Melissa, and we’re walking up to some pizza place. The storefront has some windows - I see no door - and a stainless steel counter top. There are a few picnic style tables crowded together in the front, currently all full (I think with only men). The owner? is sitting among everyone, facing us, and I hear him call out for someone’s order. He has an air of being among everything in a perfectly friendly way while also being on top of all the operations. He seems shorter and rotund, shaven and with short but thick brown hair, and genial. He takes a pizza on a white paper plate and tosses it to someone like a frisbee. It nears the ground and then slows impossibly until the guy grabs it. We’re now sitting across from this guy at a high table. He is eating from a plate of something. There are a few, three?, beers brewed/served here, and I contemplate getting one. I think they’re all IPAs, which I’m not too thrilled about. The guy refers to one as ‘thickest/dankest’? and I decide that it does sound good. I offer to get him one, and he says something about not needing another, but says yes anyway. I can tell by his grin and behaviors that he is feeling it.
I am outside, at Frenchman’s. I am on a walk on a small dirt path through a somewhat vegetated hillside (that almost seems familiar from another dream). There is a small creek and a spot where it ponds up around some grey/tan stones and inclined dirt. I stand up on the stones, bracing myself with my hand against a tree. The tree has many branches close together shooting up steeply from the trunk. It’s kind of high and hard to reach and I’m a little unsteady. I am trying to get a good angle for a picture of the view - a peak in the distance surrounded by a hazy sunset of blue and pink. A little bit closer there is an incline with maybe a dozen small waterfalls falling in straight, shimmering veils. I get a picture of just the peak and evening sky and then one including the falls. I now hear some voices nearing. I’m almost self conscious of being in this situation, but then decide to not care. A group of about two passes, and the next two coming up the hill I recognize as Matt and Sara. I’m not really surprised that they are here. We start talking and Matt offers me a beer. I say “if you insist” and am met with a dark 12oz bottle of a German beer. I’m impressed and excited that it’s German. I say “nice”. The bottle has a black label and an off white dragon or other animal. I try it and it is crisp and kind of malty and strong, like an Irish/Scottish style. I think it seems to get stronger with each sip. We continue walking and have now ended up in some larger, multi story house. I think we are the only ones here and that it might be haunted? We explore a little, and it is creepy.
I am outside somewhere. I almost feel like I’m at the end of a road or a path, possibly through a neighborhood and/or the outlying area. There are a few trees and a single, smaller wood building. Outside the building there is a trampoline with a bungee system. I watch a few kids of different ages take turns jumping and doing flips and tricks. Now, I am hooked up and jumping. I try to jump high but it proves difficult now matter how I keep trying. There’s a guy - an employee?- standing, watching. He offers no form of help and really looks like he’d rather be elsewhere. After a bit, I think I manage a front flip.
My recall has been mehhh for a while, i've been sick, so my journal entries have got shorter and shorter...Now is the time to plum the depths of my memories to do these scraps justice, and let them loose on the world (well type em up). D1 - Very vivid dream,I notice in a very small room, that for some reason I know is very high up...Is it an attic maybe? Yes behind me was a hatch door. There is a window with a thin white curtain with bright light streaming in. Anyway I notice a roughly painted hinge on the wall in front of me that is green and blue. It needs touching up with blue paint. So I get a paint brush but no sooner do I than the world literally turns upside down. I hang on for dear life as the room is tipped upside down. I have a feeling of my stomach lurching like on a fairground ride. The room stops moving and I notice a can of black paint has emptied onto the floor, fortunately also a load of clothes seems to have been dumped there too, on top of the paint. Next the room starts to move again and the hatch behind me flies open, I hang on desparately again, feeling im going to fall any minute. D2 - With my parents somewhere in the countryside I need to go pee, so I leave them in search. I head down a path in the afternoon sun, it heads down between trees on a woodland path. They're are people about everywhere so I can't find anywhere to pee. I search and search, eventually I try and head back the way I came and come across some kind of cave. I have a great deal of trouble getting out, it is very dark and cold. There is a European woman with blonde hair there. I have to climb up a stair case which seems to be made of dental plastic braces things, ugh. They are moving all over the place making my progress very unsteady. Eventually I get out and am near a pavilion style hut and a boy steps out and shoves me in the right direction. I get to a type of marble underground station. I think it is called "talos" but am unsure. I have a old fashioned gold wrist watch with buttons on it that I use as a phone to try and contact my family. I get through to them but feel I am lost and can't get back to them as I don't know whether I am imagining thing or am where I think I am. Desperately I use my powers to transmit myself hologram style to where they are but my powers fade and I am lost.
