Thread: Task of the Month for June 2015

Done with my Tasks of the month.

Spoiler for Bask Task i::

Date/Time of Sleep Session: 5/28/2015
How long to fall asleep: No long.

Non lucid fragment: I was at a school. I didn't know where my classroom was. Woke up.

WBTB: 3:00am Dog barking.

Lucid Goal(s): Basic Task i - Taste a rainbow.
Lucid: I had a dream that I was at my house and there was a unicorn on my property. It was glowing white with Rainbow as it's mane and Tail. His eyes looked like they where made of blue diamonds. I recalled that it lead me through the woods. Apparently, in my dream, you can only see this magnificent beast when it's a full moon. Anyways, This is when I thought to myself, "Humm, I must be dreaming. I quickly did my RC and then I went on. This is when I decided to do one of my "Task of the Month" things.
I recall that we came to a waterfall and pond in the middle of my woods. In real life we don't have a waterfall in the middle of our woods. All though it kind of appear out of nowhere. The Waterfall it's self was a rainbow. This is when I made a goblet appear out of nowhere so I can taste the rainbow.

I went over to the Rainbow with my Golden Goblet and filled it. The first color I tried first, tasted like cheesecake. It was better cheesecake then you have ever tasted before. The second taste, tasted like Strawberry and Rhubarb pie. It is actually the time of the year when the Rhubarb and the Strawberries are ripe! We make a mean pie and it this tasted the same as ours.
The third color (red) tasted like a medium-rear steak and potatoes. It make me hungry just thinking about it. I went for the fourth cup of colors and it tasted like bacon and pop overs. I was started to feel full in my dream but, I want on. Then last color that I tasted was the Robert Redford or better know as the "Sex in the Pan cake." I remember waking up with the coconut cream pie taste in my month.

Spoiler for BONUS TASK:

• When did you go back to bed? Activity upon wbtb? Wrote in my DJ and Drank water and then went to bed power went out.
• How long it took to fall to back to sleep or enter the lucid dream? Not that long to enter a lucid dream.
Lucid Goal(s): Bonus Task.

Did my RC and then decided to do my bonus task for the month by looking at my hands.
The house of my dream looked like it was a part of a landscape painting. It was an very old saltbox home that sat on a breathtaking view property on top of a Hill.
In my dreams, I purchased this relatively flat twelve acre of land and reshaped the lot to create a hill with earth bending and then summoned this special home out of nothing. In the process, it dramatically enhanced the amazing panoramic mountain views.
I had a party there. I remember seeing some of my family and friends there. One DC was making turkey and stuffing and I made my cranberries sauce. my mom was making pies. I remember telling one of the DCs that once all the site work was completed, I made an old barn, old water tower, and corn crib, a colonial era ell and carriage house appear out of nowhere. I wanted each of these structures to be architectural showpieces of themselves. I recall that the barn and carriage house are very functional and showcase their centuries old massive timbers. .
Inside of this modern country kitchen it had a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a gas stove but, has retained the period look with soapstone sinks and cabinetry made from hand planed panels. A breakfast nook has large windows that provide pleasant views of the expansive back yard and water tower. It had running water in the kitchen and the four bath rooms. I recall that DC at the party nodded with amazement.
Then I said that the lean-to portion of the home showcases the original kitchen complete with a six foot high fireplace, gun stock corners, and brick floors. As in most all homes of this period, just past the kitchen was a small Borning room.
I continued to speak by telling them about the first floor room currently serves as an elegant dining room with its own fireplace and original, never-painted paneling and hard pine flooring. At the front of the home, a bump out foyer showcases the original stairway, leaded glass windows, and a double thick barricade door. The first floor master bedroom that features its own bath, fireplace, hand troweled plaster walls, old red paneling, gun stock corners, and wide pine flooring.
This is when I told them to follow me to the upstairs bedrooms and such.
The upstairs two spacious bedrooms also had fireplaces with unpainted wide pine flooring and charming baths tucked under the slope of the shed roof. The dream house had an entertainment room features hand stenciled plastered walls and antique flooring. The home sets on a full concrete and granite foundation and had modern in-floor radiant heat, air conditioning, electrical systems, and even a whole house surround sound system. I recall that DC at the party nodded with amazement. This is when I woke up.

