Thread: Task of the Month for September 2014

Finally a lucid dream again!!
Thank you once more and so much ~Dreamer~ for your help!

I dreamt, that I was working in a hospital, and wanted to smoke a cigarette in the night and went searching for an exit. And it got rather ludicrous and labyrinthine and I didn't find one. Aha! DREAM!!

I found myself in the ante-room of an operating theatre, when it clicked and first thought was - a fortune cookie. So I looked into a drawer, there was none, but I conjured one in plain sight, that was a first for me.
I let optics swim a bit, pretending to half-close my eyes and "made" one out of something round, opened it - empty. Then I summoned one behind me on the floor, it was huge, maybe 15 cm - and in it was again no wisdom, but only crumbles. Very frustrating buut - there were lots of shoes, too, in a shelf.
So I took a pair of trainers, put them on and - tadaa - I got them tied up properly! Took me two/three tries, but it worked.

So next I tried it with expecto patronum, but unfortunately this didn't bring me anywhere, no purple zebras, not even a mouse. Very sad - I'm going to try that again! The cookie, too. Instead I found my exit and thought about working on my dares, but that also didn't bring me anywhere. Na well - it's finally wiiinx again!!
I had about two weeks dry patch before yesterday a little lucid moment and now this - soo happy - it was a rather long one, too!

Hey, nice to see you got it!! I had a short semi-lucid, where I was playing Frozen Free Fall and changed the crystals into shoes. I was so happy to see a whole line of shoes destroyed, thinking that I finally got to do it

Originally Posted by KestrelKat

This was a fail but OMG was it great:

Spoiler for "TOTM FAIL: Patronus":

I don't remember much about the dream before I got lucid, but I was in a room with lots of drawers. The room had no doors and no windows and was really tall. I realized this was weird and looked down at my hands, to find that I was dreaming!

I looked around, and remembered the TOTM for the patronus. I've been so excited to try this one! I think. First I need to find a magic wand!

I go to one of the drawers in the walls, and hold the handle, thinking about how I wanted a magic wand and there was probably one in this drawer. I opened it, and pulled out a blue-and-purple dildo. I was laughing so hard I lost all control and woke up.

Well... next lucid you will get it for sure....

Even though, I can picture was will come out from your patronus...

LOL I DID get lucid again last night, and I did complete the task! I'm writing it down still. No vibrators this time, though. HAHA!

Originally Posted by KestrelKat

LOL I DID get lucid again last night, and I did complete the task! I'm writing it down still. No vibrators this time, though. HAHA!

Woo I can't wait to read it!

And congrats Steph on the bonus!!!

Spoiler for TOTM: Patronus and Fortune Cookie:

I flew into the city, and something made me look down at my hands. I had a weird sort of there-but-not-there second thumb, and so I knew that I was dreaming! I was already flying, and so I just sort of went up further, to the roof of the building next to me. It looked like there was some sort of fancy dinner party on the roof, and I flew up to a table. I had the Patronus task on my mind already, and didn't want a repeat of the last attempt, so instead of trying to find a wand, I just picked up a butter knife and called it good.

I turned away from the dinner party with my butter knife in hand, and looked into my own wavey, slightly distorted reflection in the mirror-like window-covered wall of the building next to this one. I yelled, "Expecto Patronum!" and there was a blue-ish purple-ish and somehow also orange-ish glow from the end of the knife. I made myself focus on a happy memory, which happened to be a time in Austria with Zukin, when we were hiking. I yelled, "Expecto Patronum!" again, and this time there was more light, and a shadow of something large on the windows of the other building. I focused on the blurry shape and realized it was Mewtwo.

Fuck. Yeah.

I watched my badass patronus fly around, then dismissed it with a smile. I was pretty happy with this lucid dream so far! I thought of what other task I could try, and remembered the fortune cookie one. That was the other one I was pretty excited to try.

