iarpo
Member

Comment Dream Lucid

Managed to get more sleep last night and I'm definitely getting closer to LDing. Last night I had a familar feeling:

When I first joined DV in 2008 I was experiencing low levels of lucidity (see DJ archive). For example, something would happen in a dream that seemed hyper real or wasn't quite right and a disembodied feeling in the back of my mind would flag it up. In the dream this usually translated as, "Huh, that's strange" but I'd just carry on. It got to the point where it felt like there were two of me dreaming: the one in the dream/behind the camera and the one behind all that watching from afar. A nagging feeling crept into most dreams that all was not quite right. Eventually this came through as full LDs (as brief as they were).

08/08 Donkey Stilts and Rachel Green

I'm zach braff. I'm working in the same office as Rachel Green (Jennifer Anniston, though this was specifically Rachel Green). The office itself is tall and imposing, I don't remember ever seeing the ceiling. It's filled with files and old desks. It looks like an office would look in the film Se7en. Dark green chairs and that washed out grey brown of old wood. There's an almost sepia tint to the place.

Myself and an unseen other are trying to usurp Green, doing our best to make her loook bad and get her sacked. Flagging up any mistakes in her work to our manager (what an arsehole). One specific mistake she made was her failing to capitalise the word which in a report, which doesn't make sense but hey - dream.

If I can succeed in getting her job my pay will bump up to 140 (I assume that's 140k, but in the dream I only said 140)

[Fragment missing]

Next thing I know I'm zach again, this time with Dr Cox from Scrubs. We're in a tall city that feels like NYC, the buildings all have the distinctive architechture a brit associatesd with the place. Stone, very rectangular, lots of ledges, zig zag fire escapes and AC units bolted to the outsides of buildings and of course, steam pouring out of vents everywhere. It's late dusk, the colours in this dream are even more washed out, like colour photo that's sunbleached close to sepia. The air feels heavy, really heavy. (I'm starting to notice these as potential dream signs: heavy air and distinct colour palletes)

We're some 10 stories high, stood on a 10x6 sheet of wood with stilts. There's a donkey on its back tied to the board. From each corner pieces of 2x4 meet in the middle forming a roof-like structure on the board. Myself and Dr Cox are stood on either side as counter balances to each other.

I feel like the stilts are attached to my legs as we walk this bizarre contraption across the city. We hold onto incredibly long guide poles resting between the roofs of buildings seom 200 metres apart. They're not attached to the stilts by anything more than the two of us holding on.

Inevitably we fall from the platform, spiralling round and down. Rather than yelling and panicking we calmly tell each other to grab this ledge, turn that way, try the next one. (In the back of mind something isn't right. IT's the fact that the camera has moved quite far away to take in the action, but our voices are still heard as though right next to me, as though badly dubbed. This is the disembodied second dreamer I was talking about).

When we do grab a ledge, hanging off a small spire on a slanting roof we'#re fine, then suddenly realise how stupid that was and start yelling at each other. We calm down and start to look for something else.



#2 Motorbike Suitcases

I'm myself again, stood in Valencia with Rachel Green, it's an overcast evening. Recalls a bit sketchy but I do remember the air seemed to have grown heavier with each dream and the sky hung low with heavy clouds. The streets are filled with architecture from Medieval to Roman to Modernisme, all very European (you know I'm not really into architecture as a hobby but my dreams always have a very distinctive style relevant to the dream. I'm learning quite a bit in trying to describe the style in my DJ). The colours seem even more washed out than previous dreams, mainly differing shades of brown.



We're walking near an open cobbled square with our cigarettes not quite sure if we're in the right time zone. All around us people are putting away there belingings in hatches beneath the street. Certain parts of the cobbles open up into vault like hatches, either swinging upwards or revealing a set of steps down to a shallow recess. They're everywhere, filled with shelves. Some have futuristic concoels, others are simply ornate lock and key systems.

We approach the traffic lights when the sky cracks with thunder, the air pressing in all around us, electric. Rachel dashes across the street just before the traffic lights change back and I'm left waiting. I pull out my cigarettes, a brand of American Spirit Menthols I've never seen before, the pack dark blue. The filters are filled with large uniform holes, each pumping out smoke like a miniature factory. The camera zooms into high defition macro shots making the disembodied me yell something's wrong (for those who don't smoke, quite a few cigarette tabs are perforated to varying degrees to cool the smoke down and make it less harsh. I always cover them up personally which is a bit of a pain when you do come across them). As I light it I feel like The Shit - superpowered, and I stride across the street.

On the other side I need to look for some underwear, but we don't have suitcases full of clothes, instead we have motorbikes.



The engine block has been taken out and replaced with well crafted rigid plastic compartments that sit flush to the frame. As I shuffle through the angular compartments the air feels heavy, really heavy.