Spoiler for BASIC TASK II:

• When did you go back to bed? Activity upon wbtb? 5:00 am Wrote in my DJ and then I got up and washed my face and then went to bed at 5: 15 am
• How long it took to fall to back to sleep or enter the lucid dream? Not that long to enter a lucid dream.
I climbed a MASSIVE jungle tree. All of the colors in the dream were very, very vivid. I recall that I was in the middle of the amazon Jungle. I need to do my TOTM so, I knew I was dreaming because the tree looked very abstract. I wrap my arms around it and lift myself into the air. It was so easy because it was a lucid dream. I remember once I got to the top, it was a panoramic jungle view. I remember there was sounds of Parrots. I remember my bird, Yahtzee was there. I remember was cracking open giant almond and Hazel nuts shells!! and eating giant almond and Hazel nuts. The giant almond was as big as my hand. This is when I woke up.

Spoiler for Advanced Task i:

Date/Time of Sleep Session: 5/1/2015
How long to fall asleep: No long.
Lucid Goal(s): Task of the Month: Advanced Task i - Put on a REAL magic show for an audience.


When did you go back to bed? Activity upon wbtb? Wrote in my DJ and Drank water and then went to bed power went out.
• How long it took to fall to back to sleep or enter the lucid dream? Not that long to enter a lucid dream.

I dreamt that I was back in school and I remember seeing a Dream Character who looked like my ex-boyfriend name Seth. Seth in real life was the kind of person who treated me like I was an object. He was the popular guy there. I recall in the dream that there was a talent show and some students did the song from "Summer Nights". Of course I was apart of that. I played Sandy and Seth played Danny. At this point, I was just realizing that I was coming lucid and I was on stage all a lone. I need to do a Task of the Month Magic show. All of sudden an announcer DC said my name. She was short, chubby girl who had blond hair. She wear here strip dress like she did IRL and a brace on her ankle because she re- injured here it going down a hill. At first I didn't know what to do. For my first trick, I summoned a pen to make a pen float, That was easy. The problem was that Seth was booing me to get off the stage.. I remember I was get mad at him. This is when I told him to come up on stage. At first he refused to come up. He yelled, "FAKE!! BOO!"
He finally, came up because I decided to use Hypnosis on him to get up on stage. I didn't really want to use that on him but, he was being a jerk. Everyone clapped. I recall saying, "For my next trick I will make someone disappear!" This is when I started to dance in circle around him and singing the song "Abracadabra". I'm made him disappeared.

Spoiler for Advanced Task ii:

Then I woke up. DJ entry. Got up/ wash/ bathroom/ went back to bed. Advanced Task ii - Stare into a mirror for as long as you can, report what happened.
I dreamt that I was in someone where there is a tomb buried in the basement. I don't think their house is haunted however, in the dream the house was haunted and I remember it was a dark stormy night. I was walking around this house and everything look at bit distorted when the power went out. This is when I said to myself out loud that I need to do the task Advance task about the Staring into a mirror for as long as I can, report what happened. So I did. I recall that I entered the room by candle light and came to a mirror that was hung by the wall near the door and the bed. I looked in the mirror and started it until I seen an image of a women covered in blood. with black eyes. It (she) had black hair. This is when I woke up.

Note I was watching 1000 ways to Die.

Woke up for good.

Wow Totaly inspiring totm completions

Had an awesome night of lucids last night, managed to get THREE tasks done.

Spoiler for Advanced Task i - Put on a REAL magic show for an audience. (AnotherDreamer):

I remembered another TOTM, with the magic show. I got their attention, and then pulled out some scissors and cut off my finger. At first they were a little concerned, but then I waved my hand over my finger, and it reappeared. I did it again just for the heck of it, and they were both impressed.

Spoiler for Advanced Task ii - Stare into a mirror for as long as you can, report what happened. (MrPriority):

I was at my childhood house, when I spontaneously became lucid. I was able to remember the TOTMs, and one of them was staring at a mirror. I walked over to this body-length mirror we had by the bathroom and stared at my reflection. I had a 5 o’clock shadow of a beard, and was initially wearing a green hoodie (kind of like my avatar), but then everything kept changing. My face kept changing shape, mainly getting fatter and skinnier. My facial hair kept changing from a beard to clean shaven to a goatee. My hair changed styles, eventually growing out until it hung down to my shoulders. Even my hoodie changed colors, from red to blue to purple. I stared as long as I could, but I had to look away for fear the dream would destabilize.

