false awakening

Look at me, haven't successfully had a lucid dream in a week and I started to worry about my ability. Today's dream showed me that I have nothing to worry about, and what the heck I was doing wrong all week: attempting WILDs when I wasn't fully relaxed. It also must have been the accidental WBTB, as I had been awake for 2 hours but dozed off.

There's a building where lots of stolen merchandise has been found on the roof with no explanation. Even more unusual is that the building is on a university campus. Dad and I go there for a political meeting. He keeps talking about corrupt politicians and holding them accountable. I'm just tagging along because he can't drive. In the elevator, we're given a brief glimpse of the stolen goods through the ceiling of the elevator(?). Then we go to the meeting, which is being held in a classroom. They're doing standardized testing in the same room. People mistake me for a student and hand me test papers and a pencil. I'm a bit surprised to see them opening a hidden panel in the wall to get to the pencil boxes. I start assembling a plastic storage container to hold more pencils, but then I realize it will be too bulky to take it with me, so I disassemble it. Now I notice that the pencils are being kept in pink kid's shoe boxes. Someone hands me a school newsletter. It's got to me one of the strangest ones I've ever seen because it has packages of candy and food attached to it. I unwrap one of the slices of cheese that comes with with newsletter and munch on it as I try to read it. I'm actually kind of pissed that the university hasn't spoken publicly to students about the stuff on the roof or how they should deal with the media attention. I go to say this to Dad, but when I look out the window, I see a plane flying upside down.

I watch with terror as the plane keeps climbing and falling, all while flying upside down. It's going to crash, right? Why am I the only one who has noticed, and why doesn't anyone else care! It's because I'm dreaming. I take a moment to revel in how realistic the dream is. Then I consider what I should do. I briefly remember the Jack and the Beanstalk task, but then I remember that I've been doing task after task for a while and I want something more personal, something romantic. The scene changes to a ballroom, with me wearing a fancy one-shouldered formal dress. I touch the edge of the shoulder strap and I'm surprised that it's metal, not fabric. It's more like some kind of necklace holding the dress up. Then Cute Guy showed up (and I realized I've been spending too much time on Tumblr). I think he's going to dance with me, but instead, we head outside and have an intimate little chat. He asks me what I want, and I ask him to take me to Romania, which makes him laugh. But we somehow end up in a Romanian castle. He takes me to this bedroom with a four-poster bed and whispers to me, "This is where we're going to conceive our first child."

I "wake up" in a sunny bedroom in a house that is unfamiliar. I'm absolutely buzzing over the fact that I not only had a lucid dream, but that I had a lucid dream about a date with Cute Guy. I look at the clock and it seems later than I realized, and I remember that I have a meeting to get to. I'll have to write this up later for my dream journal since I'm running late. I start to look around for something to wear, remembering that the pajama top I wore last night was a bit sheer. Then I remember that I'm alone in this house and no one's going to care if I run around naked. I step out of the bedroom and head down a large spiral staircase. Light pours in from the floor to ceiling windows along the front of the house. I live here? This is awesome! I head outdoors (wait, wasn't I wearing the sheer pajama top?) and find myself rushing across a college campus with friends. My goal is the campus bookstore to pick up a tote bag to take to my meeting. My friends are grumbling about security not removing people trying to sign students up for credit cards. Almost as if on cue, several of them appear in our path, trying to push "free" beach towels on us. "You've got to admire one thing, though," says the girl next to me. "Think of how good their willpower is. This guy goes to all the college parties and he's not allowed to pick up any girls!" And then I wake up for real.

I'm walking out of a building, perhaps a large hotel, onto a sand dune. The dune slopes downwards to a beach with waves crashing. The water is a deep blue, and oddly enough, the sand where the beach meets the water's edge is also blue. I start to wake up on this point, but I dig my heels in -- literally -- and try to stay with the dream. I can feel my heels digging into the sand. The scene changes and now I'm running down the stairs of my house. I know this is a dream and that I can probably get back to the beach, and sure enough, I find it right outside my front door. I decide to try flying since I haven't done it for a while. That reminds me that the last time I flew in a dream, it was when I was trying the Hansel and Gretel task. I wonder if I should try finishing it now…

And just like that, I'm in the witch's house. This time around, she looks just like Snow White's evil stepmother (the animated version, not the Once Upon A Time one). She's complaining that it's taking forever to fatten up Hansel. I get a glimpse of him outside in his cage, except it's actually Shezza from that season 3 episode of "Sherlock." (No wonder the witch is having trouble fattening him up, with Benedict Cumberbatch being so long and lean for the role.) The witch pinches me and comments on how at least I'll be nice and plump enough for a snack, then tells me to go take care of the baby. Wait, baby? Yes, there's a nice chubby baby that the witch is saving for dessert. There's this strange interlude where I'm trying to change the baby's diaper and trying to remember how to fold and pin a cloth diaper.

