CanisLucidus

This one was a lot of fun, in large part because it was the first time I managed to really modify terrain in a major way. I still can't believe that I fell for the last false awakening, especially after catching the others.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #117: Carving the Coasts

I'm standing on a bus, blathering some false memory to the other riders about how a friend of mine was on an episode of Friends. I suddenly realize that I've missed my stop by miles, we're in the final bus terminal, and everybody's getting off. A middle-aged bald guy hands me a bunch of coins, including a JFK half dollar and a weird coin with a hole in the middle of it, and announces that he's paying everyone's bus fare. I hand the coins over to the bus driver, who takes them all. Once we're outside, the bald guy asks for his change and then berates me when I say that I gave the driver everything.

I feel like an idiot and everyone's staring at me, so I slink away and walk outside, wondering how I'm going to get home. On the corner I see a gang member carrying a pistol and wearing a blue bandana face mask. He jumps out from behind cover and starts firing at some unknown enemy. I think that this must be a really bad neighborhood and that I'd better get out of here. I look up at the sun to figure out which way is east, but notice that the sun's too low in the sky for the brightness of the day. The sun self-consciously moves higher in the sky to match my expectations and I realize that I'm dreaming.

I'm walking by an apartment complex with a little playground filled with grade school kids. I start flying to look for Angel Falls and one of the kids says, "It's Superman!"

"That's right!" I say, and start "bah bah baahhh"ing the original John Williams Superman theme. I decide that I want to hear the real thing and immediately my subconscious produces the original soundtrack (or close enough to convince me, at least.) I fly off, the Superman score playing in my head and filling me with nerdy confidence.

I come to a broad river with some low hills along the water's edge. I fly along the river until I come to a coastline, proceeding along that for a while, looking for Angel Falls. I start eyeing those low hills and think about whether I could turn them into Angel Falls. As I do this, they start growing taller, and I find that I can raise and lower the height of these hills just by thinking about it. Something seems to stop them from getting up to full mountain height, but I can still get them high enough to impress myself, at least. I keep flying along the coast, building the hills taller and watching as the occasional small waterfall even erupts from the side. These waterfalls are all pretty modest, though, and not nearly high enough for Angel Falls.

As I'm happily traveling down the coast and raising the hills up to the sky, a group of elderly people that look like tourists start flying in front of me, way too close, and blocking my view a bit. The tourists are pointing at the hills and reading some kind of guide book, and disturbingly, one of them is only wearing a diaper. I maneuver past a couple of them, but the old man in a diaper won't get out of the way. I say, "You want to land," and he immediately banks to the left and drops out of sight. Satisfied, I continue flying and trying to make the coastal hills climb higher and higher. I can't get enough of watching this! As I'm raising one set of hills really high, I start to see water cascading off of it, and I think that it's going to turn into Angel Falls. As I look up and up, my perspective suddenly clonks onto its side and I'm pitched into the void.

I rub my hands together to make sure my dream body's ready to go, then I try to find the floor. I imagine my hands rubbing against the smooth rock of a river bed, but the sensation I feel is different. More like cloth. Soon I can see out of my left eye, but only in a small circle. Right eye's still blind. It looks like I'm laying facedown on our comforter -- false awakening. It's morning and I'm alone, laying across the bed.

I get up and check myself in the bedroom mirror. I've got a bunch of blankets and sheets and stuff wrapped around me. I put my arms out so they can fall to the floor. I look just like myself except that my eyes are filled in with black and these dark wisps of smoky electricity-looking stuff are crackling around my head. Overall effect: badass. There's still something wrong with my right eye, but I just tell myself that the blankets are gone and I can see fine. Pretty soon, I do.

There's a new door in the wall of our bedroom, and I walk through it into some kind of sunroom. (This is strange since our bedroom is on the 2nd floor.) My friends "Leroy" and "Leroyette" (husband and wife) are here working on some kind of art project with a bunch of strangers. Everyone's working away with scissors, paper, and cloth. I call out, "[Leroy]! I'm having a lucid dream."

"Here, let me get the door," he says, undoing a bunch of strange locks on an external, glass-paned door. I step outside and there's a small waterfall, about 15 feet high, going in a small garden. I'm wondering how to turn this into Angel Falls when the scene goes dark right before...

I have another false awakening in my master bedroom. The door to the sunroom is still there, and I head through it again. There, again, is Leroy. This time I try undoing all of the locks myself. There are an unbelievable number of curtains, locks, and shutters covering the door, and I'm finding it really frustrating to mess with them. "I don't recall your doors being covered with this much bullcrap," I whine. Leroy chuckles and tries to help me. (Apparently I thought this was his house, but it doesn't resemble any room in Leroy's home.) "You know, I could have just phased this whole time. Sorry, man!" I phase through the door onto a grassy lawn, jump into the air, and start flying again. After flying for a short time...

Another false awakening, this time in the sunroom. Embarrassingly, this one fools me and I'm non-lucid. An overweight bearded guy in his 20s is dressed in a wookiee costume (sans head.) He's complaining about how girls are always too interested in lucid dreaming. Don't they understand that stuff is just fantasy? He puts the head of the wookiee costume on and poses for a photograph, doing his best Chewbacca cry. Cameras flash. The dream ends.

Narcissism and botched summonings ahead. Still, every lucid's fun and this was a good reminder not to be too casual with details in dream control situations!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #111: Vanity at The Doppelganger Waterpark

I have a false awakening. Faint morning light filters in through the window. I wonder whether it's too bright to get back to sleep. A bedside clock says that it's 5:00 AM. It seems too bright and too late to have a lucid dream. I remember the micro-lucid from earlier in the morning and feel disappointed that I didn't hit a real one. (I really did have a micro-lucid earlier, as well as an earlier false awakening.)

I get up to use the restroom and notice that I'm not in my usual bedroom but rather on the first floor of a building -- a hotel perhaps? I feel like I'm awake, but the bathroom is just... so different. I'm dreaming.

As I leave the bathroom, I hear Wife beginning to stir. She's muttering something but I can't make it out. The morning light makes it seem urgent to get started with my goals, so I phase out through an external wall, my head and shoulders passing through a window. I end up in a fenced, grassy yard with a circular stone table surrounded by simple stone benches.