Spoiler for BONUS TASK!! - Summon a house that is just yours, more precise a house that is representing YOU. Go in and make a house search. I think going in the basement should be optional for the brave ones. (Gyalogos):

Next I remembered the house quest. In an attempt to make sure my intention came true, I leaned down to the girl.

“Do you want to check out my house?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not only my house, it literally represents me.”
“Woah, cool!”

I take her by the hand and we walk outside. Everything looks like it’s built in Minecraft style. We walk over to my house. The exterior of the house had large windows for every room. We walked around the back of the house, and I could see that every room had a single plaque in the middle of each room as a centerpiece. I walked through the back door into a small library, where several of my old friends were sitting at some tables. One of them waved me over to tell me something (which I don’t remember now). I talked to them until I woke up.

EDIT: Forgot to throw in my failures of the other two tasks.

Spoiler for Basic i and ii fail:

I next decided to walk outside and take on more tasks. I immediately saw a rainbow canopy hanging over the door to the garage. I thought about eating it to do the rainbow task, but figured that wouldn’t really meet the requirements. Instead I looked in the sky, and saw 3 or 4 rainbows that seemed decently close to the ground. One looked like it was right above the top of this tree in my backyard, so I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and climb the tree to eat it. I started climbing the tree, but after I got about halfway, the tree started to sink into the ground. I managed to get to the top, but by that time it was too low to the ground and I couldn’t see over my house. I jumped off and flew over to another tree in my backyard. I landed fairly close to the top, but before I could take in my surroundings, the tree started sinking again. I was about to try it on one more tree, but the dream switched.

Full Dream.

Congrats spellbee2

Wow!!! Tons of completed tasks!!! I think it's because of the heat.... Last night I was able to complete the Bonus Task, I will update my DJ later when I have more time, it's just I'm so happy to finally manage to have a long lasting LD from a very long time...
Basically I walked around the house until I got through a side door (The main door seemed to be thought for giants) walked a couple of connected empty rooms looking for the basement door on the floor. Went down there after hearing a lot of babble from an old woman with two kids who were about to go to school. Right in the basement a sort of pirate attack took place until the whole thing turned into a huge metalhead party in the lit basement of an old country house.

Mine wasn't very interesting but here it is. Only put the small fragment of the ToTM part here, it was a long dream.

I wanted to do the ToTM which involved the mirror, so I found a women's bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and watched myself age into a middle aged woman. I had a bunch of scars on my face. I thought my middle-aged self could probably pass for the real thing if it weren't for all of the scars. I started noticing that there were a lot of people coming in and out of the bathroom now. Their reflections were distorted. Kestrel popped up behind one of them and asked me what I was doing. I explained to her that I was doing that ToTM. She looked into the mirror. I looked into the mirror at her reflection and suddenly two of her appeared. I looked back at her and she had a twin! I told Kestrel and her twin that I was leaving to go outside, because I was bored of this mirror.

Broke my dryspell (yay!) and completed Advanced Task ii. Full dream: Reflections / Zznvogayi (WILD + FA)

Portion relevant to TOTM:

It is my first time getting lucid this month, so I decide to try a TOTM. The mirror task is convenient, since there are large mirrored sliding closet doors only steps away from my bed. I walk over and stand in front of one. At first I think the reflection bears a close resemblance to me, only with fuller cheeks and smaller eyes. But rapidly these features grow more exaggerated until they no longer look like me at all: the face is horribly bloated and the eyes have all but vanished beneath the puffy surrounding tissue. I recognize this as DR: I've been reading Gyo, a horror manga by Junji Ito, and it's full of faces like this. I force myself to keep watching as the image becomes more and more hideous, as though it is deliberately trying to unnerve me, but I remain calm and at last it vanishes.

It seems like the show is over, but the TOTM instructions were to keep looking as long as you can, so I continue watching the mirror. For a while it shows no reflection at all, just an empty dark space. Then a new reflection appears. This woman is beautiful, elegantly dressed in an archaic ballgown. I note that the bottom of her dress expands into almost a full half-sphere, and recall that this style was characteristic of the 1850s. I look up toward her face, but even though the expansive bottom of her dress is brightly illuminated, her entire upper body is in deep shadow and I can make out nothing but the silhouette of an appealingly slender torso. I keep staring until finally a tinge of light illuminates the lower curve of a shapely breast. I never do see the rest of her. As I continue watching, she is replaced by a male figure. I have the impression of a hairy man in rough clothing or primitive furs, but already the dream is deconstructing itself around me and when it stabilizes I am in another place entirely.

