task of the month

29.09.2010

Septemeber Basic ToTM Completion (DILD)

★★☆☆☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Two people of questionable intent and origin accosted me after I went lucid. Here to ensure I kept my end of the bargain (which I made in my last lucid with some dude while everything was destabilizing), they began their tests. For my first "lesson," they escorted me to an elevator, and the woman stepped inside. Then they took my body away.

Left with nothing but a single perspective and my consciousness, my first task was to maneuver my way in front of the elevator with no legs, no feet, no physical self whatsoever. Great. Using miniature jumps in perspective, similar to teleportation, I was eventually able to work my way into position. The woman inside smiled as the elevator doors closed in front of me. Erm, I thought, as I easily opened them with a burst of will, wiping the smile from her face. My body was returned to me.

With all of us now inside, the man in their pair informed me my next test will be one on movement. As the elevator rose up, my sense of gravity in relation to the floor started gyrating. It threw me off balance for a moment, but I quickly positioned myself in the center of the elevator and began methodically twirling about, adjusting my footing as the spinning continued. The suited pair, standing off in the leftmost rear corner, was not amused. "What?" I state, "This is normal elevator behavior for me."

The elevator doors opened, and we made our way out into some kind of. . . social gathering? Well-dressed adults sat at benches and tables, while equally well-dressed children frolicked about the well-lit skylight room. Sure enough, they had another task lined up for me. . .

03.07.2010

July Double ToTM Completion (DEILD)

★★★☆☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Keeping still, I perform another WILD. . .

Success!

Without hesitation, I get out of bed and make my way outside. Oddly, there seems to be three doors hinged to my front doorway. Opening all of them, I'm greeted by a shining sun and people all about my court. I pass one guy with a shaved head and notice an orange armband.

"Humans vs. Zombies?" I ask him. He responds by putting his finger to his mouth and shushing me as he runs behind my house to hide. "Weirdo." I mutter when he's out of earshot. There are a bunch of other players scattered about my neighborhood including some of my friends, but I figured HvZ could wait a bit, I had some tasks to carry out.

Deciding to clone myself first, I walk to the middle of my court, do some random hand signs, and shout "Tajuu--Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" I hear the familiar popping noise around me as hundreds of clones are created in a puff of grey smoke. I take a look at them, and sure enough, they're me. However, they're all wearing the same ugly orange blazer and a dirty green headband. Great. I've created a mass of egotistical, fashion-challenged, zombies. Might as well have some fun with them.

Using my mind and a tad of willpower, I force all of them to attack me at once. As they converge I punch the first to reach me in the face, while roundhouse kicking the clone on my other side. I use the the momentum I generate with that to drop to the ground and knock a few clones down by sweeping out their footing. "You're still a Zed now," one of the clones remarked.

"Crap! You're right!" I exclaim, beaten at my own game. Well, then this next bit is for the horde! I think excitedly, willing my hundreds of clones to disperse and tag all the remaining humans. The game was over in less than a minute, which left me time enough to do the basic task as well.

Digging into my pocket, I find my wallet, my car keys, and--there it is--my cell phone. Pulling it out, I open it up and hit send twice. The creepy phone lady informs me that this is not a phone number I'm calling, but some kind of app center. I end the call, and hit send again, scrolling through the list of available names. I notice one contact called 'a human' so I figured I'd go for that one. The phone rings a few times before someone picks up.

"Hello?" a muffled voice on the other end asks.

"Hi! Who is this?"

"It's me, RTN."

"Oh, didn't I see you playing in the game?"

"Yeah, I'm right over here, dummy."

Looking over to the main street I see RTN on his cell phone, accompanied by his girlfriend DTZ. I close my phone and wave over to him, but he's still upset by the shenanigans I had just pulled.

08.06.2010

June Adv. ToTM Completion (DILD)

★★★★☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

My body lifts into the air as the elevator plunges into a free-fall. Alright, don't panic. I can control the speed of my decent via Flight.

Oh, right, that means I'm dreaming. So, enacting my plan, I Fly down in tandem with the elevator. Unfortunately, the pull of gravity turns out to be a little too strong, and now I have less than a second to right myself before the inevitable impact. Luckily, I pull it off, and my feet and legs take the full brunt of of the blow.

Prying open the elevator door, I walk out into the lobby. High profile contractors are still streaming in through the sliding-glass doors. What was my goal for tonight again? Pyrokinesis, wasn't it? Yeah, that sounds about right.