My strategy for this dream is to forget the meeting location for now and just try to summon NewArtemis directly. I walk toward the yard's open gate, holding my hand behind me as I go. "[NewArtemis], grab onto my hand." No good. I have the sense that I did it all wrong. Stop asking. I sort of try again but my level of intent is poor and nothing happens.

As I exit the yard, I'm distracted from the summon by a mirror hanging on a brick wall to my left. I check my reflection and see that I'm wearing a pair of jeans without a shirt. I vainly check myself out and notice that I'm less in shape than I remember being -- torso a little smoother, face a little puffier. I start worrying that I've let myself slip in waking life and try to remember whether that's true. It suddenly occurs to me that this is probably the most pathetic, narcissistic thing I've ever wasted lucid dream time on in my entire life.

I walk further along the grass until I come to a large, packed pool that's being rocked by gentle waves, almost like it's a half-activated water park wave pool. I notice my friend "SC" playing with a young child (too young to be one of his sons). About twelve feet to his right, I see another SC! The doppelganger smiles and gives me a nod of acknowledgment.

As I continue along the pool, I see my high school friend "LM". And just as with the other friend, not far from her is another doppelganger. Again, the doppelganger looks my way and smiles. The smile seems genuine rather than threatening so even though I find it a little weird, I'm not too troubled by anything that I'm seeing.

The water makes me think of Angel Falls. Okay, new plan: summon Art while on the move and dash to Angel Falls for Task of the Year. My hope is that if I'm very casual about the summon it'll just work. I reach my hand behind me and say, "[NewArtemis], Angel Falls is just up ahead." I feel a hand grasp mine and I look back to confirm that it's Art. But when I do, I see that the hand is sticking straight up out of the water. The geometry of all this strikes me as strange. How is their arm so long that they can still be submerged and grab onto me?

As I'm thinking this, the person floats up out of the water, still gripping my hand. She's a complete stranger -- blonde, early 20s, fair-skinned, slightly heavier build. She's wearing a black one-piece swimsuit. "Who are you?" I ask, and her only reply is to half-smile and turn away. I notice that her teeth have a very mild yellow/brownish stain to them.

"I'm going to change you into [NewArtemis]. Okay?" I'm not trying to ask permission so much as... explain what's about to happen? There's no reply. I look off to the side to make the transformation easier, but the dream ends before I can take this any further.

Another swing and a miss at meeting Art at the Alamo. But the good news is that I managed to remember (and execute) Basic Task of the Month!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #104: Reservations

I have a false awakening at home and stumble out of bed. I'm disappointed and slightly grouchy that I failed to achieve a lucid dream. Feeling unmotivated, I wander aimlessly through the house, contemplating how late for work I probably am. I think that it's Friday, though, and I'm looking forward to ordering pizza with the guys at the office and shooting the breeze for a while. (Nope, today's Wednesday!)

I wind up in the exercise room but the power rack and dip station are completely missing. It's halfway converted into an office and I see the guts of a half-built computer on the floor. I kneel down to work on it, seeing that the RAM is missing and that the box is full of dust like it's been sitting there for years. I finally grasp how dreamlike this all is and become lucid.

I rub my hands together and assemble my goals. Two come to me fairly quickly: 1) meet NewArtemis at the Alamo 2) go water-skiing. (Oops, Advanced Task of the Month is actually parasailing.) I move into the master bedroom where I see Wife standing nearby as my two young children E and R run around the room. I announce that I'm having a lucid dream, eliciting an "Okay!" from Wife. I phase through the external wall of our house. I'm on the 2nd story, so I drift down to the driveway below, lightly brushing the branches of our oak tree with my fingers as I pass.

It's a bright morning outside and I'm preparing to fly off for the Alamo when I hear the voice of my son E behind me. "Daddy, wait! Daaaaaaddy!" I think that it's probably smartest to ignore him but I can't help looking back. Somehow he's followed me outside and I see him standing about fifteen feet away, looking so small. He looks at me with enormous, pleading eyes and says, "Daddy, can I go with you?"

I start feeling all melty-hearted and I know that resistance is futile. It'd probably be amusing to see E and NewArtemis' DCs interact anyway. "Sure, buddy," I say, scooping him up and placing him on my shoulders. I hop up into the air and we fly together over the neighborhood, heading vaguely northwest. The city's different in this direction, and we pass a park and a block of tall buildings. I decide that the Alamo is in the next block and I tell E this to cement it further in my mind. "Uh-huh!" he enthusiastically agrees.

When we hit the next city block, though, I'm disappointed to find no sign of the Alamo. There's a river running east-west with a simple stone bridge crossing it and a walkway on either side. I shout down to the DCs milling around below: "The Alamo's supposed to be right here! Which way is it?"

A blonde lady walking with her daughter points westward toward the bridge. "It's that way, just past the bridge!" I thank her, land, and walk under the bridge with E still on my shoulders. We emerge to see the Alamo up ahead but there's some kind of enormous line out front. I feel the urge to get in line and patiently wait but remind myself that this is my dream and it is therefore okay to be a bit of a jerk. I stride to the front of the line where I find a restaurant host holding a clipboard. It's apparent to me that the Alamo has been converted to some sort of amazingly popular restaurant.

The host asks me whether I have reservations. "Of course," I say. "Check under [CanisLucidus]."

"Ah yes!" he responds. "Party of fifteen. Your table's almost ready."

Fifteen people? "[NewArtemis] is in our group, isn't that right?" But the host wanders off, saying that he'll "be right back."

I decide to give him a moment before prodding the dream plot onward. I remember Task of the Month (speak gibberish to a DC and see how they respond.) A sour-looking girl of about eight with brown hair and freckles is waiting nearby, sitting on a piece of luggage. "Ooooooga booga booga!" I exclaim.

She looks very annoyed. "Can we please just skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show?" I hear her fine, but her response shocks me into just saying, "What?" She sighs dramatically and repeats herself: "I said can we skip the whole 'Mess with DCs' show? Have you seen how long this line is? I am not in the mood."

Amused, I turn away. Good enough for me. I want to keep things rolling, so I announce to the unseen host, "So my table's ready then, right?"