Here is the basic tree task so far.

We are in the streets of this South African town and I am excited about exploring, thinking I can do the task of the month later as I feel I have plenty of time. Still, I decide to give it a try now rather than later. There is a tree right in front of me, and while holding something in one hand, I use the other to climb up the tree. It is very easy to do, which feels weird and cool at the same time. As I focus on the tree, couple more branches appear and I wonder would this turn into an endless climbing. Luckily, the tree height stops to extend beyond and I finally reach its top. I remind myself to have a look at the surroundings, checking out the streets below, the buildings ahead and what looks like a small park in between. At this point, the dream ends rather unexpectedly.

Had some partial completions on the advanced tasks, but want to do them again and properly.

Originally Posted by NyxCC

As I focus on the tree, couple more branches appear and I wonder would this turn into an endless climbing.

I'm glad that your subC didn't take advantage of that thought and make the tree go on forever

Congrats!!

A couple of days ago I could unwillingly have performed the trick show in front of a couple of DC's trying to explain we were in a dream after one of them asked me what was that thing that I had in my hand which actually was what triggered my lucidity: At the beginning I was like "It's nothing", and after thinking about it (paying more attention to be more specific) "I use this tattoo actually to realize it's a dream... wait a minute... IT'S A DREAM!!!" Then made a fire ball appear in my hands, some levitation tricks to finally end up driving our car telepathically and park it (I was not sitting on the driver's seat) to let the dream fade out.

I completed the bonus task last night and drew a very messy blueprint of my subC house when I woke up:
house blueprint.jpg
I didn't get a chance to explore the basement so I might revisit the house in a future LD.
I also tried to taste a rainbow again, but this one tasted like a hat.
I'll try to get these TotM DJs written up before the end of the month.

Lol even your ink is purple Dreamer

Congrats on the bonus task!!!

Originally Posted by ~Dreamer~

but this one tasted like a hat.

What does a hat taste like ?
Eating a hat sounds like a good task in itself...

I got the tree task!

I had a nap WILD, phased through my bedroom wall, got a little stuck, got outside, saw a tree, climbed it, got to the top, but I was too heavy for it and it bent over and I was back on the ground lol.

Whole Dream (after Sofie wiped it out and messed up the computer and I had to restart).

Originally Posted by Box77

A couple of days ago I could unwillingly have performed the trick show in front of a couple of DC's trying to explain we were in a dream after one of them asked me what was that thing that I had in my hand which actually was what triggered my lucidity: At the beginning I was like "It's nothing", and after thinking about it (paying more attention to be more specific) "I use this tattoo actually to realize it's a dream... wait a minute... IT'S A DREAM!!!" Then made a fire ball appear in my hands, some levitation tricks to finally end up driving our car telepathically and park it (I was not sitting on the driver's seat) to let the dream fade out.

I love the idea of a special tattoo (or other body modification) that you might visualize in WL but that only visibly manifests in dreams, and can thereby be used as a dream sign. Is this something that is actually a part of your practice, or were you just using dream logic to try to come up with an explanation when the DC asked you about it?

Originally Posted by Verre

I love the idea of a special tattoo (or other body modification) that you might visualize in WL but that only visibly manifests in dreams, and can thereby be used as a dream sign. Is this something that is actually a part of your practice, or were you just using dream logic to try to come up with an explanation when the DC asked you about it?

It was something that eventually came up with the practice. The tattoo wasn't part of the routine at the beginning, it was something I did during my adolescence that (fortunately?) I wasn't able to get rid off later. Once I started to induce my LD's I realized it was showing (when present) always distorted. I used to check my hands because of the ginger-like fingers Although sometimes I fail to spot the difference and I was checking the wrong hand once , It's the most reliable RC I found when I'm into that 'it's definitively WL' thought.

Better late than never... but just the basic task out from an unplanned DILD:

Spoiler for Soccer, UFOs and more soccer:

12.06.2015

Soccer, UFOs and more soccer (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

Been extremely busy doing many new improvements in my business and other personal stuff. Finished yesterday and already worked back on dreams Did the basic task here.