My plans set, I raise my hands to either side of me. Then, pulling from my Heroes archetypes, I create a good sized orange flame in each one and begin to light the room ablaze. Jettisons of fire expelled from my palms and caught on the walls and ceiling. The DCs didn't really seem to notice.

After the room was burning sufficiently, I felt the need for higher levels of destruction. Waving my arms around as if I were Fire Bending, I manage to increase the size and strength of the fire on one wall. Heading over to it, I bask in the heat of my creation. I say something along the lines of, "It is not the fire that warms me, it is I who warms the fire." Then, I take a bite out of a nearby sandal. It was delicious.

From a Nap filled with 3 WILDs:

29.03.2010

March Basic ToTM Completion (DEILD)

★★☆☆☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Still holding onto my lucidity, I rack my brains trying to decide what to do next. With no goals in mind, I figure I'll just take a shot at one of the Tasks of the Month. What were they again? Oh yeah, "Taste the Rainbow." I look up, and sure enough, a dim rainbow stretched itself along the inside of the concrete archway above me. Flying up to the arch casually, I grab onto the rainbow, tearing a piece away. Surprisingly, it's somewhat elastic, just like a Fruit Roll Up.

Not wasting any time, I pop the piece into my mouth. Yuck! Indeed, it does have the texture of a Fruit Roll Up, yet it tastes like stale popcorn. Utterly disgusting. Slightly displeased, I drop back down to the ground. . .

I'm not writing out the whole LD. It was way too long and I'm on vacation. I might write up one of the other ones I had last night, though. Meh, who am I kidding.

14.01.2010

January Adv. ToTM Completion (DILD)

★★☆☆☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

The following is an excerpt from an hour+ long LD.

Frustrated by my failure to locate her, I decide to go about the ToTM as scheduled, without her. There are plenty of DCs around. A couple walking up and down the street, a few off to the side of the road, sitting on benches. I start up my plan, queuing up Guns and Dogs by Portugal. The Man. Once the distinctive sounds and lyrics hit my ears I start my transformation.

I shrink to a quarter my height, slowly falling down onto all fours, my limbs constricting, my joints changing, and my hands and feet becoming paws. My clothes melt into me, becoming a silky black fur coat. I feel my ears elongate and flop down about face as my nose and mouth stretch forward. All of this is happening at once. I'm surprised it feels so easy and natural.

I am now a dog. Not quite sure what breed, but I'm definitely on the smaller side. As soon as the transformation completes, I trot over to an older woman on a nearby bench who is reading a newspaper. I curl up on her feet, brushing my soft fur against her leg. She looks down, smiles, and makes the effort to bend over and pet me. Boy does it feel good. She would make a good owner.

No lucids last night, but I learned a neat trick. I can find an object using my TK, even if I can't see it, just by reaching out with my hand and pulling it to me. That may prove useful. It certainly did when we were looking for our white-board during that crazy water based golf game.

BONUS ENTRY OF DOOM!

11.10.2009

Truce With Myself: Cruise Ship Catastrophe (DILD)

★★☆☆☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID







I'm going to elborate on what happened during this dream. Specifically the part when I scare all the DCs on the boat by flipping it over a few times. You know, since that is kinda completing the Basic Task. >.>

I'm on a cruise ship. I have no idea how I got here. I just know it's a dream and I want to get to the moon! Now, how to do that. . . I recall Pirates of the Carribean when they flipped over the ship to transport them between dimensions. It seemed like a perfectly sound idea. However, the friends I was with at the time didn't think so. They tried to talk me out of it, but I simply ignored them, telling them their concerns were nonsense.

I used an extension of my TK abilities and flipped the boat over once. Gravity remained mostly intact, but in reverse now. The windows of the cabin were underwater and everyone, including my friends were freaking out. I still think this will work, so I go ahead and flip it back upright. People start to calm down. Hrm, we don't seem to be on the moon. I violently start rotating the boating, flipping it several times. Now, everyone on the boat is screaming that it's going to capsize. "Shit, I gotta get out of here." I fly out the nearest window as, behind me, the screams of the DCs fade away into gargled murmurs, as the deep waters of the stream swallow the boat and its passengers alive.

01.08.2009

Tornadoes (DEILD)

★★★★☆

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

After a WBTB that resulted in a somewhat interesting dream wherein it was Halloween and my brother decorated and renovated the house, making it extra creepy, I began to wake up as my mother came home and rebuked him for changing the house so much. As I awoke, I decided to try a DEILD. Soon enough, I was right back in the dream, but fully lucid this time around.