There is a huge oven in the witch's house, and I complain that the oven door is too big for me to open by myself. The witch grumbles, but she does open the oven door. She's maneuvered herself so that she's between me and the oven. I don't hesitate before kicking the witch's behind and shoving her headfirst into the oven, then slamming the door shut. I grab the baby and run outside to release Shezza from his cage. While we're outside, we can hear the oven timer go off. Shezza says we should go back inside and see how the cooked witch turned out. I'm pretty reluctant to do it (this was the part of the task that I was least comfortable with) but eventually I'm persuaded to go back into the house. Inside, Shezza is pulling a large tray out of the oven with a gingerbread woman on it. We break off a few pieces and, yes, it takes just like a gingerbread cookie.

I think I'm done at this point, and I find myself back in my bedroom, packing a bag. But I know this must be some kind of false awakening because I don't remember getting out of bed to begin with. I try to remember anything else I wanted to accomplish, but I'm drawing a blank. Without a goal, I can't cling to the dream anymore and wake up.

My goal tonight was to try for the bonus task, but my subconscious had other ideas.

It's raining heavily. My friend Lura and I are walking down a street in my neighborhood when she spots something in the tall grass. She pulls two large tortoises out of the grass. They remind me of the giant tortoises I saw in the Galapagos Islands and I'm at a loss to explain what they're doing in the Midwest. Lura says we should call Sea World to pick them up.

The rain continues, and I duck into a car to write a letter to Sea World about the tortoises. I glance at my reflection in the window and find that I now look like Ellen Pompeo.

Somehow, I've moved on and now my sister and I are checking out an apartment building. This place is very bland-looking, and judging by the age of the residents, it looks more like a nursing home. As we pass one doorway, I point out to my sister that it's a laundry room. There are two older women in the next doorway who overhear me, and they point out that some units have their own laundry hook-ups. They invite us in to take a look. Somehow, I end up sitting down at their kitchen table as one of the women prepares breakfast. She offers me some milk, which I decline. That sends her on a rant about how young people don't drink milk anymore while I struggle to explain that it makes me sick.

After a brief awakening, I go back to sleep while mentally going over the previous dream

I'm back in the apartment building near the office. There are two residents who are arguing over the landlord over the cost of their phone bill. His response is to post some complicated chart with rates. I can't make sense of it, so I move on to find the apartment I was in earlier. But I get lost in the maze of hallways. I can't even remember the number of the apartment. I turn a corner and find myself in a department store. I see a crib for a baby and it reminds me of the bonus task, which helps me remember that I'm dreaming. I try to think of a way to start the bonus task, but instead the dream shifts. Now I find myself on stage with a band. In the audience are members of many of my favorite rock bands. I remember that the advanced task is to perform for an audience, so I decide that my band is going to cover one of my favorite songs. However, the guitar player starts off playing Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." I panic for a second because I can't remember the lyrics, but after a few bars, I manage to go along with it. I can see the ex-drummer of my favorite band is sitting right up front, and his head is bopping in time to the music. He seems to be enjoying it.

I "wake up" to find that I was sleeping in church. I'm amazed that I managed to stay asleep long enough to accomplish the advanced task, even if that wasn't my original plan. My college roommate is sitting next to me, and she tells me that she's done packing her things. I go outside with her to her car to say good-bye. I'm amused to see that her car has front-end damage and the driver's side door has been ripped away. She never was a good driver. Meanwhile, my car is parked right next to hers and its in perfect condition. I can't remember if I've packed, so I grab a few bags from my trunk and head back inside the "church." Oddly enough, this place looks like my pantry. There's a woman there who reminds me to pack any food that I brought with me when I moved into the dorm, so I start filling my bags with the stuff I find in the pantry: two-liter bottles of soda, jars of marinara, boxes of pasta… There's one package of spaghetti that looks like it's gotten wet, leaving all the noodles limp. It dawns on me that uncooked pasta shouldn't look like this even if the packaging gets wet, and this time I wake up for real.