I was in some place and there was a soccer goal and I told myself why not doing some keeper training. Someone started to shot some penalty kicks and other type of chuts and I was doing pretty well, blocking all the soccerballs from hitting the goal. I felt happy and suddenly, a couple small kids spawned and started to throw soccerballs at me as well. I stopped them all.

After a while doing this, some random soccer players came and started to throw a massive amount of soccer balls, but I think I blocked them all as well. One of them told me that they were going to come tomorrow and use additional balls such as baseballs, footballs, tennisballs, and more... I was wondering that it was such a crazy challenge.

This turned me lucid, but I was enjoying very much my dream, so I kind of said, "Alright, I will just spawn some goal keeper gloves to be able to have better control of my skills." However, I failed. I tried to do it a few times, but when I looked to my hands, I had no gloves on. My hands and fingers changed almost every time I looked at them, just hopping for some gloves. I went outside and I saw a tree and remembered the basic task.

I climbed the tree (hopping to find some gloves) but no gloves. I saw my surroundings. It was a busy city in terms of buildings and lights, but it was silent. I also saw the sky. It was night and it was beautiful. I felt like taking a flight, but wanted to do the soccer thing. However, I saw a few clouds with the shapes of UFOs, some of them where amazing. The UFOs were real, as they had lights and everything, but they were made out of clouds. I decided to fly to one of the UFOs but as I approached at it, it vanished.

I decided to land and look for my gloves. I saw two female characters who appeared to be attracted to me, as they were staring at me in a sexy stance. I approached at them and said, "Do you have my goalkeeper gloves?" One of them said, "Yes, here:" She spawned some gloves similar to these:







I put my gloves on, but it was super hard to puy them on. I lost lucidity at some point, and after a while, I was able to get my gloves on, but now I was in the car, my wife was driving and we were in one of the north San Diego neighborhoods. I saw Gianluigi Buffon moving in a huge house:







I told my wife to stop as I wanted to meet him. We got inside the house and it was under construction still. I was hopping to meet Buffon so he could sign my gloves. I figured that since the gloves were dream-gloves I wouldn't need to return them and if I held tight to them, I could take them out from the dream world to the waking word. We got inside the main lobby of the house and I saw a TV in the distance showing The Simpsons. I was waiting for meet with Buffon until my wife woke me up.

It's something

I'd love to do the tree task!!! Perhaps tonight? Caught a throat infection, nightmares are on the way and my chances to get lucid grow like the bugs in my throat...

Bout time Percy! Was beginning to think you was ded

Hahahaha, yeah... been hectic busy and some other stuff going on lol... the day I accomplished what I needed to do, that very night the lucids came back

I did at least one room in the house bonus challenge. The room was really trippy and definitely represented me.

optical illusion house

I DEILD'd from the previous dream while thinking about what one of the tasks of the month were. I remembered the house task where (if Kestrel told me correctly) you would find a house that represented you the best. I don't know if this task attempt counts because I really shortcutted my way to finding it, but I found myself in a really strange room.

Every floor tile in the room was painted with the same optical illusion, that looked like this:



Each tile was the same, each had a optical illusion circle of its own, and all of them were blowing my mind.

The walls were painted with more illusions and it was a pretty awesome place.



The colors in the room were really striking. At the end of the room was a sensei. I couldn't tell you anything outside of this room because my recall dropped from there. I think I left the room...but who knows.

3mazing tasks, Finals was just over and I'm back to #rekt the DREAM WORLD

I had a short LD a couple hours ago. I managed to do the rainbow task because it was the first one I thought of.

I was standing in a factory on a 2nd level floor that over looked a portion of the factory below. I was already lucid when I appeared there and I felt like I was about to snap out of it so I scrambled to make a rainbow appear. The rainbow shot out of the floor, looped over the railing and down to the 1st floor manufacturing area. I grabbed it and zip lined with it. As I was riding it I stuck my tongue out to taste it and got no flavor or texture at all...then I got a taste that wasn't very pleasant.

That's all I remember.

Last night I completed Basic Task i and Advanced Task i (although my "magic show" ended up being more a bad comedy routine). Full dream: Dream Battle / Rainbow Tasting / What's Up My Sleeve? (DILD)

The dream began with pursuit and then combat with a DC who demonstrated unusual resilience against dream control. For some reason it never occurred to me to make friends with him, but I was satisfied with how I resolved our conflict.