"Come help me get what we need to undo all of this," my mother commanded of me. I just ignored her, knowing she had no power over me in this dream. As I walked up my front lawn, looking at the heavily decorated house, my brother in the garage, I decided I'd try out the advanced task. So, focusing on nothing in particular, I started to twirl the air in front of me, using my hair as a medium. Sure enough, after a bit of concentration, a thin outline of a tornado started to form and whip wind lightly against my face. I was only able to hold the form for a little while, and it was pretty disappointing. I figured I'd give it another go, so I did, and the result was less than spectacular. "Screw this small scale stuff," I said to myself, out loud, "Let's make a real tornado."

Focusing my attention to the area above my own house, I imagined clouds gathering above it, which wasn't too hard since there were already numerous dark grey clouds in the sky. Recalling pictures of tornadoes I had seen the other day when I was looking for a good image for a previous dream, I began to form the tornado. Swirling the clouds around, I forced ever shrinking rings down from them. Between those rings I willed down a large funnel of swirling, destructive, air, and, sure enough, I had a tornado right in the middle of my house. In seconds the thing was torn apart, splintered wood and paneling flying about the yard. It was pretty sweet.

I couldn't maintain enough control of the tornado to move it, so I just let it disappear, moving onto my neighbors' houses. I repeated the process, it was easier this time around, but the result was just as awesome. Soon, family members started arriving in the court. As I reached the last house, and subsequently destroyed it, my family was distracting me, trying to get me to stop. A little annoyed, I attempted to control this last tornado enough to move it into the path of a few of my family members. I managed to get it right behind them, but due to some falter in control, or my unwillingness to kill those I love, the tornado vanished just before it hit. I decided, that was enough control for one lucid and figured I'd just go with whatever my family wanted to do. Turns out they wanted to watch True Blood on their new entertainment system that had some weird features. Not really in the mood for that, I decided to wake up so I could record this dream.

22.07.2009

Hamburger in Paradise (DILD)

★★★★★

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

'Twas an Epic LD, lots of fighting, but I can't remember too many of the details; it was a long one.

It started out partway into things. I was staying in this odd hotel. It was very large and sprawled out instead of up. The room I was staying in was like any old guest room you'd fine in someone's house, except it was about twice as large. and could fit at least 5 people comfortably. However I was the only one staying there.

Some things happen that I have difficulty recalling in detail, but it involves further developing the area we are in. It turns out the hotel is part of this crappy public school and gang violence is on the rise. I decide I need to leave since this isn't even my school, and half the people here don't even know the school's alma mater. I leave with the counselor, but we are followed by this kid in a red jacket. As we enter the car he pulls out a switchblade and tries to mug us and take the car.

All the while he had been following us I had been fingering the butterfly knife in my pocket and watching his shadow follow ours. I whipped it out and flipped it open, lunging at him. He's much more experience than I am and gets a solid cut across my arm, while I just nick his shoulder. I manage a few wrist cuts, but his form is much better than mine and he tears up my arm and neck, spilling blood everywhere. Not one to give up so easily, I manage to subdue him, and, with several stabs to the head later, he dies.

He turns into a ghost and wonders why I can see him. I explain to him my role in helping people cross over, and give him a stereotypical speel on how he has to scare people in order to gain more energy. It's really dumb, but I don't think so at the time.

I'm back in the hotel room, trying to lie down to sleep. Stuff happens that eventually has me with an old teacher and my brother at the arcade/casino of the hotel. There are some odd games there, one particular game they were playing was like a crane game, but with false gold and odd shaped things inside. They were playing that one for awhile. I told them how dumb it was and how worthless the prizes were, but my old teacher told me to stop spoiling the fun.

At this point, my Chick-Fil-A and Burger King meals were ready, so I took them and started walking away. I wonder how I'm going to eat all this food, but a voice in my head blurts in, saying relax it's a dream, eat away.

Yeah, you're right, it is a dream, I think strolling on as if nothing drastic had really changed. I make my way back to the front doors where this guy shouts, pulls out an uzi, and shouts something along the lines of "Everyone down, unless you want to volunteer to let us have some fun with you." I'm getting a kick out of all the people screaming and dropping to the ground. I just walk up to the guy, bags of food still in my right hand. I say to him, "Yeah, sure I'll volunteer," raising my other hand like you would to volunteer for something in a classroom. He looks at me weird, tells me to stay right there, and then runs back outside where he starts assembling his cohorts. There's a lot of them.

