Thread: Task of the Month for February 2015

Thanks Ophelia, no probs!

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

Caught up on wings again.

Dreamer: oops I skipped over yours for some reason.. happens alot when I wing from work on my phone, sorryyyy

Missed mine too!
It's all good yo

I summoned a storm and few into it! This was an awesome idea for a task, even if I wasn't completely satisfied with my rendition of it. I think it adequately met the terms of the TOTM, though. Full dream entry: "Storm and Song."

Relevant excerpt:

I half-wake from an unremarkable NLD and realize I can DEILD. As I transition I can distinctly hear a woman's voice speaking, though she wasn't saying anything memorable. After a while I hear a new voice a man responding, and figure this is a good sign, suggesting that the hynagogic state is deepening toward dream. As soon as I feel like I am fully transitioned, I get out of bed. I remember the task I had intended: the storm TOTM. I go outside, intending to summon it, but the dream does not yet feel stabilized and my surroundings become vague. I retransition and realize that there's no reason I should feel constrained by concepts like "inside" and "outside," and decide to summon the storm from right in my bedroom. I look up at the ceiling and it becomes transparent, so that I can see the sky overhead. It is half-lit, with faint stars and gauzy clouds: I will the couds to thicken and darken.

After another spell of vagueness, maybe a retransition, I go back outside to see if there is evidence of a storm yet. It is working! There is a patch of very heavy dark clouds overhead. It it not yet a full-blown storm so I work on it a little more. I raise my hands and shout, "Wind!" I am modeling this on the scene from the film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) where he conjures the clouds so it will get dark faster. I decide to add a little more panache: "WIND AND FIRE!" I yell, still gesticulating at the sky. The clouds are roiling and I do see patches of fire, so when it is sufficiently apocalyptic, I fly directly up into the cloudbank.

The effect is disappointing: I have no real sensory impressions apart from sight, and the visibility is very poor. It is hard to distinguish the greyness inside the clouds from the greyness of unformed dream, except that I notice that the fire has coalesced into vaguely anthropomorphic forms that resemble elementals or demons. Although they are distant and none moves to threaten me, I feel vaguely anxious and start singing to reassure myself. The dream destabilizes and I retransition.

Hey guys! It's been awhile since I've posted, as I've gone on hiatus again. I think I've had one or two lucids since my last visit, but I haven't logged them and I can't remember them now. However today I thought I'd drop by and say hi because in two days I'm officially a five year veteran at DV! And I want to say I hope I can get back on track with lucid dreaming again and do these tasks! It's been very hard to get good recall and even harder than ever to become lucid because there's so much on my plate right now with college just around the corner, having a stressful job, and having a lot of financial problems. So I hope everything can pick up soon! Thanks for five good years Dream Views!

Originally Posted by blobularwindmil

Missed mine too!
It's all good yo

I got your basic wings a while ago, did I miss another totm?

Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

I got your basic wings a while ago, did I miss another totm?

Cool! Thank ya, that'll be all for now, nothing more for me!

Derp, nevermind.. I DID miss it and gab made the save. Sorry about that blobularwondmill. Sometimes I need them second pair of eyeballs

Also thanks gab

Got the basic done:

Spoiler for LD:

A man who looks something like a 17th C puritan minister knocks on the door and walks in, saying he has found our garage door key in the street. He gives it to me and I thank him, but he starts saying about how a cup of tea wouldn't go amiss and I'm suddenly I'm not so sure about this guy and how he's currently standing in my hallway. I ask him to leave, but there's now a whole gang of his associates starting to enter. I barge them all out of the house and there's a struggle pushing the door closed as they all push against it. I get it shoved shut and then get Jack to lock the key. I go to the back door, to make sure that's locked in case some of them are trying the back way, when I realise none of this matters because I'm dreaming! I go back into the kitchen and touch various pieces of furniture to ground myself. I enter the lounge and remember the blame a DC task. I notice my parents pulling into the drive and take a large lamp and throw it through the window. It smashes in a satisfying manner. My mum comes to the window, laughing, asking what was that for? I immediately say, Jack did it, and she responds that she saw me do it, still laughing.