Morning of March 1, 2017. Wednesday. I am sitting in an armchair. I recall that there had been cheerful interaction with my family at a previous point. However, the setting firstly seems to be my Cubitis bedroom. The armchair is against the west wall, at the south end of my room (where no armchair had ever been in real life). My room is somewhat dark. I begin to hear, seemingly from just outside the window, some sort of very unusual sound, almost like an electronic squeak (actually caused by subliminal awareness of a real environmental sound). I hear it a few times and eventually realize that it is someone in the front yard who is not supposed to be there. I leave my room and walk around to the front of the house through the living room to possibly catch the imposer. At this point, it is still seemingly modeled mostly after the Cubitis house. However, when I open the front door, the area is completely different and unfamiliar, though my dream self does not register it as such (as I erroneously “recognize” it as our present address). Contrary to the implied Cubitis setting, there is no carport. There is no driveway or highway beyond. Instead, there is a huge front yard, mostly with very tall grass other than where it is short from about ten feet out from the front of the house. It now seems to be morning and I notice a beautiful blue sky. I see a young unfamiliar male running through the front yard from my left (from where the noise was likely coming from). He seems to be very amused. He keeps running to the northwest, where there are more houses in both northerly rows and westerly rows. The house I am in seems somewhat isolated (mostly due to the huge front yard). I yell at him saying that I have weapons. He keeps running but I do not even think about chasing after him even though he seems to think I might while maintaining his seemingly cheerful countenance. Looking at the front yard at the tall grass that is farther out, I also notice a clear path of short grass that goes for a very long distance. I feel very cheerful and even lucky about this feature even though I am annoyed by the idea of having to mow the rest of the yard on each side of the long path. I reason that grass does not grow much over all the old established paths. In the distance is also a beautiful mountain. The waking transition is atypical here, though the first prompt (preconscious running off to my right) still oriented to my right as it most often is. It is atypical for the personified preconscious to run off rather than more directly initiate the waking dynamics. The path through the tall grass is a clue, especially regarding my clarity of it at this point (even though I remain in the doorway until waking, which is in itself a waking event as a door represents a potential shift in consciousness and often serves as the exit point of a dream). A mountain represents subliminal focus on the conscious self and the goal of waking from sleep. Still, had I stepped out from the doorway, this might have induced a lucid state as has occurred in many previous dreams.
23-01-2017 The lonely path It was evening, dark and cold. I left my house and wandered far away to mountains. There were two paths leading through them - the easy and ordinary, and much more dangerous and remote "The lonely path". I instantly chosen the second and started walking up the path. Suddenly I found myself back at a valley close to mountains, in place where one path split in two (the ordinary and lonely). I chosen lonely path again. Then I found myself back at my house, thinking "Each time, despite different circumstances, it leads to the same decision and outcome. Each time creating a separate universe." I ran to the road and saw a few cars passing by. I made a decision just before reaching the road - I'll chose the lonely path. 24-01-2017 The prom It was my prom made second time, as most of people wanted to repeat it. I was hesitant, but did appeared there. I was bored and wanted to leave. Everyone gathered outside the local - it was a busy city street. Everyone was talking about other participants of the party. Someone even called me bumptious.
non-dream dream semi-lucid lucid false awakening I go to the subway. A dog goes inside the subway station to and I talk to him. He is homeless and just wants to find a shelter to have some rest. I wish him all the best, totally fine about having had a conversation with a dog. I buy a ticket, but instead of going to a normal train to somewhere, I get an entrance ticket to some kind of surreal game. in the underground tunnels, which now I realize are not the subway any more. More people are joining the game. We enter an atrium where we find a kind of tomb of a king. From it arises a ghost and he tells us we're going to have to face the truths about this place and solve its mysteries, no matter how scary it may become. Then he disappears and we all go in different directions. On my path I encounter what appears to be a madhouse full of demonic ghosts. I realize I have to go across them, so I remind myself they are not real and I pass through them as if they are fog. At the end of this path I receive revelations about the ins and outs of the world and the people and I am offered to experience all kinds of sensual delights, but I only feel disgust and sadness that others are so blind to the truth by it.
Ritual: WTB 2:30am, woke 7:15. I was stressed over something and felt too awake to go back to sleep right away, so I got up and put some time into a project for work. Returned to bed at 8:45am, no techniques, though I wondered if the WBTB would make lucidity more likely (happily it did) and woke again at 10am. Recall: 6/10. DILD, "Wine and Cheese": I'm walking down a footpath outdoors, carrying a cat in the hem of my dress. That is, I've folded up my hem to make a kind of pocket with the cat in it. She is an orange tabby short-hair that doesn't resemble any cat I've known in WL. I think she'll probably want to look around, so I try to arrange the "pocket" in such a way that she can rest her paws on the edge of the hem that I am holding and peek her head out. This works for a while, but then I notice that my black inner dress feels too tight around my legs, hampering my movements, and I think I must have accidentally caught it up together with the hem of the outer dress (which is a sheer light brown fabric). In trying to rearrange it so I can walk unimpeded, the cat falls back down into the "pocket," but I figure this isn't so bad, since the outer dress is translucent, maybe she can still enjoy the view. However, the cat is getting restless, and I remember something I read the other day on the forums: that if you just keep walking or wandering in a particular direction, the dream will destabilize. Well, such a thing has never happened to me before, despite numerous opportunities, but now I've caught a touch of schema infection from reading about it. [I agree with FryingMan that as a community we should try to be more conscientious about making claims that might infect other people's schemas!] So of course now that I'm anxious about it I start to feel destabilization coming on—I need to do something, quick! I notice that I am walking past a little wine-and-cheese shop, so I decide to duck in for a snack. Almost immediately I start to wonder if this was a bad idea... sitting down for a whole meal seems like a very drab and tedious way to spend my precious dream time. I decide to keep it short and just taste a few things; there's no need to finish after all. So I order some white wine and a cheese plate. The lady running the shop insists that we also try a certain specialty of theirs, which turns out to be a kind of spread that you put over toast. I see that all of these menu options are also listed on a small chalkboard hung over the doorway to the kitchen, though she prepares everything from behind a counter that is in the dining room. She serves us two types of their specialty spread, together with wedges of three kinds of cheese. It looks like very high-quality cheese, and I'm surprised (and a bit dismayed) to see how big the pieces are. The only seating in the