Broken Teeth

Comment Dream Lucid

I was stood outside my room. Inside my room was a wood panelled room, Godfather-esque. Various shady dealings went on inside. Outside however I was left to my own devices with a mirror. My teeth kept falling out, the entire left side of my mouth collapsed and I was left, vividly, with a handful of broken teeth. I'd look in the mirror and was able to open my mouth as wide as a cat to see the damage. I was terrified, showing people the handful of broken teeth, looking at the carnage in my mouth. It felt so real. I woke up petrified about my teeth and went straight to the supermarket and spent a tenner on toothpaste, mouthwash and toothbrushes.

Generally fuzzy recall

Zebra Parrot

A Macaw parrot, with patterns like a zebra, was stood inside a small circle of pebbles. It had a ritual of going round each pebble and rubbing the each side of it's beak on each pebble. I had the notion of MILDs floating around but quite how the two went together was beyond me.




Salt

I'm a detective in special branch. I've been on Salt's case for a while now, otherwise kown as Angelina Jolie. She's working as an assassin, in partnership with another unknown party. I've tracked her down to a warehouse, dispatching the guards along the way.

When I get to her she calmy offers me a deal to become her partner. I guess she's pretty compelling because I accept immediately, however, I have to take out her current ally.

I go to his warehouse (I guess assassins like warehouses). It's a large building with a second floor walkway suspended on high tension wires with a steel grill floor. The assassins henchmen come in two types, each stationed in pairs. The grunts wear yellow overalls and are pretty easy to kill from cover. The better trained commandos wear green overalls and require flanking manouevers, sometimes I need to get up close and personal. At the end is a tall dark store room, shelves packed to the rafters 15 metres above. It's here that the fighting gets fierce and I find the assassin, larger and dressed in blue overalls and holding Salt hostage. After killing him she reveals she's been playing me against a third person she might recruit. She's already leaked to him what I'm doing and where I am. The shouts outside start to echo through the building, his men are moving in, he hasn't come himself. More fighting, more killing, and I'm still standing.

I have a plan, I arrest Salt and throw her into the back of an armoured police van, much to her displeasure. If he won't show up in person I need to lure him out, present a target he can't resist. In the driver's seat I put out an open channel police call that I'm bringing in Salt, all units to assist, knowing he'll pick up the message on a scanner. With most of his men dispatched he'd have to come do this himself.

Barreling along a dark, industrial city street it turns out he does have some men left. Kicking open the back door of the van we have a high speed gun fight, flames everywhere. I've taken out the first assassin and his men, most of the second's men. He appears in a car, right in my sights. Everything is going to plan.

Ice Cream Motorcade

On a council estate the ten armoured ice cream vans drive two abreast, a motorcade hogging the road. All the kids are chasing and laughing with glee.

Inside the vans are ten clear containers of thick glass. Each a rounded cube with no visible way to open them. Each contains a mysterious and valuable thick brown syrup. They’re arranged in the same formation as the vans, two abreast and five deep.

When one of the trucks crashes a cube of the liquid rolls over, splitting in two. The liquid holds it’s form for the most part, oozing at the speed of a glacier.

In The Closet

We’re chasing the bus through East Morton, a small village I used to live in. The kids are there waiting for us. As we’re running there’s piles of processed meat in the road, like piles of horse muck. As we’re chasing the bus it runs over a few piles, meat exploding out and as we stamp on them the same happens. Mechanically reclaimed meat is splattered all over the road, graphic and in maximum high definition detail.

[fragment missing]

It’s the early 90’s in Leeds, we’re moving out of our house, boxes are piled everywhere. I only see one of the rooms, a sparse bedroom, brown textured wallpaper that probably started life cream hangs onto the wall. There’s a single bed, tall and worn, next to a glass front cabinet filled with shelves, maybe six feet tall.

A new guy’s moving in, his hair black and floppy, wearing a striped knitted jumper - quite emo. He emerges from the adjoining room, conspicuous in it’s mystery, the door seeming more real than real. He’s not coming out with us, deciding instead to hide from someone. However he chooses to hide in the cabinet. The glass fronted cabinet, with small shelves. He presses himself in trying to close the door. Somehow he manages, the glass warping around his features. We stand looking at him, ridiculous. He ushers us on so as not to give him away - idiot. Though he did lend me a book on Gothic films.

As we leave, another housemate says hello to me, inconspicuous and throwaway. But it’s laden with emotion, with unrequited love for me. It took all her confidence to say hi to me, that one word filled longing. I know this and make a mental note to talk to her next time I see her and check out is she’s hot. That’s for another time though, right now we have to leave.

We step outside, the door to the bedroom leading immediately onto the street. The air’s heavy with imminent rain and electricity. It’s early 90’s, and as we walk to college the camera swoops high, taking in the vista of the city, everything subtly tinted sepia. It swoops here and there in impressive aerial shots before sweeping back down at the college, where we’re just arriving. We study advertising and one of my tutors is Jeff Goldblum.