Well, crap, now how am I gonna enjoy my meal. There's no way I can fight that many with only one hand. So I run away. At first they're hot on my tail, but a few short range TPs put enough distance between us for a little more comfort, not that I was worried. The TPs destabilized things a bit, due to the sudden and forcible change in scenery. I stabilized by rubbing my hands together and focusing on the room I was now in. White walls, and lots of people on little white cots. I go into the corner, behind a white shelf that blocks most of the room from view, and pull out the Whopper. I take a bite. I normally don't eat in lucids, but maybe I should, because god this was delicious. The evil dudes were still looking for me and even came into the room and kidnapped a few kids and threw them onto crosses and into cramped coffin like boxes. But, I was chill, knowing it was just a dream, so I just kept eating my burger. It was moist and hot and meaty, with crunchy toppings like cold lettuce and sweet onions and pickles, can't forget those pickles.

At the time I didn't even know I was completing the basic task. *facepalm*

When I was satisfied, I got up and decided to go help those kids from earlier. I needed some more practice, so I did a few more short range TPs until I reached this large archway, with a few henchmen a little further in. I looked at my hand and decided to try out some close range energy blasts, since I suck at them. I start to build up a charge in my right hand and rushed at the closest guard. When they see me, a few random DCs think I'm one of their favorite super heroes and call out what they think is my name. Dumb DCs distract me and all I end up doing is forcibly grabbing the dude's face. To follow up, I punch him in the kidney, bringing my leg behind his, and twist my body, pummeling his head down into the cement ground, creating a big indent in it. With him down, I move onto his friends.

I figure I wouldn't do anything fancy here. Just brute strength and martial arts. A spinning jump hook kick to the head takes out one guy, and the other dude backs off, so I ignore him. Another group of henchmen go scrambling as I approach them. Before they can all get away I grab one by the collar and fling him violently downward, making my way to the carriages that housed the kids, on their crosses, in their coffin-like boxes.

I find myself back in bed.

13.07.2009

Ka-Blammerz! (DILD)

★★★★★

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

This is a long one, so I'll cut out the unimportant bits.

We're on a bus heading out to a lodge somewhere. There are some douche bags on the bus, some antics ensue, not really that important. We're in Florida and heading through some of the sketchier parts. We've been on the bus for awhile, when the driver finally decides to pull over, stating he will not be going through that section of town. Instead, we're going to be walking around it since there's no other route. We get out and start making our way to a swampy area. A car pulls around and the Bus Driver hangs back. Turns out a drug deal or something is going down, and the bus driver gets killed. By now I'm in the swamp, but I can't move very quickly through the slush. On top of that, the people who just offed the bus driver are coming for us now. This triggers that handy dream reflex of mine and in an instant, I'm Flying away.

The best part is I gained lucidity doing it. Sweet, finally, a legit DILD. I stabilized for a moment, rubbing my hands, before deciding to get right on the Task of the Month. I had it all planned out, I was going to activate the Self Destruct power from CoH. I "clicked" on the power (this is really abstract and hard to explain) and started through the animations. The red 10, 9, 8, started counting down over my head. I crossed my arms and hunched over, there was no electricity shooting off my body like in the game animation, but when the countdown hit 0 I released. It was one of the weirdest and coolest sensations ever. I could feel the blast engulfing and vaporizing my pursuers and the classmates around me. I saw pixelated specks of red and puffs of orange as my body became nothingness. I was gone and so were many of the things around me. I floated like that for a moment, in that serene state, before reconstructing my body.

That part wasn't too tricky, it just involved realizing my physical body was in my bed, and emulating what I felt outside the dream. That destabilized it a bit though, and I had to stabilize again. After that, I went into the nearby house and interacted with a few DCs, my lucidity waning, but still there. Most of them were people from the bus I hadn't seen before. The house was filled with old nerf guns and this one guy had a mini uzi that shot needles. I told him to shoot me with it, he did, and I stopped the projectiles a la Neo. After a short time chatting with them, I figured I'd attempt to locate my DG. It had been awhile since I had talked with her, and our last conversation was very insightful. So I casually asked the group if anyone knew where she was.

Surprisingly, they told me she was just up ahead, and sure enough, she came out from the other room. This conversation proved to be almost as insightful as the last one. We talked about the nature of reality, death, and she told me about a few drugs I should look into. I hadn't remembered hearing about these drugs before, but some of them turned out to be real, which was odd. One was Pepp, a hangover relief thingy (I don't drink, so this was weird), and one was Melox, or Meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory. The other one was Persep or something like that, I couldn't find anything on that upon waking. I knew the dream was ending soon, because my stabilization techniques weren't working well. So I said my goodbyes, went over the drugs once more to memorize their names, and woke up.