I also tried (repeatedly) for the candy store task, but I'm still finding teleportation to a desired scene a struggle. A fun, and quite long, LD though.

^^ You know, I don't think I've ever broken anything in a LD. I believe that is a basic "asserting your lucidity" test from Dutchraptor. Sounds fun!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

^^ You know, I don't think I've ever broken anything in a LD. I believe that is a basic "asserting your lucidity" test from Dutchraptor. Sounds fun!

It was so vivid I had to RC again! This LD was great (you can check it out on my DJ). I think the whole thing lasted about 45 mins but I've got a lot of recall gaps from how often I was dipping in and out, I think I must have dream chained about 4 times, which I think is a record for me. I was really impressed by my clarity of thinking in this one, it did feel like I'd tapped into most of my waking cognition, up until the end.

Tell me more about these "asserting your lucidity" tests.

^^ I can't find the reference now (help anyone who has it) but it has a list of things to you should do in a dream to prove/raise you have a high level of lucidity:

eg., break some object dear to you, there are more...

^^ It's from the dream control class. Breaking an expensive vase is mentioned in week 2 exercises.

http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-cont...ilization.html

@ Ctharlhie - nice one! Congrats!

We had a task a few years ago to break whatever you wanted. Since most of my LDs start out in my house, the DC version of my son and I broke wine glasses and eggs against the wall. It was fun to break stuff ofc, but I also loved telling Chris it was ok to break stuff haha

edit: Oh I meant to add, that I don't recall if breaking things raised my level of lucidity, it may have. In retrospect, it felt very freeing to break the rules like that. Maybe that does actually help with that "lucidity assertion" that Dutchraptor talks about. Which is another reason I like messing with DCs. Lucid dreams for me are not just about breaking laws of physics, but also breaking laws of social behavior. I feel like it frees your mind a bit, so you're less stuck in a waking-life state of mind, if that makes sense.

Oh noes, half way through the month and still nothing from me, mainly since I haven't had any lucids longer than 15 seconds...

I'm trying to get myself excited for these tasks. Kind of gonna mix it up on the storm task. Song of Storms anyone?

Achieved the advanced task of the month about the candy store! Here's the bit where I do it:

"After the other group bought their candies, it was my turn. I asked him for the strangest candy he offered and he gave me a black little kind of sponge, 2x2cm, with a white and green sign in the middle. He said it tasted like Red Bull. I had a bite, but I've never had Red Bull before, so my brain was like "taste not found", and it didn't taste like much, maybe just a bit sweet."

Here's the whole entry:
Strange candy - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Doing, BT 1, that sounds fun.

My goal was the basic task 2, even though I didn't make it this time I just thought I could post what happened

I was on a train and I looked out the window. The view was amazing and it changed continuously. A ghostly sea and then a futuristic city full of murals.
Then, I found myself in a place that was still on the train, but open air. With me, there was a black guy wearing the uniform of the people who worked there.
I looked at him like if I was forgetting something.. Wait, I'm dreaming! I immediately remembered the task, so I asked him if he could give me a Valentine card.
He became very shy and walked back a little (like if I was some kind of maniac) and then said: "But.. who said that?" I interpreted it as being: "Who said
that I have to give it to YOU." .... But I felt that he was in love with somebody else, so he was kind of excused.. To tell the truth I was not very confident that
I would have received a spontaneous Valentine card from a DC.. So I tried to convince him a little, saying that he had one right in his pocket or something like that.
But he would continue to back away xD Then I felt everything trembling and the dream collapsed.

I should work on stabilization and expectation or confidence.. I'll try again! It was fun :-)

I manged to get the Advanced Task 1
Here is full dream:"The Eye of the Storm"

Spoiler for ToTM:

I started to think to myself I wanted to do something and the ToTM came to me, a storm. I see a window, and I try to go through by jumping. I got rejected and fell back down, I felt temporarily pain. I shake it off. I see a window that is open. I started to imagine the storm. First some dark clouds rushed in, then it started to spiral around itself. It looked like a mixture of a tornado and hurricane. I remembered reading somewhere that the eye of the storm is actually peaceful. I decide to go to it.