The host scurries back into view. "Sorry for the wait, sir. Mr. Graham was napping and needed to be woken up. Who schedules a lunch for a nap?" he says with a laugh, even though I haven't the faintest idea what he's talking about or who "Mr. Graham" is. "Right this way," says the host, and I follow, now holding E by the hand. We're moving through a wood-paneled hallway into the restaurant interior when the dream ends.

Looks like I need to go back to my "stop falling for false awakenings" and "stop missing dreamsigns" fundamentals. Still a fun dream, and got to try out a new teleport method (with mixed results.)

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #102: El Camino Real

I'm at a lucid dreaming camp with lots of people from my past. Throughout the day, we swim and boat in the lake, walk by the lakeside, and do various crafts. I tell everyone that "it's too late for me. I took galantamine and it didn't work. Let's get the rest of you lucid." I teach them about dreamsigns, awareness, and even supplements. I'm frustrated that I've failed to have a lucid dream but I figure maybe I'll feel better if some of the other camp participants can have a lucid.

This goes on for a really long time and eventually I run across Britney Spears eating a blueberry muffin in one of the hallways. She complains that her career is in a slump. I suggest that she would be a perfect spokesperson for blueberry muffin sales. She's thrilled with the idea. In celebration, she takes a staggeringly huge, very unladylike bite out of the muffin, paper and all. I feel incredibly savvy and very proud of myself.

From there, I have a false awakening: Wife and I are starting our day and she switches on the TV. (She never does this in the morning.)The music video for Madonna's "Like a Virgin" is playing on the TV. Her love interest is the guy who played the mummy in The Mummy movies. After the first verse, the TV switches to a 3d rendering of The Killers performing in front of the university Wife and I attended. "That's The Killers," she says. (She doesn't know what they look like.) We're sitting in a cafeteria now, watching people order food while I complain about how I failed to realize I was dreaming just a moment ago when it was so obvious. Some guy carrying a tray of food totally wipes out and gets spaghetti all over himself. Wife laughs when this happens, which seems cruel and out of character. (Big dreamsign. She thinks the part in Karate Kid where Daniel-San spills spaghetti on himself and everybody laughs is super mean.)

Now I'm staring out of a window in some kitchen, feeling sorry for myself that I didn't get lucid. I think that I could be dreaming right now, but everything is just too vivid. And yet... it finally dawns on me. I look over at Wife preparing food at the kitchen counter and it's so real that it almost costs me my lucidity. I decide that I'd better get moving.

The next room is a darkened dining room with an elegantly set table and an unlit candelabra. It's dark in the room and I decide that it would be best to leave the house, so I head for a wall and phase through it. There's no scene beyond the wall, and I wind up in the void.

I quickly rub my hands together and keep walking, thinking that I'll try a new teleport method out of the void, building on an idea that PennyRoyal had suggested. I place my fingers in front of my eyes and imagine them gently wiggling. Pretty soon my hands take shape in front of me and I begin to imagine a new scene behind them -- the Alamo, the arranged meeting spot with Art. Once I feel like the scene's ready, I move my hands aside and find myself in...

... Silicon Valley, walking along El Camino Real. There's even a roadsign marking out the intersection of "82" (El Camino Real) and "93" (unknown road.) It's a beautiful day, typical perfect weather for the South Bay. I jog up a residential street, and a lady power-walking with her dog gives me a friendly wave. I wave back. I know that I have tasks that I'm forgetting, but they refuse to come to mind.

Moving a bit further along the street, I pass my old friend Wang. I ask him how he's been and he says, "I can't talk right now. I've got to be careful not to catch a cold." When I accept this, he breaks into a laugh like he really pulled one over on me. "I'm just kidding!" he says. "I know that you're dreaming this!" He shouts across the street to a lady who's watering her lawn. "Do you know he's dreaming all of this?" I'm a little distracted by how hyper-realistic Wang looks. His lips move flawlessly with the words he's speaking. I wonder how it's possible for all of this to fit inside my head.

The woman is dark-haired, mid-40s, clad in sweat pants. "Oh, like that 'lucid dreaming'? I've always wanted to do that." I respond with a few encouraging words and jokingly say something along the lines of "better make sure that you're not dreaming right now, too." She and Wang laugh and I say, "You know what? Let me show you guys a couple of things." With that, I hope onto the trunk of a parked car and leap to to top of another parked car, intending from there to take off in flight. For some reason the flying doesn't happen, though, and I wind up hovering face-first a few inches off of the ground. Fortunately, this is still cool enough to impress.

"Guys," I tell them, "I'm going to try another teleport. It was good talking to you." They say goodbye, and I put my hands over my eyes again, trying once again to imagine the Alamo. I give it a little longer to incubate this time, waiting until I can "see" the structure fairly well in my mind. But when I remove my hands, I'm somewhere else near Palo Alto. I can see the Stanford Foothills. The vision out of my left eye looks odd, sort of like I have one messed up contact lens. I ignore it, take to the air, and fly just a bit before the dream ends.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #101: Choke

I'm sitting in a car with Dad at a place that's a cross between Sonic and a Chinese take-out restaurant. We're pulled up next to one of those mic/speaker combos where you place your order and I'm debating whether to order sweet & sour chicken or just get a giant bucket of tater tots. (I don't actually eat like this. )

A guy who looks like Mako Iwamatsu sticks his head out of the main restaurant building and shouts something about "three orders of sweet & sour chicken". I get out of the car and approach to hear him better. Then Mako makes some remark about our order and something about dreaming. It's semi-amusing, so I chuckle politely and look up at the night sky. The stars look artificially bright and the moon has been replaced by a flying saucer! "This is a dream," I say, and immediately start walking.



I leave the restaurant parking lot, moving through an alley that dead-ends at an open door into a house. I go inside, exploring the house for a bit. It's nicely decorated and very realistic. I'm pleased with how vivid it looks -- classy carpeting, great lighting, really tasteful decor. I wonder why I suck so bad at decorating IWL if I can imagine scenes like this. It occurs to me that no matter how many LDs I have, part of me always thinks They can't really look that good, right? But they can and they do.

I'm a bit lost in the house and as I turn down one hallway, I suddenly find myself in a noisy European street scene. It feels like Germany. The fast transition surprises me and before I can think to speak gibberish to these DCs for Task of the Month, I round another corner and wind up back in the house again. Well that was weird.