I fly back to the dinner party, and found the bar tender lady at the edge of the roof. I first asked for something to drink, and got some bubbly in a dainty glass with gold flecks around the rim. I landed on the roof and milled amongst the people, sipping my drink, and then I went back to the bartender lady. I asked for a fortune cookie this time. She grudgingly said, "Alright, fine," and reached under the bar, handing me a fortune cookie. I grinned and stuck it in my pocket. I had the feeling that I should wait to open it. That I should first fly down to the ground level of the building. I hovered around the front entrance, hoping to meet Zukin. Lowe and behold, I opened the door to find her waiting for me in the lobby.

"Hey Zukin! I'm lucid right now! We're in a dream!" She just kinda stared at me. "Can you remember any of the lucid tasks this month?" I asked, hoping that my subconscious mind could give me a hint on the other tasks, all of which I keep forgetting, even IWL.

She stared at me again, shrugged, and then said, "Let's go to the bathroom. I gotta pee."

I put my drink down against a wall and followed her to the bathroom (STILL not remembering the flushing task. And what a hint I'd given myself, too! I actually had to check the forum and then laughed at myself for not getting it). I watched her go into one of the stalls, and sat on the sink while she used the toilet. I took out my fortune cookie, and took it out of the wrapping. I inhaled as I cracked it open, and was surprised to see a rather large, folded piece of paper inside. I unfolded it, and there was a lot of text. First, a whole bunch of rather large numbers (large for a fortune cookie, that is) and then some random words, and more numbers. I realized the numbers and words kept changing when I looked away, so I tried not to take my eyes off the numbers and words as I got out my phone, hoping to write them down. Silly me. Lucky thing is, writing things helps me remember them, so I remember many of the numbers and words I saw. It was something like this:

87 69 899 99 99 99 56 72 12

Money
Moshy

88 54 23

Honey
Honey

And then more words and numbers. Lots of them. It was weird.

I laughed, and Zukin came out of the stall. "What's so funny?" She asked, washing her hands.

"This fortune. You know we're in a dream, right?" I recently read a book that described a method for inducing shared dreams, and this is what I was trying with her. I just found out she likely wasn't even asleep when I had this dream, which may be why it never worked... "This fortune is on crack, look at it. It keeps changing." Even as I passed her the paper, I could see that the numbers and words were changing, though the format was always the same. always the same amount of words and numbers, always in the same place and with the same number of digits or letters.

This dream was awesome! there was more after that, but it wasn't related to the tasks. Full Dream

Money Moshy
Honey Honey!!

I don't think subCs get the point of fortunes. And Congrats!!

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

Money Moshy
Honey Honey!!

I don't think subCs get the point of fortunes. And Congrats!!

Yeah at least mine doesn't haha. Especially since it kept changing lol
It got the format right. When you get to the basic parts of a fortune, you know there should be some numbers and some words. But the content, sheeeeesh.

Originally Posted by KestrelKat

Yeah at least mine doesn't haha. Especially since it kept changing lol
It got the format right. When you get to the basic parts of a fortune, you know there should be some numbers and some words. But the content, sheeeeesh.

Ikr! Mine was a nasty poem and a phone number.

So my subC obviously doesn't know the difference between a fortune cookie and a bathroom wall.

Awesome job you two

I was having a dry spell for the first two weeks of September, which bummed me out because I really wanted to try both the fortune cookie task and the Patronus Charm. Luckily last night I had an amazing long dream in which I managed to pull off both! I didn't stop there but since I already had the wand handy I also worked on "Leviosa" and "Expelliamus." The dream had such clarity and detail that after I wrote it all up my DJ entry was shockingly long. Here's the TLDR version: DJ entry

I'll repost the parts most relevant to the TOTMs here:

Spoiler for Fortune Cookie TOTM:

I walk toward the kitchen counter, expecting to find a bag of fortune cookies ready to hand. Sure enough, there is a clear plastic bag right where I expect, but as I reach for it I see that it contains... what are those, pierogies? I laugh because they look almost like fortune cookies and are anything but, and it is just like dream to bait and switch this way. I pick up the bag and reach into it anyway, focusing my expectations around pulling out a proper fortune cookie, and by the time my hand closes around something, I can tell that it is falling into line: it has the dry smooth surface, distinctive shape and ridges of a fortune cookie. I pull it out and break it in half to get the fortune. I remember that I'm supposed to eat the cookie too, so I start nibbling at it while extracting the fortune, which was wedged inside the cookie in a crumpled up wad. As I smooth it, I see that the little strip of paper is covered with what looks like dabs of herb butter mixed with little shreds of nori seaweed, a kind of east-west fusion of ingredients. I'm disappointed to see that there is no writing on the paper at all, just the seasonings.