place, which is very small, is a long communal table. I sit down and don't find it odd that I have a dining companion who sits to my right, though I didn't notice her before and my impressions are so vague that all I can really specify (uncertainly) is her gender. The orange cat I was carrying before is on the floor at my feet, and I hope the proprietor won't mind if she sees me feeding the cat little pieces of cheese. I take a sip of wine and a bite of some cheese and I am pleasantly surprised. Normally in dreams my sense of taste is dull and muted, but the taste and texture of this cheese is identical to the real thing. It is a sharp, tangy cheese with a firm, slightly crumbly texture like certain Spanish or French cheeses made from ewe's milk. I feel more enthusiastic about being here now, since I can enjoy a delightful snack without worrying about any extra calories! But on my second bite of cheese, as I concentrate on enjoying it, my perceptions accidentally shift to my real mouth—which of course is completely empty and tastes like night saliva. The dream fades and I very nearly wake up. DEILD, "Navriela": Luckily I realize that I am not fully awake but just below the threshold, so I think I can probably DEILD. Initially I try to DEILD back into the dream I just left, but it has fragmented beyond retrieval. So I just focus on getting the dreamstate back. Visuals kick in first: I see what looks like the vantage of a movie camera tracking steadily from left to right over something that resembles a grim, minimalist palace interior, perhaps an empty throne room. Everything is smooth and metallic grey and vertical. Probably because I start to wonder what was supporting the camera for this shot, which is too smooth and gravity-defying for a human cameraman, I now hear a male voice off-screen saying, "It is difficult to make a movie like this." I listen and continue to hear voices conversing about the film, so with both sight and sound back in play, I know that dream is kicking in. The camera has moved right through a doorway into the upper landing of a stairwell, and now I see a slender woman dressed all in silver begin to descend the stairs. To stabilize my senses I study her outfit, and I'm impressed how clearly I can perceive its details. She is wearing a kind of short jacket over a lower garment that reaches to her mid-thigh. It is not shorts or a skirt, however, and as I study it closely I observe a series of folds that suggest the garment consists of a single piece of cloth that was tucked between and through her legs to form something resembling short pants. I recognize this style of clothing—it looks like jongkraben, a kind of lower garment worn by both men and women in nineteenth-century Siam—but I'm surprised to see it in such an unusual context as this medieval/futuristic palace, worn by a pale, lithe, elf-like woman with white-blonde hair. I think I see some tassles dangling from the front, so I circle my perspective (still disembodied) around the woman to confirm what her outfit looks like from the front, and then continue to follow her down two flights of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs she encounters an elderly but vigorous old man with a long white beard who resembles Gandalf. He starts talking to her and at one point asks, "What is your name?" I'm pleased that he has asked the question I was wondering. There is something so youthful yet elvishly ancient about the woman that she strongly reminds me of Galadriel in LOTR, even resembling Cate Blanchett a little bit, and I half-expect her to say that "Galadriel" is her name, especially now that I'm thinking it. But the dream surprises me, and she answers with something that sounds equally elvish, but a name I don't think I've ever heard before: "Navriela." I start to think I should embody myself in this dream and work on some task. Had I been a little more on the ball I might have thought to accompany Navriela to a nearby forest to make another attempt my lucid dare, but I am too distracted by my growing attraction to her. I reflect that if I was one of the guys I would surely go "caveman" on her, and this gives me an idea for an experiment: what if I try to become a man? I sometimes identify as male characters in NLDs, but I hadn't attempted this before in an LD. I imagined myself as a guy and approached Navriela with romantic intentions. She was compliant as I took her into my arms, and we fell together on a bed that was conveniently placed in an adjoining room. I started trying to make love to her as a man, although it was all rather vague and hasty (I don't even think we took our clothes off) and I didn't notice any differences in my anatomy. Nevertheless, there was something very arousing about it and I quickly orgasmed. "It's always so much easier for men," I thought wryly—overlooking the fact that it is always easier in dreams anyway. FA: I woke up and immediately went to my computer to start writing my report, but I was having trouble accessing my word file. First I tried under "Open Recent," in Word since it's usually somewhere in that list, and when I didn't see it I tried typing the name of the file in the search box, but that didn't work either. I resorted to my back-up plan, dropping to desktop and clicking to the alias of my dream journal that I'd placed there, but even that failed for some reason. Since I actually do often have trouble accessing the file when I'm half-awake and hastening not to lose precious seconds of dream recall, it never occurred to me that my technical difficulties this time were evidence of an FA—even after discovering that my computer was in the middle of doing a full scan of some kind, and that my files were all locked until the scan was complete. Instead, I rationalized this by "remembering" that I had updated the OS just before I went to bed, and that concluded a mass file update was part of the process. Fortunately the progress bar was already at 56% and resolving quickly, so I waited it out. The OS shifted over to the new version, and now a new icon appeared on the top of all my window frames. It was a cartoon-like graphic of a noble male face haloed in a bright burst of sunlight, resembling a demigod or superhero. I figured this was the logo of the new OS, the name of which I knew at the time, but I wasn't paying much attention because finally I was able to open my dream journal file and start taking notes. Initially I started jotting down a lot of keywords and short phrases so I wouldn't lose any key events: "Navriela," and "four kittens" and "wine and cheese shop," and then started filling in the details. Eventually I woke up again and realized the last sequence had been an FA. Unfortunately my overall recall was now somewhat eroded the delay in waking up properly, especially of earlier sequences before I became aware that I was dreaming. I don't think there was ever a clear boundary or "aha" moment when I got lucid; it just seemed to naturally dawn upon me while I was walking down the path carrying the cat. NLD: I can partly recall an even earlier scene, non-lucid, where I was in a store, looking through horse halters. I was surprised to find horse supplies for sale at a mainstream store like this—it resembled a budget department store like a Target. I compared several halters but didn't like their quality or appearance. One that I rejected was covered with pale pink fake fur; another incorporated a fly mask but I wasn't sure if the eye holes would fit properly. I ended up rejecting them all and walking away. As I left, I noticed that the halters were on display in the children's section of the store, which annoyed me: why is horseback riding so often pigeonholed as an activity for young children? Certainly it helps to start young, but it takes years of practice to get any good at it. I think it was after walking out of the store that I was carrying the cat in my dress, where my dream report started, but the transition is unclear. I also now have no idea what the keywords "four kittens" was referring to, among all the notes I had recorded in my dreamed dream journal—so there is probably at least one lost scene.