For some reason this reminds me of my intent to get to the Alamo and meet up with Art. I decide getting outside will be the best way open up the map and get where I want. The closest internal wall of the house is brick (oddly enough), and without hesitating, I phase through it. There's nothing on the other side of the wall, though, and I wind up in the void.

Rubbing my hands together, I continue walking through the void. I imagine that I'm walking along a street outside. I can feel the roadway underneath my feet (which feel like they're in nothing but socks.) I keep walking forward, waiting for the new scene to form. After a while, I see a pattern of squareish lights that coalesces into the window of my darkened childhood bedroom. I leave immediately, phasing through the window into the street.

It's late at night and I'm outside on the street where I grew up. I try to figure out which way San Antonio (and the Alamo) would be from here... and totally get it wrong. When I look out at the horizon, I see a huge observation tower surrounded by some scaffolding, like it's under construction. Was there some kind of tower in San Antonio? (Yes, it turns out -- the Tower of the Americas.)



I start to zoom-teleport to the tower but the moment I begin to move, I swallow my gum. Swallow my what?? Did I go to bed chewing gum? I try to remember, worrying that it's now lodged in my throat IWL and that I'm about to be in big trouble. I freak out and the scene goes black. I manage to calm myself at the last minute but the dream is too far gone and quickly ends.

The second of two LDs from the morning of 05/18/2013. This was a big, big dream, and this dream and I did not always get along. This was my first serious attempt at meeting NewArtemis for a dream sharing attempt.

I also got into a big fight with a powerful DC that escalated into a me against the world situation. I could have handled this a lot better. My self-control wasn't what it should be... but it was still kinda awesome.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #96: Clash at the Alamo

I'm Marty McFly from Back to the Future, driving my DeLorean on a set of rails that stand hundreds of feet over a bay. The DeLorean starts to shake as it picks up speed and before I can make a time jump, the rails end and the car goes plummeting toward the sparkling water.

I brace for impact and the DeLorean flies to pieces as it strikes the bay. Miraculously, I'm unharmed, and I thrash about for something to hold on to so that I can get my bearings and figure out what to do. One long, fin-like piece of metal from the car bobs to the surface and I grab onto it. The moment that I do, an unseen engine roars to life and takes off like a jet ski.

As I'm racing across the bay, I realize that this has to be a dream. After riding for a moment, I'm perhaps a hundred feet from shore. I leap off the impromptu "jet ski" and fly the remaining distance, landing in a stone plaza that stands at the water's edge.

I remember that I'm planning to meet NewArtemis at the Alamo for a shared dreaming experiment. I turn toward the water, raise my hands up in the air, and make an announcement to all of the DCs. Most of the passerby stop and turn to look at me. "The Alamo is right behind me! That's right -- Alamo right behind me!" I imagine it in detail, rebuilding my mental map, forgetting and scrubbing out the buildings that were there before and replacing it with my image of everything that I remember about the Alamo. I continue this until I can think of nothing of what's behind me except for this image of the Alamo.



I turn around, expecting to see the Alamo... and there it is! The stone's a little darker and the construction looks a little too new to be quite right, but it's more than close enough of a lookalike for me. I walk around past the front entrance to a courtyard. The geography is different in this dream from that of the real Alamo, and I come to a stone wall with a little alcove and a bench. There's a woman sitting on the bench and we look at each other immediately.

She gets up and approaches me right away. She doesn't look like NewArtemis' DC has in the past, but I'm not sure of anything yet. She speaks first: "I'm here to meet someone. How about you?"

"So am I," I say, studying her. She's roughly the same height as Art's DC but her skin is paler, her hair curlier, her build heavier, and her face is different -- broader, different nose, different shape... just different. "But you're not her, are you? I don't think you're [NewArtemis]."

She smiles noncommitally, but I continue. "That's okay," I continue. "Let's still do the passphrases and gestures." I speak my chosen word to the DC and perform my chosen gesture. She doesn't bother speaking a passphrase in return but she does perform a gesture. (These have been reported to a 3rd party who is not NewArtemis just in case she's able to guess them.)

"Well, I need to go!" the woman says. She walks out of the alcove and passes me. As she goes, she becomes a much older lady, blonde, mid-50s. She grows to an enormous height, probably close to 8 feet tall. She's wearing shorts and I see that her legs are covered with a crisscrossing patchwork of scars.

I contemplate following, but I'm distracted by a man who's sitting at the top of a stone wall nearby, staring at me with a malicious grin on his face. He's in his late 30s with close-cropped reddish-blonde hair. The guy keeps staring at me with that joyless grin and I know that he's looking for trouble with me. I want no part of it, so I turn and walk away.



He hops down from the wall and grips my right forearm with his right hand, twisting my arm around so that my hand is near my head. I try to pull my arm out of his grip but when I yank, it doesn't budge. He laughs, shaking his head as if he can't believe that I would bother trying to defy him. "You're never leaving here," he says. "I mean it. You are never leaving here." I yank my arm again but I feel as weak as a kitten.

I know I have to turn this around fast. I grab him by the back of the head with my left hand and begin to imagine my adversary as frail and lethargic. "You're so weak and tired," I tell him, trying to sound compassionate, even though I'm boiling with rage. "There's just no strength left in you at all." And I gently move to lay him down on a nearby table. I think of him as totally weak and barely able to move. His grip slips from my arm and he flops backward onto the table.

"And small," I say, pressing on his head with one hand and his feet with the other. He begins to shrink. His hair has turned jet black now, and his eyes close. I squeeze him together, thinking of him as so tiny, and soon he shrinks to the size of a child, then to the size of a baby, then disappears into his clothes entirely. My self-control cracks and I ball up his clothes, throw the bundle on the ground, and give it a vicious stomp. I wonder for a moment whether I've gone too far and hope for a moment that the bundle was empty. I walk through a nearby archway, not sticking around to find out more.

I emerge in a cafeteria. A table of 6 or 7 teenagers immediately looks up from their meals at me. "It's him," one of them says, and they all get to their feet and come after me. I fly through a nearby doorway and emerge in a large, empty room with a skylight. I fly up to the skylight, intending to phase through it, but something seems to restrain me from getting high enough. I run through a doorway into a drugstore that dead-ends in a frosted glass window. I vault toward it, phasing through onto a street scene.