I felt hesitant to jump out a window since my normal flight is a take off not a suicide jump. I jumped anyways and my flight was weak at first. I went through the clouds. I didn't feel any rain or wind. As I got closer and closer to the eye of the storm the wind and rain started to kick in. I try my hardest to get closer and closer to the storm. I reached out to get inside the eye of the storm and the cloud was literally a solid object I could hold. I then felt a great deal of water soak my body. I felt powerless. I have a fear of waking up, so I ended up waking up.

First time I have completed the Tasks for a few months. I really enjoy being able to complete basic and advanced in one dream!

Spoiler for Basic:

I focused on a counter that was right next to me and looked at it and felt it, it was wood and I could see the grain moving through it, I knew it was a dream at this point. I thought of a lucid task and thought of the doing something naughty and blaming it on a DC. I had to find something, I turned around pondering and found a popcorn cart, one with glass and the popcorn inside. I hit the back side of the glass and it broke. I pointed at a girl with me and the girl behind the cart wasn’t looking and didn’t notice. I then banged the side of the cart and tried to get her attention, she looked up and I pointed to the broken glass to show her what happened. I then pointed at the DC I was with again. The DC working the cart got a scooper full of popcorn and dumped it on the girl I blamed it on.

Spoiler for Advanced:

I left the little area I was in with the cart and thought about the storm task. I was in a mall like area and saw a stand with lemons on it. I grabbed a lemon which turned into an orange and I ripped it open and began to eat it, or at least the juice out of it. It was juicy and had very little taste. I saw some doors going outside; it was day time and not a cloud in the sky. As I opened the doors I yelled ‘focus’ and the dream came in focus a bit more. Out on a balcony type area below me way down was a river that was in between two green mountainous areas. This balcony was way up in the sky compared to where the river was. I began to focus on clouds rolling in and it surprised me how easy the atmospherics would change. I made the clouds come in and then made them darker and darker. The clouds dropped way down almost touching the river. I had the bottom parts of the cloud very dark almost night and began to see lightning erupt from the bottom all around the river. This excited me and I began to float in the air preparing to fly into the clouds and then woke.

My dreams froze at -18 so I stuck them in the ground for fence posts ?

Did the Bonus Task! It was a little weird, but I think it worked lol
~Full Dream~

Spoiler for Microwaving Myself!:

I DEILD again, walk to the front door, then stop as I remember the Bonus TOTM: microwave yourself. I look over my shoulder at the microwave in the kitchen and get this epic feeling. I'm kind of scared of doing it, but decide it's no big deal. I walk over there, open the microwave and cram myself in as far as I will go. I expectantly wait for the microwave to grow or for myself to shrink. Nothing happens. I keep expecting and kinda push with my legs. I feel like I go in a little further, but the microwave just feels like it's stuck around my shoulders. I grab it and pull it down around me. I feel like it's surrounding me, but it has turned into a kind of plastic box with no top or bottom that just barely fits around me. I pull it all the way down and set it on the ground around my feet. I feel like something is around me but it looks like I'm just standing in a plastic box in the kitchen. I bend down and press and imaginary button on the side. Immediately I feel like my head and shoulders are vibrating, heating and tingling, and I hear the buzzing sound of the microwave. This only lasts for about 2 seconds, then I feel like I'm just standing there.

I once had to work on a microwave oven, A large one! (about the size of a semi trailer) My heart was in my mouth for the entire time and there is no way on this earth i'm going to get inside of another one

Yeah I stay firmly away from "October-TOTM" stuff.

Completed advanced task ii last night.

I became lucid while in my driveway, and tried the "close one eye and see if you can see your nose" reality check. It failed, and I asked my mother to drive me to the mall (we have a candy store there. Why I didn't just fly or something I don't know), as I remembered the task. She obliged but began to drive slowly. I sped up time some so that it'd take less time to get there.

She brought me to some odd town instead of the mall. I didn't mind, as I could just find a candy store. And I did. It was a weird outdoors sort of place, with a bunch of teenagers as the employees. I told them I was dreaming and I would like their oddest candy. They looked confused, remarking that "all candies were odd," but gave me a purple-pink snowman thing nonetheless. It tasted sweet and had the texture of a marshmallow.

There was a lot that happened in the dream after, but that's the part of it that involves the task.