Updated 04-17-2015 at 08:50 PM by 34973
Backlog: 26 Feb I struggle to do a wbtb, stay up around 25 mins but sleepy and fall back to sleep immediately, wake up like 1/2 hr later with no lds. Bathroom and back to bed, focus on having an ld by holding my gaze fixed ahead behind my closed eyelids. This seems to do the trick and I appear in a new scene immediately as sleepy as I am. It's mid day in the center of an unknown European looking city. I make some movements to adjust in my dream body. There is something like a scarf obstructing my vision and I struggle to take it off. I wonder if I don't pay any attention to it if it will disappear. The DC right ahead also has a scarf and is trying to show me how to take off mine. I finally swipe it to the side like a flock of hair and pay it no more attention. I look around thinking what task to undertake, remember three, discount the next totm although it is also possible to do here and decide to go for Percy's dare: center of the Earth. I enter a building and head down the side stairs which should lead towards the basement and ultimately the center of Earth. On my way down, the stairs transform and become much wider and made of fancy stones. Like large flat stones in a hexagonal shape. It should be dark but the walls and the stones are lit by some inner blueish light like an inside moon, which makes them even more interesting. Behind me, I briefly see that one of the DCs from the street has turned into The Thing from the fantastic four and is following me. He seems more like a companion than a menace and I'm glad he is coming with me just in case there is something else down there. I continue down the path but the dreams suddenly ends. I try a deild and briefly see a cloudy scene that looks like a continuation from what's ahead but I lack enough focus to hold on to it and fully wake up.
Updated 03-07-2015 at 10:24 PM by 61764
I was on a trail with a "party," a group of adventurers. Some of us were knights, one in particular is out for revenge. One of their knights (or was it their king?) was killed. The other knight there is his best friend. He wanted to stop the other from doing something reckless like going off on his own. He went after him, so there were fewer of us. The two knights is reminiscent of two game characters from a Gameboy RPG I played years back. On the road, we passed met a group of characters... anthropomorphized animals riding regular animals. They were passing flyers to their event/celebration. They're from a nearby city/town. Backtrack: I was talking to a wizard of sorts (unclear image and personality) that gave me a quest to destroy a small collection of towns/cities (10 in all) and the crystal sphere that... holds them together? They're all on a bridge. I imagined their cities destroyed, by something like meteors. I also remember the place being so colorful and happy. Then when I went to their celebration, I was almost overwhelmed by the barrage of colors. It was a fun, happy place. I started thinking that wizard was a bad guy who just wants to destroy the place but can't do it himself. The townspeople are already wary of him. So I set out to make it my mission to help out the 10 towns. I "woke up." I was on my bed, and I was writing the dream so I won't forget. I was excited, thinking I should make that dream into a game. My bed position was different, closer to the door, and I was looking at myself wearing a white shirt and blue shorts. I was in our hometown. I kept going back to the city, for some reason, every few days. I also kept panicking about the clothing I was supposed to bring. I remember my stuff were near our deep well, and I keep dropping some of them off, but I have to hurry already. A friend, C, was already almost out of the gate. I ran after her. I was on a train. It was night. I remember worrying that if I lean too much inside the train walls, I might get hit by some object outside. We reached a station (underground). I saw C ahead of me. I was still trying to organize my stuff and realized I brought only one pair of (black) socks and they don't match. They also look too big. We stopped by an eatery. It's morning or at least daylight. I wasn't planning on eating, but then I saw the nice-looking fried chicken. I decided to order one: thigh and leg. There were a few tables in the open area (no indoors). The guy brought the chicken to our table. The guy on a nearby table was leaning too much towards us, so I moved a bit. I checked my money just in case I left that too. Then I saw the guy behind us (a bit of long hair, white shirt, and looks messy) drag C away. I ran after them but he opened a door to the "underground." The "door" is right in front of and kind of below the doorway of a house. I was about to go in but I got scared. It looks like a room, but colored... reddish? There were a few people inside, and they don't look threatening. There's another door across the room that leads to a dark place. (literally dark, and I can't see beyond it) The few people who were there look like they're just lounging about, not guarding anything, but I was afraid of going in. I decided to call a nearby policeman. I guided him to the house, and we went inside the house to the other room, but then I realized it wasn't supposed to be inside the house. There was a skinny guy there (he lives there, I think) who didn't seem to mind we came in. He has a bit of a long hair too. The police was skeptical of me. When I realized it's outside the house, I went back out and pulled up the door in front and below the doorway. I told him he has to call backup since it might be some sort of underground network of criminals, not just the basement. He ran in anyway, all confident, and I was beside myself in frustration. I thought of calling other police. I imagined where C was taken (I saw her going up and down a muddy place) after a few days, and I also saw a kidnapped kid. ---- NOTES: - I felt scared during the "awake" part of my dream. - I slept around 7 pm. I set my alarm to 1 hour and 44 minutes (or was it 3 hours and 44 minutes?), but I fell asleep again after I turned it off. I woke up around 10 pm. - My eyes were so tired when I went to sleep. - I still have pending work. - I inked a sketch I had that I labelled "Charlie." - I was thinking of buying chicken from Chooks To Go earlier today. - I think this dream shows how reckless my superego is at the moment. - It might also signify that I have to once again meet my shadow. It's been years since I felt scared and helpless in a dream.