There are police everywhere on the street. I know that they're looking for me. There are strange little ball-shaped hoverbots scanning the streets with cameras, also trying to track me down. I sprint up to one and kick it against a nearby wall. With a pop, it breaks into two smoking, fizzling halves.

Everything seems to be happening too fast for me to control. I run down the street, looking for some way out of this fear. I want to buy time to calm down, so I phase through the door of a nearby house. Cops are turning the place over while the family, a husband and wife and their little girl of about 8 are glued to the TV. One cop notices me as I walk in, but I swoop in on him, grab him from behind, and choke him unconscious. The other two cops don't seem to notice any of this, and the little family stares obliviously into their TV sets.

I watch the TV for a moment. It's some sort of political propaganda which claims that the moral code of their "great society" is built upon a foundation of classic arcade games like Centipede, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. I'm torn -- on one hand, I find top-down, statist morality codes repugnant. On the other hand, I sure do love classic arcade games.

I phase out through the back of the house into the yard. The cops yell at me as I pass and I hear them calling for backup. The back yard is peaceful for a moment before the wail of what sounds like an air raid siren fills the air. I look up at the sky, feeling helpless, trying to find peace for a moment. But all I can think is They're coming for me. The dream ends...

This lucid dream was very unusual for me because it occurred less than 25 minutes after falling asleep, right at the beginning of the night.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #91: Talking to Myself

I'm seated at a restaurant, talking to a couple of friends, including "Leroy". I'm making a point about some amusing fact I'd heard when a waiter seats himself at the fourth chair at our table. I say, "There's even this study where..." and trail off when I realize that the waiter isn't going away. I turn to him and say, "Uh, how's it going?"

"It's going well," he says. "I was wondering if you needed anything." He says this last part with some concern, like I might be very unwell.

I look back at the rest of the table and see that my friends are gone. I'm confused and a little embarrassed. "Were there two other people here...?" I ask. The waiter gravely shakes his head. I start worrying about myself for a moment before realizing this is all a dream. "Don't even worry about it. This is a dream."

"Ah, very good, sir," he says, standing from the table and gesturing toward the exit.

I get up from the table and walk toward the exit. There's a glow coming pouring through the cracks at the edge of the door as if something as bright as a star was behind it. I phase through the door, winding up in a room that has plywood flooring and a ceiling that's sloped like the top of a roof. It looks like an attic. At the opposite end of the room, maybe 25 feet away, I see the source of the light: a fiery, brightly glowing furnace.

I walk toward the furnace as it spits these little gobs of liquid fire onto the floor. I'm close now, but I don't feel any heat. As I close to within just a couple of feet, the view of the furnace fades and I find myself on a set of sharply descending stairs. Each stair is only about 4 inches long but drops almost 2 feet. As I walk down them, I'm descending so fast that it's almost like slowly falling into a pit. I can't see where I'm going. I wind up stepping onto the railing and slowly making my way down that way. Somehow that seems to normalize the slope of my descent.

I get to the bottom of the stairs and I'm in what looks like a family room with hardwood flooring. There's a board game laid out on the floor. The dream starts to fade around the edges, but I manage to hold onto my view of the board game for a couple more seconds, seeing that it's composed of a game board, a stand with some cards, and some sort of gently-spinning purple sphere. I can no longer move and my field of vision shrinks rapidly until I'm awake.

The good news for this LD is that the light switches worked great! The bad news is that my prospective memory wasn't the best and my DC summons didn't work like they should, but I had fun trying. Some more focused mental prep and reminding myself of my goals would have helped, I think, so I'll just blame the short WBTB.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #89: Under Construction

I'm walking down a hall in my office with my friend "Leroy" and one other guy. The hallway is dimly lit and even though we're far from any windows, somehow I know that it's night outside. We're looking for some room that we can use to host a remote meeting that's scheduled to start in a few minutes.

The door at the end of the hall has been replaced with a thick sheet of plastic and the entire area looks like it's under construction. I think, "How do I know that this isn't a dream?" and I become lucid. I run my fingers over the wall, and it feels just like the walls at the office. "[Leroy], I'm having a lucid dream." Leroy doesn't respond and just stares robotically ahead. I continue to mutter about how I'm dreaming, but the target audience is really just me -- Leroy seems to have checked out.

We reach the end of the hall and I phase through the plastic into the next room, which should be a large, windowed room of cubicles, adjoining offices and meeting rooms. The windows are there but all of the furniture is missing and the room is incredibly dark. I reach for a switch on the wall without looking, knowing that it will be there, and flip it. The lights come on and I watch as the room quickly populates itself with gym equipment! I see a treadmill, a couple of stationary bikes, and a weight tree with 45-pound plates appear. I stare at the weight tree for a moment, and the image wavers self-consciously, forming odd little rectangles and finally disappearing entirely.

I decide to "give the room a moment", and look over my right shoulder at the wall for a few seconds and then look back. The room is still mostly the same but now there are five or six arcade-style redemption games arranged back to back in a circle in the middle. (The sort of ticket-winning games that you might find at Chuck E. Cheese's.) I take a quick lap around the games to size them up. During the lap I notice that Leroy is still standing by the room entrance and still seems unresponsive, so I don't worry too much about him.

I have the nagging sense that I'm supposed to be doing something but I can't remember what it is. I try to think of the tasks that I had planned but nothing comes to mind, not Task of the Year or Task of the Month. I remember talking with NewArtemis about trying to see whether her DC could shapeshift the way that she can in dreams, so I attempt a handshake summon, averting my eyes and extending my right hand. I do it incorrectly, though, more asking for her to show up rather than expecting that she will. Nothing happens for a while and at the end I rather pathetically say, "[NewArtemis], don't leave me hanging!"

Now I've become fixated on summoning so I decide to try getting Xanous to join the scene. Again I do the handshake summon, but the result's the same. I think of shapeshifting again and realize that Xanous can do this too. For some reason I remember that he uses the term "blutbad" in conjunction with shapeshifting so I randomly blurt out "Blutbad!" like that's going to help somehow. No idea what that was all about, but it doesn't work!

Edit: I remembered one more part of the dream. I give up on the summoning for a moment and try speaking directly to the dream. "Show me something important!" Nothing happens, though, and I try this twice more before giving up.