Spoiler for Dream battle:

A woman and I are running from a pursuer, another woman. "Faster, faster!" the first woman urges me. "Don't look back, it will slow you down." I don't see why I have to run away, but fine, I'll play along... I do look back, however, and I'm surprised how close the pursuer is. This motivates me to try to put some distance between me and her, so I run harder... and yet I can't seem to make much gain on her. I'm perplexed: I know I should be able to do this, I'm dreaming, it's not like I have to rely on my physical stamina. I wonder if the answer is in running with more short strides rather than trying to cover more distance with each step, much as one is advised to run in WL, so I try out variations. I'm making progress, but concentrating so hard on my running form is becoming tedious. "Imagining running is almost as hard as the real thing!" I comment to the woman fleeing with me. Getting bored with this situation I decide to put an end to it, and succeed in sprinting ahead to the point where I can turn a corner and leave the pursuer's field of vision, at which point I figure I've made a fair escape.

However, it turns out that my pursuer had an accomplice: I now find myself in a struggle with a huge brawny man with a shaggy brown beard. I perceive him as a Viking, and I'm aware that his name is Torvald. He is connected somehow with the woman who was chasing me earlier, and is likewise an antagonist. Our struggle manifests partially as a kind of combat, but it feels as much like a battle of dream control as a physical battle.

I easily resist Torvald's initial attempts to subdue me, but his immense confidence makes me wonder if I should doubt my own. I go on the offensive and try to put him out of action more permanently, trying various tactics to destroy his body. For instance, at one point I imagine his body being crushed by a great weight from above, and although this has him stretched out supine on the ground for as long as I'm actively thinking it, he is soon back on his feet. I try crushing his heart and throat from inside his body, but he is only briefly inconvenienced.

I wonder if fire would do the trick, and visualize Torvald's body burning to ash. Though I've said nothing aloud, he appears to understand my intentions, and rather than actively resisting like he did with my other attacks, he simply denies the efficacy of this approach. "Fire won't work," he tells me flatly. I refuse to acknowledge this and continue contentrating on the image of fire consuming him. "Fire won't work," Torvald tells me again. I'm thinking: how could this be? It's my dream, isn't it? Fire should work if I say it should work. So I redouble my focus on the fire. With patient indifference, Torvald insists: "Fire won't work." I find this disconcerting, because apparently my confidence is unable to overcome his. Aren't I the dreamer? But there is no time for philosophical questions; we are still in combat. I switch tactics: if he is resistant to fire, how about ice? I start to try to freeze him—even if it doesn't destroy him it might at least slow him down temporarily—but Torvald has found the opening he needed and pins me to the ground.

Torvald's inexplicable ability to ignore my attempts to burn him makes me wonder if I should worry that he could actually harm me. But I have a superpower too: as the dreamer, I am invulnerable... aren't I? I decide to play it safe, and secretly project my "real" identity to the roof of a nearby building. It is a large square brick structure about 8–10 stories high, and I crouch behind the low brick railing that surrounds the flat roof, tempted to peek out at the combat occurring down below but not wanting to let Torvald see me and discover the trick. So I transfer my perceptions back to my body on the ground, which I now regard as a mere DC, and thus disposable. If my attacker succeeds in destroying this body, it won't matter: I've secured my identity elsewhere. Torvald actually glances up toward the roof when I think this, and I quickly realize that I need to guard my thoughts as well.

"Do you have someone watching me?" Torvald asks. I am relieved, because although he suspects that there is an observer on the roof, he hasn't seen through my whole trick—he doesn't seem to recognize that the person up there is actually me. I project a new thought toward him, gleefully: I recall how undercover police have been tracking him, and that I've been using our encounter to distract and delay him until they were in position. Maybe none of this was true earlier, but it doesn't matter: this is a dream battle, so it is true now! When Torvald looks back down at me, I grin mockingly and deliberately call him by the wrong name, "Harald," just to annoy him further. The game is up, and my undercover officers move in and force Torvald to release me. I'm not sure what happens to him after that... pleased with having solved the dilemma, I simply walk away.

Afterwards I tasted rainbows. I sampled two and both had vivid textures, but the taste was disappointingly bland.