Ritual: WTB 1am, woke 4:45am. Read, drank spice lassi, 7 minutes SSILD meditation, WBTB 6am. Relaxation, counting, mantra, took probably 30–45 minutes to fall fully asleep. Woke 7:30am with dreams. Alchemy: 400mg L-Theanine, 400mg Alpha-GPC 50%, 750mg Aniracetam, taken at end of WBTB. Notes: Two days ago I was buying ice cream in RL, and it occurred to me that I should use this as a motivator. "You can't eat any of this ice cream until you have a lucid dream!" I told myself sternly. Then last night I was thinking of eating something else for dessert, and I decided to be even more strict: "In fact, no dessert for you at all until you get lucid!" Given everything else that went into my attempt, including excitement about the brand new TOTMs, I can't estimate to what extent this reward-based strategy was a factor in the successful outcome, but it's worth experimenting with some more. Either I'll have more LDs or I'll eat fewer sweets, so it's a win-win either way! I've been working on my mantra, and I'm currently going with variants of "Do we perceive the dream?" When going to sleep while counting I was thinking this on the off-counts, and as the hypnagogic state started to set in, at one point I noticed myself thinking: "Do we believe the skies?" ("Skies" as in the sporting equipment, so the rhyme was preserved.) This was so absurd I had to rouse myself and write it on my notepad! By the time I started dreaming, it seemed as though there was a degree of dream-awareness from the start of the sequence, but I don't think it blossomed into full lucidity (with agency) until I remembered my tasks. There was no specific "moment of realization," and yet overall the dream felt much more like a DILD than a WILD, so I'm calling it a DILD. DILD: I was standing in a narrow lane, enclosed on both sides by walls and buildings, in a residential area. A woman came out from a nearby house and walked past me, carrying a cat. Two other cats were running after her anxiously, so although their size suggested that they were almost fully grown, I intuited that the they must be the kittens of the cat she was carrying. The cat in her arms had wonderful markings, almost like tiger stripes. One of the ones that followed had a similar coat, a cross between tiger stripes and a Bengal's spots. A few minutes later a third cat came along, also striped. I was so taken with looking at the cats that I didn't want to get too far behind, so I followed them and called the young boys that were with me to keep up. One of them was pushing an empty wheelbarrow but soon left off and went to chase after his friend, who had now gone ahead of me. I picked up the wheelbarrow and pushed it along for awhile, but it was of very primitive construction, all wood, even the wheel was just a disk of solid wood, so it was cumbersome. I wondered why I even needed it. I had noticed that one of the other boys who had gone ahead was giving his friend a ride in another wheelbarrow, and figured if I kept pushing mine, one of the boys would likewise ask me if they could ride in it, which would make it even more cumbersome. So I put it down and continued along the path. There was a barn to the left, with an open door, and I decided to turn aside and explore it. This meant there would be no way of catching up with the others, but I didn't feel much urgency to do that anymore. The barn was full of old objects, and seemed to be used as storage of some kind. I remembered the TOTM and reasoned that in a rustic place like this it should be easy to find a pumpkin, so I started looking around for one. I climbed a ladder to a ledge which was serving as a shelf for additional objects, and was pleased to find that one of them was a large pumpkin. Everything else was covered with dust, which made me wonder how long the pumpkin had been sitting here. It was probably this concern that made me notice that the pumpkin was looking a bit sagging and rotten, but I recalled that the TOTM instructions didn't specify anything about the condition of the pumpkin, so I figured that it would still work! Before I could reach for it, I noticed that it wasn't the only pumpkin: now I saw that there were three more on the shelf within arm's reach, all of them of slightly different hues and shapes. I was glad there was an alternative to reaching into the rotten pumpkin, so I grabbed the one whose appearance I found the most interesting: it was small, squat, and had a faintly bluish tinge. I figured I would start with this one, and if I didn't like the results, I had three more to work with. Part of me wanted to just punch my fist into the pumpkin, which would have been faster but less elegant, so I forced myself to take my time and cut it open properly. I produced a knife from somewhere, without really thinking about it, and began sawing a circle around the stem, just as if I were going to begin carving a jack-o-lantern. When I completed the circle I lifted up the top section, revealing the interior of the pumpkin, and reached inside. The pumpkin was small enough that my hand barely fit, and I was groping around in the stringy goop and slimy seeds trying to find something else in there, hoping to encounter something interesting and unanticipated. All I felt were the pumpkin's ordinary innards, though. Initially I had left my anticipations open-ended, but now that the dream was coming up empty-handed I tried to seed them with some expectations. Although it was a small pumpkin, there would be plenty of room for a ring. Might there be a ring inside? I squished all the pumpkin innards around in my hand to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but there was nothing there, nothing that wouldn't ordinarily be found in a pumpkin. The only distinguishing feature was that the stringy goop and slimy seeds, despite their very naturalistic texture, had the same bluish tinge as the pumpkin's skin. (I think this might have been