Amazingly, the thought of simply phasing through the walls and flying off into the night doesn't occur to me. I turn my attention to the redemption games, hoping that this could be fun and might even reanimate Leroy. I stand in front of one machine that's about 6 feet high and has a joystick on the front and a tall, tapering tower of lights inside its case. The lights are illuminated in a wave that moves repeatedly from top to bottom. I place my hand on the joystick, noting the little red button on top, and the dream starts to fade. I feel it coming and ready myself for DEILD, but when I emerge from the dream I'm too awake to go back in.

This was a fun little WILD and attempt at Advanced Task of the Month. It's been a while since I've had to navigate my house and I'd forgotten how challenging it can be. Darkness seems to lurk around every corner and I'm always trying to just get out. Couldn't do that for this Task of the Month -- had to head further in.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #78: The DreamViews Drive

I'm getting consistent hypnagogic imagery of the den of our house, so I feel like I'm getting close. I focus on staying aware, and after a few more flashes of the den, a fully three-dimensional picture emerges. I will myself to roll off of the couch, and my dream body complies. I check my hands and feet and everything looks normal. No extra fingers or troll feet. The carpet feels very realistic as well and I mentally confirm that there's no reason I would have fallen asleep downstairs.

I give the coffee table a little shove with my foot and it glides over the carpet. Okay, now I'm really sure it's a dream. I walk through the den past my computer, stepping on a bunch of the kids' toys as I go. Strangely, there's a laundry basket in the middle of the floor. I give the laundry basket a hefty kick and it goes sailing into the air and flies straight out the window. I'm quite amused with myself.

Outside there's just a hint of light, like it's the early morning. I don't think it's possible that the sun's up yet, but it makes me feel more urgent and focused. Since I'm in the house, I want to find the note that I left for myself for Advanced Task of the Month. I have to get back up to our bedroom. I wonder whether I'll find myself there. The thought of my sleeping body makes me feel a little wobbly, so I imagine instead that Wife is lying in the bed by herself. I wonder whether Wife's DC will be interested in "victory celebrations" if I can complete Advanced Task of the Month. (Menthol, is that you?)

I walk through the kitchen, dining room, and den, past the pool table to the stairs. For a moment I think about trying a pool shot, but decide that I'd better stay focused. I'm pleased that the baby gate is missing from the bottom of the stairs. Halfway up, though, I see that this dream house has the baby gate installed in the middle of the stairs. "That's not real," I think, and phase through it.

The upstairs looks really, really dark. I notice a light switch on the wall next to me. I try both of the switches several times, but each of them just controls the air conditioner instead of the lights! Every time I flip one of them, the air conditioning rumbles to life and I feel a light stir of wind.

I'm not sure what to do, so I just charge ahead. The darkness starts to get really bad, and I realize that I'm about to lose the dream. I grab onto the banister as darkness sweeps over me. I produce a gladius in my right hand and start swinging it around in the void, still clutching the banister. I stay like this for quite some time, not losing the dream but also not going anywhere. It feels like at least 30 seconds. I fail to formulate a good transition to a new scene (or a way back into the existing scene), and I either fade to black or lose lucidity...

It's a clear morning. Wife and I are in a car, pulling up to a two-story brick house to pick up my best friend F. F greets us at the door and comes out to inspect the car we're driving, an amazing classic car that looks a bit like a '55 Chevy Belair. Wife goes inside the house and I tell F that he and I should go for a ride. I hand him the keys and he drives.



As we start down the street, I tell F, "Man, I just had a lucid dream before we came over here. I've got to enter it into DreamViews." He says cool. There's something like an old-style typewriter embedded in the car's console. I know that if I type the dream into this typewriter it'll automatically get posted to DreamViews. I marvel at how convenient this is. I congratulate myself for renting such a wonderful car.

While I peck randomly at the keys, I ask F whether he's had any lucid dreams lately when he's commuting on the train. He says no, and we talk dreaming for a bit. I say something about dream signs and I mention that one of mine is "really bad driving." He laughs and says, "You mean like this?" He hits a quick 3-point turn and floors the accelerator, sending us streaking back toward the house.

"It's a rental!" I whine. "Be careful, man!" It's a residential street and he's doing 60 mph, easy. We're almost back to the house now and he hasn't slowed down one bit. I'm distracted, too, because I'm still trying to type my DJ entry into the car's typewriter-thing. Now I realize that I don't have a seat belt. I alternate between blubbering "It's a rental!!" and "There's no seat belt!!" As we hit the driveway, I throw in, "I don't want to die!!"

F cuts the wheel hard to the left. There's a squeal of rubber and the car stops a few feet from the house. I'm relieved to be alive. I'm not angry because I assume that he just didn't hear my complaints. "I was trying to tell you, man. I don't think my side has a seat belt!"

He laughts. "Nothing's going to happen to you, man!" I get out of the car and see that it's turned into a convertible. I get it now. "F! This is a dream, isn't it?" He's walking inside the house and I hurry after him, the dream growing dark. Fade to black...

My attachment and affection for familiar DCs came back to bite me in this one. They are so lifelike that in the moment they feel every bit as real as the actual person. I love my DCs but I may need to learn to get better about leaving them behind in certain situations.

And I finally had the phase through a solid wall that I've been looking for! That's progress!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #67: All That You Can't Leave Behind

I'm sitting on a carpeted floor talking to my friend BS about strength training, in particular his recent deadlifting injury. At some point, he offers me responsibility or a promotion of some kind, saying that I will be level "17+". It occurs to me that I almost always communicate with him online rather than in person and I become lucid.

I see that I'm sitting on the floor of my master bedroom and BS has vanished. I know that I'm dreaming but the scene's almost distressingly vivid, sort of like a very realistic FA. Our laundry basket is in the middle of the floor but otherwise the room is impeccably organized. Yeah, definitely a dream.

It looks like it's early morning and Wife isn't in the bed. I want out of the house to work on some tasks so I decide to phase right outside Alyzarin-style. I walk up to a wall that leads outside, imagining that it's not really there. But when I try to walk through it, it stops me. This time I imagine the house having that entire section of wall missing, but my phase attempt is still a failure.