No problem, the bag contains several cookies. I'll just get another. I try again, and fortunately the next cookie contains a larger slip of paper, one that comes out properly this time and contains actual text—quite a lot of text actually, four or five lines of it. I start to read it, murmuring aloud to help fix it in memory. It starts something like: "And earth her allies rift..." It goes on from there, not making much sense, and worse, by the time I get to the second line the first one is already changing, now "her allies" looks like it has been replaced by something in German, "die Beile."

(Weird, according to my German dictionary app "die Beile" means "axes, hatchets." I've studied a bit of German, which is why I have the app, but I'm not aware that I've ever learned that word and didn't even know if it was a real one until I looked it up.)

I continue reading the fortune, and by the time I get to the end the first line has changed again even more, and I'm pretty sure so has everything else. I realize this is somewhat hopeless, the fortune was so long that it would have been hard enough to remember even if it were static, much less track all the changes, so I just determine to remember the part that I read initially, since I think I can keep at least this much in working memory: "And earth her allies rift."

By this point the fortune has transformed into a large plastic wrapper like the sort that might have wrapped a whole box of cookies, and as I continue to look at it, I'm surprised by how much additional text is written on the side in small print: mundane details like the address of the manufacturer, etc. I see a date, "1945," and note that the place of manufacture is San Francisco, which makes sense (wasn't the fortune cookie invented there?) but by now the date has already changed to "1929."

Spoiler for Patronus Charm:

Having done fortune cookies, I thought I should put all my focus now into completing the Patronus TOTM. Once more I reach for my wand and once again come up empty-handed. No matter, I've used a chopstick as a wand before with great success, and I keep a jar of those right on the kitchen counter, so I walk up to it and pluck a nice sturdy one. Although the jar is mostly full of delicately-pointed Japanese chopsticks, I choose a sturdier one of the Chinese type, cut half-square and half-round. It looks just like one of my real chopsticks, from a simple and practical set I acquired many years ago in Nonthaburi because I didn't know I was supposed to give them back to the door-to-door noodle vendor, and it feels comfortable and familiar in my hand.

I figure that it would be most appropriate to summon a Patronus if there were a real threat, but I don't want to over-complicate things by going to look for one. I reason that since my husband was annoying me just now with the boxes and almost woke me up, this could serve as a sufficient stand-in. So I find him in the living room, point the wand toward him and say firmly, "Expecto Patronum!" I hear an audible "pop" like something bursting but see no change in the visual field. I try again and nothing happens at all. I strengthen my resolve, try a third time, and... what is that?... I look closer... it's... moths! The air between us where I was aiming the wand is now occupied with a cloud of small shimmering moths!

I'm delighted with these results because they were so unexpected. I figured my Patronus would turn out to be something predictable like a type of animal I like, maybe a cat or an owl or a raven or even a horse, but moths had never crossed my mind! However, I had intentionally left the form of the Patronus unspecified, because I was hoping the dream would collaborate with me creatively and come up with something interesting and unanticipated, and in this respect it fulfilled its role splendidly.

Moths! I would never have consciously arrived at this solution, but now it makes perfect sense: I am very much a night person, after all, and these are definitely night moths. I watch them for a few moments, entranced by the glitter and sparkle of their silver bodies in flight. They are relatively small, with wingspans of roughly three-quarters of an inch, but there is a whole cloud of them, many dozens filling an area several feet on either side. Although we are indoors, they appear to be illuminated by moonlight. It is incredibly beautiful. And they've fulfilled the function of a Patronus, it seems, in that they have averted the "threat" (such as it was) and completely defused the tension in the room. My husband is watching them too, and appears just as enchanted with them as I am.