day-residue, as last night I had been reading an Amazon review of a set of mala beads beads made in China that complained how the wood had soon developed a weird bluish cast.) At that point I decided to give up on the little blue pumpkin and get started on the other three, but inconveniently I woke up. I considered getting up and writing my report, but felt that I was still in a state where it would be possible to DEILD, so I fixed the previous events in mind and let myself drift back into dream. DEILD: This time I found myself in a place I recognized: it was the house of my maternal grandmother that I often visited as a young kid. It is a place that often shows up in my dreams. On this occasion, the theme of "blue" seemed to carry over from the last dream, as I noticed that the house now had a beautiful deep blue carpet that looked brand new. "Nice new carpet!" I said loudly, in case anyone was home. My grandmother is long dead but in waking life my uncle lives there now. In the dream, however, the house seemed quiet and empty, and no one responded to my complement. I felt very lucid and clear, more so than in the beginning of the last dream, and remembered my standing intention to reflect on my bodily awareness. Sure enough, I could feel the characteristic tingles in my abdomen and especially in my legs that I associate with dreaming. (My hypothesis is that this "tingling" is a product of REM atonia.) I also associate this sensation with the ability to fly in dreams, so I experimentally levitated a bit, and then tried to implant the mental suggestion to be more aware of this body state while dreaming, with the aim of getting lucid more often. Returning my attention to the environment, I wondered what task I could try next. I had been interested in the other basic task, drinking blood, but I didn't want to have to go all vampire on anyone who I might happen to encounter in this house, given that this was a place where my own relatives lived. "Perhaps if I look in the refrigerator, there'll be a cup of blood in there," I figured. It seemed a reasonable speculation, but after opening the fridge (which at the time I didn't notice was on the opposite side of the room than it is in RL), I didn't see any likely candidates. What would a cup of blood even look like? And would it still count for the task if it came from the fridge? The instructions didn't specify a source. But the idea of drinking a cup of refrigerated blood was not appealing to me, so I thought I should save this task for a more suitable occasion. I much preferred the idea of drinking it vampire-style, especially if I could get the bonus by drinking it from a supernatural creature. Closing the fridge, I wondered what other tasks might be suitable for this environment. I remembered my lucid dare, and that struck me as a perfect idea: when I was little I always used to walk and play in the forest behind this house, so it was the perfect "enchanted" forest in which to go looking for elves. I continued walking through the house and went out the back door. The world that greeted me once I stepped outside was startling in its freshness. The colors were deep and rich and luminous, more so than I usually see in dreams, and I was struck by the beauty of my surroundings. There were some distinct differences from RL: in the far distance I could residential areas covered in mist, as though I were looking at a town from the summit of a tall hill. The forest I hoped to find was present, but quite a bit further away than I would have expected. And walking across the grass of the wide lawn that lay before the forest was... a minotaur? I looked again. No, not quite a minotaur... it had the same general lineaments, but the head was that of a horse rather than a bull. Nevertheless, the creature was clearly supernatural, and it reminded me of the blood task again. I didn't want to miss this opportunity, since it was walking right toward me, so I approached the creature. I didn't want to just grab the monster and start biting him, since he would surely conclude that I was attacking him and fight back, which could be counter-productive. So I went up to him and asked politely, "Sir, would you mind if I drank some of your blood? I only need a cup." He was at least seven feet tall and surely had plenty of blood to spare, so I didn't see any reason he should refuse. To my consternation, he seemed unsettled by my request and tried to demur. But I didn't want to pass up this opportunity, and figured that I had already met the demands of good sportsmanship by clarifying my intentions, so I grabbed his left arm (I was facing him, so it was the arm to my right), extended my fangs, bit him right in the crook of his elbow, and began to drink. Although he was tense and rigid, he didn't fight back, and I concluded that he must be experiencing that peculiar pleasure that the prey of vampires are often said to feel while being fed upon. I paused to look up, gauging the creature's reaction, and was surprised to see that his appearance had changed. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, but it was the head of an ordinary man now, no longer that of a horse. The task was to drink from a supernatural creature and see how it changed me, but it turned out he was the one that was transforming! I returned to drinking his blood before he could recover his wits and fight me off. However, the blood wasn't coming very quickly. Either I had picked a bad spot where the blood couldn't flow freely or he was still resisting me in some way, perhaps stifling its flow through the tension in his arm, which was still very stiff. I woke up before I had finished drinking, and promptly concluded that I didn't think I hadn't drunk a whole cup's worth, if we're measuring technically by eight ounces. However, it turns out that it is hard to estimate the quantity of blood you're drinking when you're getting it right from someone's arm!