I take a few steps back and make one final run-up, focusing my mind on the fact that none of this exists... and pop right through the wall to the outside! My left shoulder slightly clips the window on the way through and a few stray fragments of glass fall with me to the driveway below. It may not have been the prettiest thing, but I'm happy to have finally phased through a solid wall again!

I'd been looking at pictures of Angel Falls during my WBTB and it's fresh in my mind. I Hulk-jump hundreds of feet into the air, willing myself to land at Angel Falls. Instead I come crashing back to Earth on a broad downtown plaza next to a long row of elegant, sculptured water fountains. The plaza is busy this morning and working men and women walk purposefully past, seemingly oblivious to my landing.

My 3-year-old son E is standing here watching the fountains. A few kids are playing in the fountains and I get the sense that he wants to join them. "Hey buddy!" I say. "I'm dreaming all of this."

He pops his thumb into his mouth. I think that he's getting way too old to still be doing that. "That's a lucid dream!" he declares, and smiles slyly.

I bend down and give him a hug. "That's right. We'll talk about this tomorrow. For now I'm going to take you with me." (I haven't thought through how dangerous it probably is to jump off of Angel Falls with a toddler.) I hoist him up to my shoulders the same way that I do every evening during part of our after-dinner walks. But somehow the lift feels awkward, strange, and too heavy. He slips out of my arms and crashes down to the plaza, landing hard on his forehead.

He wails in pain and I hurriedly bend down to scoop him up. I'm terribly upset, bordering on losing lucidity. I check his face and I'm relieved to see that he's unmarked. I hug him tight to me as he squalls in my ear. I'm too emotional to hold the dream together and I wake up.

This was really a lucid fragment followed by a short DILD. Ah, there was so much unrealized potential in this dream! Way too short for all its promise. Some phasing progress though!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #65: A Short Soliloquy

I'm standing in a rain forest clearing, standing in a shallow pool of clear water with my 3-year-old son E. I realize that this must be a dream. I immediately think of jumping from Angel Falls for Task of the Year.

E seems to read my mind because he panics and starts scampering around, squeaking, "Don't want to go! No! No! Don't want to! Don't want to go!" I try to get him to calm down but I quickly wake up.

I lay there and try to DEILD, but nothing comes. I flip to my back and start some fast SSILD cycles. I am halfway through the second cycle when I lose consciousness.

It's nighttime and I'm standing in E's darkened room, reflecting on the nature of life, illusion, and reality. I think, "Everything is just an illusion." I quickly realize how right I am.

I look around and see that E's bed and E himself are both gone. I hold up my hands, looking first at the palms. I bend my fingers into claws, noting how realistic my hands look. At some point, I stopped getting so many distortions and extra fingers, it seems. "My hands are an illusion," I whisper to noone in particular.

There's very faint moonlight trickling in through the plantation shutters of E's window. I say, "This wall is an illusion, too." I remember Alyzarin talking about how easy phasing became once she internalized that every wall was nothing but a picture that only she could make real. What could be simpler or more obviously true than that?

I imagine where I'll be when I step through that wall. I move toward the wall, thinking of the Colosseum. But then I have a vision of the top of Angel Falls. It's far more vivid, so I go with that.

As I pass into the wall, it feels like nothing more than mist. My vision cuts to milky gray and I vividly hear splashing water and the shouts and greetings of friends. People are already here waiting for me, but who? Is it people from waking life? DV members preparing to do Task of the Year? Suddenly I wake up. I try to go back to sleep but it's too late in the morning to transition back in.

This was a fairly short little lucid, but I did get some phasing in and felt really happy throughout. And I guess I really like galantamine. LOL.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #60: It's Just a Phase

I'm walking around in my childhood bedroom, practicing lucid dreaming skills. Somehow, though, I'm not actually lucid. (This was a strange feeling.) I'm trying to fly around the room but keep bouncing off of the walls and ceilings. I try shouting "L-dopa!!" like in my previous lucid dream, but even this doesn't do much.

After a while, I feel discouraged. I'm standing by the window wondering what to do when I realize that I wasn't really lucid yet, and everything that had gone before was just me robotically acting out some sort of pseudo-lucid script.

I'm suddenly on the bed again, and everything now feels really vivid. It feels like an OBE except that I'm getting up out of my childhood bed, not the one my physical body's actually occupying. I move to the window again and look out into the street.

The mini-blinds are partially closed but I decide to phase through both them and the glass, get outside, and go play. I push myself through the window, right hand first and pop out in the front yard. It's pretty dark out but when I look at my hands, they're clear and detailed. (Undistorted, too, just like the previous lucid dream.)

I start running, overcome with joy. As I race down the empty street, I gush without a hint of irony: "Galantamine, how I love you!" (That is so freakin embarrassing to type now! ) Darkness descends before I get very far, I don't properly prep for DEILD, and the dream ends.

This lucid was fueled by pure desperation. I've never fought this hard to save an LD that was going bad, but it paid off. I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this gladius thing.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #58: Generosity and Giants

A young woman named "Crystal Fleming" is collecting money for a charity, and I've pledged $33.13. I'm proud of my "generosity" and totally thrilled that I've found exact change down to the penny. But now I can't find Crystal. It's night, and I trudge across a snowy field to a picnic table where I think she might be waiting. But rather than Crystal, seated at the table is my friend W.

This is unexpected, and as soon as I question whether I'm dreaming, I know that I am. I tell W, "Gotta go, this is a lucid dream." His face is harshly lit, stony, and expressionless. I realize we're in a small, dark room now, getting darker by the moment. I head for the exit, but the scene fades...

Now I'm in the dark. I'm desperate for a lucid dream, though, so there's no way I'm letting this one go. I start swinging a gladius (ancient Roman sword) and willing myself to be in the Colosseum for Task of the Year. On top of this I shout, "This is still a lucid dream!"

I hear Wife muttering and rolling over nearby, and now I'm scared that I'm really yelling and waving my arms around in the bedroom. I want a lucid too badly to stop trying, though, so I jam the index and middle finger of my left hand into my mouth and start chewing on them. This all feels totally real, but I decide to ride it out to the end. If I look like a psycho, I look like a psycho. I'm not dropping this LD.

Suddenly, a sharp new dream scene forms: I'm standing on our bed, fingers in my mouth, swordless right hand swinging madly. The scene's extremely vivid, but there's a slight motion to everything that I see, like I'm slightly drunk. I hop down from the bed and run out into the hall.