I just realized that I misspelled "Expelliarmus" in the post above as well as throughout my entire DJ entry... but "Expelliamus" is how it sounds to us over here in the colonies!

Congrats Verre!

You know, one of us should make a post and list all the members' names with a pic of their patronuseses. For old time's sake. Well, in the future it'll be for old time's sake, but I'm just looking ahead.

I'm going to post what mine looked like, to the best of my ability. Actually this is pretty damn close (just the mane and tail were purple too, not gold):

Originally Posted by Kestrelkat

Money
Moshy

88 54 23

Maybe those were lottery numbers?

Originally Posted by KestrelKat

This was a fail but OMG was it great:

Spoiler for "TOTM FAIL: Patronus":

I don't remember much about the dream before I got lucid, but I was in a room with lots of drawers. The room had no doors and no windows and was really tall. I realized this was weird and looked down at my hands, to find that I was dreaming!

I looked around, and remembered the TOTM for the patronus. I've been so excited to try this one! I think. First I need to find a magic wand!

I go to one of the drawers in the walls, and hold the handle, thinking about how I wanted a magic wand and there was probably one in this drawer. I opened it, and pulled out a blue-and-purple dildo. I was laughing so hard I lost all control and woke up.

This may be my favourite TotM fail ever! I am liking the sound of an awards ceremony more and more!

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

Congrats Verre!

You know, one of us should make a post and list all the members' names with a pic of their patronuseses. For old time's sake. Well, in the future it'll be for old time's sake, but I'm just looking ahead.

I'm going to post what mine looked like, to the best of my ability. Actually this is pretty damn close (just the mane and tail were purple too, not gold):

Yes please, Verre!
And here you go, OpheliaBow:



Oh, and I got a little giggle out of this one, nicely done!

Last edited by OpheliaBlue; Today at 07:25 AM. Reason: Combino Patronum!

Hoping I can post this...my antivirus for some reason won't let me visit this page.

Task of the Month - Try 1

I don't remember yet how I got lucid, but something caused me to do a reality check.

I was in an industrial area when I decided that I wanted to do the fortune cookie Task of the Month. I wasn't sure where I would find a fortune cookie here. It was also kind of dark and spookie. Between two buildings I saw what looked like Chewbacca scurrying past. Ugh. This was going to get creepy if I stayed. I launched off the ground and into the air but the dream was unstable.

Task of the Month - Try 2

I DEILD'd from the previous dream into a new one. I was now standing outside someone's house, so I thought I could probably find a fortune cookie there. I went through the door and looked around. Sure enough, I found one.

I broke open the cookie and read my fortune:

ACHT! What's less than 2 but greater than 5 but smaller than 1 and multiplied by 6.7 and added by 1 and divided by 3 and greater than 4?

I don't fucking know? What kind of fortune is that?

I saw a bunch of fortune cookies in a basket that had been nibbled on already. Someone was hoarding fortunes here. I picked one up, and it made less sense than the last.

LESS than 5 gREAter than 2 smaller than -0 multiplied by 80!

Christ on a bike. I did not get lucid to do math on acid. There were more fortunes, but with each successive read they just got worse and worse.

The dream got unstable.

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

And congrats Steph on the bonus!!!

Thank youhuu!!
My first bonus ever - that was quite easy - thanks to NyxCC!
Great patronus, too, your unicorn! I really need to try this again - I also want such a phantastic creature.

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

You know, one of us should make a post and list all the members' names with a pic of their patronuseses. For old time's sake. Well, in the future it'll be for old time's sake, but I'm just looking ahead.

Superb idea - one more reason to dream my very own "Krafttier". That would mean"power-animal" and is a quasi-term for a spiritually associated personal animal. I really need to meet mine - so curious, what it will turn out to be.


Congratulations KestrelKat and Verre and Queen Zukin, too!!