Updated 10-03-2014 at 06:30 AM by 34973
6:19 am I was in the MRT, or near the MRT. I was going to go through the mall but it looks like it's still too early so they're closed. I lined up. I ended up somehow in a donut store. I bought some food/coffee. I was talking to someone while I was sitting down and I said good bye or something. The woman in front of me said something in our local dialect, and I was surprised so I asked her if she's from Negros. She said we met in Philcoa before. I was walking along a path. I was going somewhere, but the road/path might be dangerous. I went ahead anyways. NOTES: * I slept around quarter to 1 a.m. * I woke up earlier and I thought I was already awake. I went back to sleep while trying to remember dream (or thinking of blank space). * I thought it's already around noon, when I usually wake up. I was pleasantly surprised to find it's still 6 a.m.
After several promising WILD attempts failed for no good reason over the last couple weeks, I was afraid I was headed into another dry spell. Then last night, when I wasn't planning to lucid dream at all—having only seven hours to sleep before getting up early for a busy day—I had spontaneous lucids all night during the few short periods I managed to sleep at all, and had to sacrifice even more sleep writing up my notes promptly (as a matter of principle). I should have known better to drink that big mug of coffee before bed on a night when I was likely to be prone to anxiety anyway, but now I can report that caffeine + anxiety make a great lucid trigger! I went to bed at 12:30am. Knew I needed to wake at 7:30 and intended to go to bed earlier, but I never find it easy to go to bed before midnight unless I'm sick or already exhausted. Woke at 2:30am and realized that the coffee was a mistake: I was now wide awake. To counter the insomnia I started doing counting and deep breathing, basically just like my WILD practice but without the intention to LD. I counted to fifty, one number for each full breath cycle, then left off counting and did the breathing only. I'm not sure how much I actually slept—it felt like I spent a long time in a transitional state—but it was 3:45am when I woke up fully again, this time after slipping spontaneously into the very briefest of WILDs. Brief WILD: The transition was really interesting, because there must have been a point when I was already asleep, but I still thought I was awake. I know I was confused about this because I was under the impression that while lying in bed I was selecting and leafing through fantasy-game themed magazines from a low shelf that was just to my right, apparently in the bed with me. Of course in waking life there is no such shelf set up in my bed nor any magazines of this kind within arm's reach, distinct evidence that I had dreamed the whole thing. But as I was flipping through through the magazines, I was also well aware that I was in the process of trying to fall asleep, and I even noticed a curious phenomenon: when I closed my eyes, I could still make out blurry forms and colored shapes corresponding to the content printed on the pages I was reading. This made me think that reading through closed eyelids might be a great technique for encouraging REM onset, because it was stimulating pictures to form in my mind. A great technique indeed if you can do it while you're already dreaming! But I didn't realize that at the time. Eventually I felt the onset of that bodily dislocation that suggested I was close to a WILD transition, and encouraged it. Sometimes I levitate, sometimes I rock or rotate, but this time sinking felt more natural, so I let the sinking sensation grow while thinking, "Down, down," until I felt that the transition was complete. Then I easily "got up" out of bed. However, I still didn't have much control of the dream body, so I discovered that I couldn't stand or walk yet. Instead I collapsed face down on the floor and had to crawl. This didn't alarm me, because I often lack full motor coordination right after the transition. The environment was recognizable as my bedroom but still very murky. My mind felt incredibly active and clear, by contrast—probably because I was barely asleep. I remember thinking distinctly, "Oh good, I haven't lost it"—meaning the ability to WILD, given that my last few attempts have gone nowhere. I crawled toward the bedroom door and remembered my task, "Fairy tales." Then I paused, realizing that I would need to improve my integration before trying to leave the room, as my WILDs tend to destabilize if I try to rush things. I thought, "Time for some clean-up"—but alas, there was no time, as I woke promptly at this. Such a disruption was not unusual, as my early WILDs are normally strung together by multiple DEILD chains (for some reason this seems to be almost the only time I can successfully and instinctively DEILD, so I've never even counted those DEILDS as distinct dreams; instead they end up seeming more like segments of the same chained WILD). Unfortunately, I could tell at once that this time I had woken up too fully to DEILD, and even though I held very still and sought a way back into the dream, I could feel that I had surfaced past the point of re-entry, so I got up to write this. A bit disappointing, but not overly so as I have to get up insanely early tomorrow for a full day of activity, so no time to write more without cutting into sleep. 5:50am: up and writing again after two more DILDs. Both times I thought at first that I was awake in the house, but instinctively realized that I was dreaming. DILD#1: As soon as I realized I was dreaming, I remembered my task, still determined to carry out my "Hansel and Gretel" experiment. I was already deep enough in dream to feel well-coordinated, so after getting lucid I went immediately to the kitchen and grabbed some bread from the counter. It was the end of a baguette. Last time I tried this the dream destabilized shortly after I left the house and started dropping crumbs, so this time I decided to begin more cautiously by starting the trail of bread crumbs while I was still inside the house. I walked from the kitchen to the living room, tearing off pieces of bread and dropping them on the floor. Meanwhile I was thinking to myself with amusement, "Oh man, I'd better really be dreaming. If we wake up tomorrow and it turns out I've left bread all over the floor, my husband is going to say this lucid dreaming thing has to stop!" But I was sure I was dreaming, despite the stability and lifelikeness of the environment, so I asked myself how I could tell. I thought it would be a good moment to test the differences in self-perception between dream and the waking state. No sooner did I turn my attention to my body than I felt it—yes—that subtle tingling in the