This one's actually from yesterday. Let's hope it works.

Rough night to begin with, but it ended well after all. I got up at 5 AM to do a WBTB, except I couldn't get back to sleep. After trying for a while, I got up again at 7 AM. I got something to eat, watched TV for a while, and got some business out of the way. When I started feeling drowsy, I went back to bed.

I'm sitting on my sister's bed as she talks. She's complaining about the landline not working because the company hooking up the phones has no idea what they're doing, so we have to stick around until they send someone to fix it. I randomly start telling her about the Sodastream I bought a while back. She asks if it adds sugar to drinks. I try explaining that it depends on the drink mix and they make sugar-free ones, but she repeats her question about sugar as if she doesn't hear me. I lay down on her bed and tune her out as I start doze off.

Then I feel skin brushing against mine. I opened my eyes to see that I'm naked under the sheets, and that there's someone else in bed with me. At first, it looks like my long-term boyfriend, though he seems quite a bit pudgier than usual. Oh, and he's naked, too. I scoot a little closer, but then it hits me that my sister's bedroom is really weird place for the two of us to get it on. I start thinking back to the weird conversation with my sister and realize that this has to be a dream.

I sit up, but now I'm in my parents' bed. Worse, my dad is entering the room and screaming about catching me with my boyfriend, who quickly vanishes. And I'm still naked! This seems like it's quickly turning into a nightmare, but at least I maintain lucidity instead of panicking. I remember the task of the month and spot the small mirrored detailing on the headboard. I try to push through one of the tiny mirrors and get rejected -- not that I could put more than a finger through it anyway.

I jump out of bed and run to the nearest place I can hide, which turns out to be Dad's closet. He follows me and continues to yell. I need to get out of this situation. Opposite the closet entrance is bathroom vanity with a sink. Above the sink, there's a mirror. I'm still a little cautious after my last experience with a mirror, so I want to test it. I grab a jar off the counter and throw it. I'm expecting the mirror to shatter, but instead, the jar bounces off like a rubber ball hitting concrete. I take a running leap and dive headfirst into the mirror.

Passing through the mirror is much easier than I expected. I find myself falling through blackness at first, but then there's a lot of light. I land in the waters just off the beach of a tropical island. It looks so beautiful, like it came out of a picture postcard. My sweetie appears next to me, floating on an inflatable raft with his sunglasses on and a tropical drink in his hand. He smiles at me and says that he's been waiting for me, but he knew he wouldn't have to wait long. He had faith that I'd be able to do it.

I woke up at 4 AM and couldn't initially get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for a while, I admitted defeat and figured sleep would elude me. Of course, that's when I actually dozed off...

I woke up to find that Natasha and Brad had arrived to stay for the weekend without warning. They had moved into the guest room while I was sleeping and the laundry I had left on the bed was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Worse yet, they brought their dog, who was now running around my emptier-than-usual bedroom.

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower to find Natasha napping on the bathmat. I step over her and turn the shower on to let the water warm up. Somehow, the shower head has gone from being a fixed to a hand-held. It ends up spraying Natasha, who wakes up and gets angry at me.

Once I manage to shower and dress, Derek and I head out. We're at a Verizon store on Main Street. I see that someone has said something really nice about my on Twitter, so I show it to Derek. It realize belatedly that I've never shared my Twitter account with Derek. Instead of being proud, he gets angry and says, "So this is what you waste your time on!" He then takes to a store employee to cancel my data plan so I can't get Internet access on my phone. For what it's worth, the employee is on my side and keeps glaring at Derek.

I worry that not having data access on my phone is going to make it difficult to do my job. Sure enough, I quickly get some information that I need to respond to by email. I plead with Derek to let me use his phone to access my email. When that fails, we head to a coffee shop so I can use their wifi. The coffee shop happens to be on the riverfront. I notice there's movement in the water, so I step outside and look over the railing. At first, I wonder if it's a dolphin, but the shape is wrong. Instead, I see penguins and seals. The seals seem to be congregating on a block of Arctic ice -- in the middle of a Midwestern river.