Spoiler for Rainbow tasting:

What's next? The last incident was not one that I had intended, but now I'm free to work on tasks. I enter a wide clearing and wonder if I should try the Dragon Age task again. I've always liked the idea of aligning dream space with fictional environments from books, films, or games, but I'm still trying to figure out how to do it. I suppose the first step would be to remember a concrete environment from the game and try to insert aspects of it here. I played DA:I just last night, so I should be able to access those memories... but as I seek them out I feel a tremor of dream instability, and decide not to push it. If there's a risk of waking, I should put that task off until later. For now, there are still a few TOTMs I haven't tried this month, and I decide to work on those.

"Taste a rainbow." That one is easy to remember. I imagine a rainbow in the sky, and produce something very faint and not at all rainbow-colored. The colors are largely ochres and earthtones, and not even in proper lines but arranged in a more tesselated pattern over the arch. I'm not being a perfectionist at this point, so I accept this as a "rainbow" and shrink it into a stick of candy in my hand. The colors have changed in the process, and for some reason the candy stick is white with swirls of red and blue. Still not rainbow-colored! But I take a bite. The texture is interesting, lots of little pieces that crunch between my teeth, but the flavor is a real disappointment: vague, muted, and blandly sweet. Apart from "sweet," no other descriptors really present themselves. This won't do. A rainbow should taste more unusual than this! I decide to start over.

This time I put more work into the rainbow itself. I first visualize it, then focus on the faint transparent arch until it becomes more clearly visible, but this also has the consequence of making it more material. Now it appears like a physical object, a two-dimensional vertical banner in an arch about ten feet high and twenty feet long, right in front of me. I work on correcting the pattern so that it has rainbow colors in properly aligned stripes... I see some improvement, although it is a C+ effort at best. It looks better than my last attempt, anyway, so I approach the "rainbow" and try to take a bite directly out of it. The experience is like... chewing on a shower curtain. It really feels like I've put a sheet of plastic in my mouth, although the material is soft enough to crush between my teeth. Again the texture is more prominent than the taste. I put all my attention on the flavor, trying to detect anything describable, and think maybe I get some underlying fruity notes, but again it remains vague and uninteresting. Taste and smell are the least developed of my dream senses... I wonder if I could improve them if I worked at it?

Finally I tried the "magic show." What would you answer if a naked magician asked "What's up my sleeve?"

Spoiler for What's up my sleeve?:

I feel like I have adequately completed the task, anyway, and wonder what to try next. In all my efforts with the rainbows I had hardly paused to note all the people sitting at various tables around this clearing, like picnickers, but observing them now, I figure it might be fun to try the magic show. What would a stage magician do? I guess the most basic tricks involve having something up one's hat or one's sleeve? I notice that I am completely naked, which has long since ceased to embarrass me in dreams, but gives me a mischievous idea.

"What's up my sleeve?" I start circling among the various tables, challenging the audience members to come up with a response. One of the first responses is: "Following a guy from Eton to [...]?" (I forgot the second place name.) This answer reminds me of the earlier scene, and how I resolved the conflict with Torvald. This DC must have been one of my officers! "Are you an undercover cop?" I ask him in reply. He grudgingly nods. "Not anymore!" I'm joking about how he has just blown his cover, but it also feels like an appropriate analogy to my own lack of sleeves... I'm not "undercover" either.

I continue asking, "What's up my sleeve?" and collect various other responses from the audience, all of which were non-sequiturs... but I reasoned that the illogic of the question itself (since there was no sleeve) invited such creative responses. After hearing from seven different people, I realized that I might have trouble remembering all this when I woke up, so I stopped and went over their answers again, one by one, to help fix them in memory. Already I had trouble recalling two of the answers, but one of the DCs helpfully reminded me, additionally pointing out that the answers varied between the metaphorical (things that never could go up a sleeve) and the literal ("Three shekels" was one of these answers, I think). Meanwhile I was getting ready for the grand finale to my show, when I would reveal my own answer to the question. I had been planning on the groaningly obvious "Nothing!" and was ready for the big reveal when I noticed that something had changed... now I was wearing clothes, including a short-sleeved shirt. I realized that if I was going to go for the groaningly obvious at this point, I would have to answer "My arm!"

I felt myself start waking up, and I already had a lot to remember and report so I didn't resist the process. I woke up slowly enough that I was able to concentrate on those seven answers from the DCs and hold them in mind, with what felt like excellent clarity and accuracy. And then something happened... as I crossed the threshold, despite all my care and preparation, the memories abruptly tattered, the details dissolving. The only one of the seven answers I could still remember, and that incompletely, was the first—and that I suspect only because it was anchored by its reference to the earlier scene.