limbs that I have always associated with dream. The sensation used to be extremely prominent, especially earlier in life when lucid dreams occurred only rarely and spontaneously, but now I hardly ever notice it unless I pay deliberate attention. Unfortunately, this re-orientation of focus on my physical senses meant that I began to notice something I was hearing as well: the sound of my husband's breathing in the bed next to me. This reminded me of my body asleep in the bed, which promptly woke me up. Upon waking, I could still hear the breathing just as I had in the dream, but with one peculiar difference: in the dream, the sound was distinctly coming from my right, but when I woke up I remembered, of course, he is sleeping to my left. Perhaps the discrepancy can be explained if I was sleeping on my left side with my left ear against the pillow so only my right ear could hear clearly? I forgot to take note of my position when I awoke. DILD#2: After going back to sleep, once again I was doing stuff around the house under the impression that I was awake when I noticed once again: am I dreaming? Yep, pretty sure I am. Okay, well, back to work then. I remembered that I had taken the bread from the counter in the last dream, briefly worried that I might not find any more, but casually "expected" to find another loaf and sure enough it was there. I started dropping crumbs while I was still inside the house again, then went out the door to the back patio. I was still anxious about destabilization (I have tried this task several times before and haven't gotten very far, and tonight's previous episodes demonstrated that waking up abruptly was indeed a hazard) I so thought, okay, I'll just walk around the pool in circles and continue dropping crumbs until the dream shows some receptivity. So I began circling the pool counterclockwise, dropping crumbs as I walked. When I reached the area just behind the pool I noticed the place where I had encountered "Boneface" in a previous dream and wondered if anyone would be waiting there, but no DCs were visible. However, the dream was starting to respond: already I was no longer circling the pool but on a path, walking through an environment that no longer resembled any place I know in waking life. The path led me through a dense suburban neighborhood, but I saw trees in the distance and figured a forest must be out there somewhere. I needed to reach the forest to proceed with the "Hansel and Gretel" plot. I continued dropping breadcrumbs as I walked along the path, but then I remembered—hang on, if I'm doing "Hansel and Gretel," then obviously I can be Gretel, but I'll need a Hansel! I tried to summon him, calling out "Hans! Hans!" and "Little brother!" The dream responded promptly but unexpectedly: a little dog showed up, with long wavy fur in brown and white patches, and started trotting along with me. It looked just like a toy spaniel, but smaller, about the size of a chihuahua. I shrugged and figured, "Okay, good enough." Maybe he would turn into a boy later on, or if not, whatever. (I've always been able to summon animals easily, but have less success with human DCs, so the results weren't that surprising.) To get more into the spirit of things, as we continued to walk along the path I started singing a song about our journey—how we had left our parents' house because there wasn't enough food, and hoped to find some in the forest. (I just realized a discrepancy in the story: if food is so scarce that they have to leave home lest the family starve, why are they wasting bread by dropping it on the ground? Or is that why mom wants to kick them out, the flagrant bread wasters!) The dream felt very stable but I knew I couldn't be in very deep because I was having trouble with the song: rhymes weren't coming easily, like they do in deeper dream, and my melody was very simple (The Hobbit was on TV last night, and my song ended up with a similar tune and rhythm to the "goblin town" song from the movie, though naturally with very different words). When I got to the end of a line and couldn't find a rhyme, or even a suitable word, I just sort of hummed over the blank spot and kept going. Improvise! So I sang a number of stanzas in this haphazard way, dropping the bread in smaller and smaller crumbs since I was getting near the end of the loaf, while little Hans the dog trotted beside me on his tiny legs. Finally we made it to the edge of town, and there it was ahead of us! The forest! Would we go in and find a gingerbread house, a threatening witch? I was looking forward to what we might discover. But I felt sorry for Hans and wondered if he might prefer to be carried. I picked him up and put him on my right shoulder (he was so small). No sooner had I perched him there then at once I clearly and distinctly heard a voice saying my name in my right ear—it was my RL name, and it woke me up. This happened immediately after I put the dog on my shoulder so I had the impression that he had been the one speaking, but the voice was clearly a woman's and, as far as I could make out, it sounded like my own voice. Anyway, that woke me up past DEILD recovery so I got up and wrote again. It's now after 6am. Nothing like a short night before a busy day in which I have absolutely no time to spare for dreaming to really bring on the LDs, eh?
Updated 09-02-2014 at 12:56 AM by 34973
5:52 p.m. I was in an Amway event. I was with mom. It's along city streets, but not familiar. My orientation of it was somehow near Greenfields (where there's a weekly Saturday bazaar). I was talking to the woman who's selling the tickets for another event/promo. Mom wanted to join but I can only afford one at the time. I asked the woman questions about whether the ADC in Shaw transferred. She mentioned some other unfamiliar places, but she's also unsure. I was walking down a wavy path, bordered by plants and then some sort of plant hangers above. The "wave" is just like a sea wave, i.e. up and down, not sideways. There was supposed to be some sort of zip line to make the travel easier, but I didn't take it. It was easy enough. I had a sense of deja vu, like I was there before. I met up with some friends who also took the path. Nearby, there were some pagans praying or praising someone or something. I think they were praising or chanting one old woman's name, but the old woman didn't want it so she chanted something else, a name of a deity or nature. Everyone else followed. I was in a restaurant. Or was it a fast food chain? I was with a friend (Amben?). I was going to order something. I also had a feeling of deja vu, like I've been in these places in other dreams. NOTES: - Slept at around 9:30 a.m. - Ate in Jollibee last night (I didn't sleep after).
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