Must have been cool to meet Mewtwo - very suited for a power-animal:

Oh, lol. I misread that and thought you were nominating Verre to compile the patronuses... patroni?
If it's not done before I get time, I'll do that.
Maybe Nightfeather will step in like last month with the foreign words!

Originally Posted by ~ Dreamer ~

Oh, lol. I misread that and thought you were nominating Verre to compile the patronuses... patroni?
If it's not done before I get time, I'll do that.
Maybe Nightfeather will step in like last month with the foreign words!

Yessss, I was hoping you'd volunteer

And thank you, brilliant job on purplifying my patronus, Dreamer :heart:

What a cool experience with the moths Verre! It's almost as though the energy of the tension was transformed into the beautiful spectacle of moths. Tension diffused and instant beauty in the moment. Nice! And Congrats!!!

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

Yessss, I was hoping you'd volunteer

And thank you, brilliant job on purplifying my patronus, Dreamer :heart:

K, just gotta sleep and flush myself down a toilet first!

Originally Posted by StephL

Must have been cool to meet Mewtwo - very suited for a power-animal:

It WAS pretty awesome. And totally unexpected. It's hard not to have any expectations about it, but I had been assuming it would be a platypus this whole time. I didn't even consider it would be a Pokémon! And Mewtwo at that. At first, it was like an anti-Mewtwo, more like a large black shape with a shining starburst of blue, puple, orange light behind it. As soon as I focused on it, I recognized the shape and then it was there for real, glowing and watching me. So cool.

Now that I think about it, it was like one of those "Who's that Pokémon" commercials haha!

Originally Posted by ~ Dreamer ~

K, just gotta sleep and flush myself down a toilet first!

That's my next goal if I get lucid again this month. I really wish I had remembered it, but ah well. There is always next time!

And yeah, that fail... It's actually one of my favorite lucids so far, just because of how... perfect it was haha!

I did something, I know I did something...

Spoiler for : Related to the Basic Task ii and Advanced Task ii:

.../I see my shoes and I remember the related TOTM. I think I'll find a pair of shoes in the next space. Crossing the doorframe, I turn to my right and see a pair of velcro shoes, for men this time, next to a waterway. I don't waste my time and sit next to them to take mine out. I start with my right foot and just pull the shoe out. The laces just follow the motion, like it was not tied. I do the same with the left foot and see that the laces seem to be tied around my ankle again. I just pull it harder and goes out with no problem. I put the velcro shoes on and stand up to see the tapes are not properly adjusted. A minor detail I think then I turn and start walking somewhere when I remember the Expecto Patronus task! I want to do this one since it seems to be pretty easy. I hold a stick from the ground thinking that it may work good for a wand, point it to the front and say the words. I see a bit of smoke rising from the tip like it is an incense stick. I go to the next space and repeat it again more confidently. More smoke rises from the tip. The place is still empty, no animal, no bug, nothing. I turn and see inside a mirror hanging on the wall of what apparently was a room. I see a blurry reflection of me, and remember that I must feel specially happy to do this task. My first thought is sex! Ok, I think about the good feeling and say the words louder. My throat hurts a little. More smoke and I start looking around to see something, when I see the shadow of an eagle moving on the floor. I turn to the skies to see it, but it's a dark night sky. Then I hear it screeching, like it's flying away. I don't know if it counts but I decide to properly adjust my shoes when I start feeling the whole dream is fading.

Well, I don't know how far did I get this time... It seems to me that at least I completed the Basic Task ii, but the Advanced one could be incomplete because of I didn't directly see the animal, I just saw the shadow of an eagle and heard it screeching.

Aah now I know, why I didn't find my patronus - I forgot about the wand!!
So next time it will work, hurrah! Hopefully...

Congrats on the wings, Box!!!

Originally Posted by StephL

Aah now I know, why I didn't find my patronus - I forgot about the wand!!
So next time it will work, hurrah! Hopefully...

Just so you know, according to the HP books, it IS possible to do spells without wand or incantation, if the will is strong enough. Which is basically lucid dreaming for us huh! Still, if a wand + happy thought helps get the job done, then so be it.

This task is an interesting experiment.