The hallway outside of our bedroom is totally transformed. The carpeting is bright pink and the room is decorated floor to ceiling with stuffed animals. There's an exit to the right that doesn't exist IWL, so I explore it, curious where it leads. I find myself in a new hallway with a tall picture window overlooking an early morning street scene.

I phase through the glass out onto the street. The street is wet as if it rained overnight. A few cars pass by, headlights on. It looks like a work day that's just beginning. I fly up into the air, but my confidence isn't what it should be. My altitude is low and my speed's really pitiful. There's an entrance to a mall food court nearby, and the dream seems to be ushering me toward it. I don't resist.

In spite of the early hours, this food court is packed. It's a two story mall, so I try flying again, getting about 6 feet off of the ground and doing that slow drift again. I spot my reflection in the exit door on the opposite side of the food court. Except the reflection isn't me flying -- it's my 6'8" Uncle J walking toward the door with me flying over his shoulder. He looks solid, substantial, and real, while I look like some kind of phantasm. I look down, and he's not there. But in the glass's reflection, he's solid-looking and completely realistic.

Now I can't decide whether I'm me flying toward the door or if I'm my gigantic uncle, lumbering toward the exit on foot. I switch between feeling like I'm the one flying... then the one on foot... then both...

I raise my hand to phase through the door. Uncle J's reflection does the same. The phase fails. From below, an attractive DC calls to me, saying, "Hi! Come down here." The LD's starting to feel thin and I float down. The DC is about 30 with long, dark hair, and attractive almost to the point of absurdity. I remember reading Waggoner during my WBTB and want to ask her what she represents. I feel weak and insubstantial, though, and my voice is just a hoarse whisper. She looks at me, arms crossed, a wry smile on her face and the scene fades to black.

This lucid was long enough that I became legitimately concerned about remembering it. This worry wound up being a bit of a downfall, but it still took me in interesting directions.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #57: Gladius and Darkness

I'm experiencing deja vu as I walk through an airport terminal, sure that I've dreamed of this place before. I note all of these little details that I believe my mind left out of the dream version of this place -- the color of the carpeting, the man arguing at the ticket counter, the way that the ceiling curves into a dome in this room. Then I hear the sound of hurried little footsteps. Someone tells me "E is looking for you!" (E is my oldest son.) Now I'm lucid.

I hear E shout playfully from somewhere further down the terminal: "Looking for Daaaaddy!" I know that we're playing hide and seek. I eagerly set off, loving the idea of playing like this in an LD. I move through the terminal and wind up in a series of twisting, narrow office hallways. Other children run by me, possibly engaged in their own games of hide and seek.

As I'm moving through these hallways, a little hand swipes the back of my leg and E declares, "I got Daaaaddy!" I move toward E to scoop him up but he laughs and runs in the opposite direction. I follow but almost immediately I've lost him in the hallways.

I wind up back in the airport terminal and wander through there a while longer before coming to a craft table. Wife is standing at this table wearing a smock and molding some sort of clay. I walk up to the table but she doesn't acknowledge me. I grab a piece of clay and tell her, "I'm having a lucid dream." She responds in essence that I should "show her" what that means. (I don't remember her exact words.)

As I begin molding the clay, it starts foaming and fizzing until the entire surface is covered in a layer of foam. I wipe the foam away bit by bit and underneath is a carved image of a human face. Wife looks astonished. I tell her, "I'm telling you, being lucid is the way to go."

She hands me a round piece of glass. "Make me a picture of a Christmas tree." I nod, take the glass from her, and rub my hand across it once. Instead of a Christmas tree, I produce a little stained glass picture of an eye.

Wife looks at it. "Nice. But that's not a Christmas tree. I thought you said you were having a lucid dream."

A bit baffled, I shrug and say, "I don't know what to tell you." She goes back to her crafts and I walk further along in the airport terminal. I'm loving the experience of being lucid again and I suddenly fret that I'll forget everything that's happened. I try to recall everything that's happened up to this point, but this destabilizes the scene. Everything collapses into darkness.

I remember that Xanous had talked about handling "dark scenes" by acting out some action like riding a bike or running. I want to perform a Task of the Year, so I will myself to have a gladius in my hand. (The gladius is a sword of ancient Rome.) I swing the sword back and forth in the darkness, imagining that I'm locked in a dark tunnel underneath the Colosseum. I can hear the crowd now, and I know that the gates will open any moment to let me out for my match. I'm nervous with anticipation. I try to remember whether I have to kill for this task, and think that I do.



I see a blob of light forming in the corner of my vision. I'm filled with fear and nervous tension. But just as I'm bursting with anticipation, the crowd noise dies down and the blob of light forms into a high window in the hallway of a university. My vision is badly distorted around the edges, almost as if I'm wearing a shredded contact lens.

The window is about 15 feet above me, and I float up to it to start phasing through the glass. The phasing is difficult and awkward. It feels like I'm dragging my body through thick plastic wrap. I finally make it through and then I'm flying over a park in the mid-afternoon. The dream feels thin now, and I fly only a short distance before waking up.

Had a nice sense of freedom in this one, which left me feeling liberated enough to do Basic Task of the Month. This one was light and fun the entire way through, and even my flight malfunctions didn't get me too upset.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #55: Number Games and Ninja

Wife and I are seated on the floor with a dozen or so small children. The kids are probably 5 or 6 years old, but for some reason we're all taking a Japanese class together. We're working on a craft project while some unseen teacher barks simple instructions which Wife and all of the little kids easily follow. Not me, though. I'm fumbling around trying to glue something onto a paper plate and looking like quite the idiot.

The kids titter at my ineptitude. Wife shoots me a look of disbelief. The unseen teacher bellows more instructions and again I'm the only one who's not getting it. It's all really embarrassing and I think, "Well, I'd better hope this is all a dream. Because otherwise, this is humiliating." I use the nose pinch RC and become lucid.

Wife seems to have vanished, so I walk out of the room while the class continues to work. I seem to be in some kind of apartment, and I turn down a short hallway into a semi-dark, rather sparse bedroom. My friend "Leroy" is wandering around in here and I say, "Hey, [Leroy]! It's another lucid dream!" He ignores me, though, and seems to be looking for something.

A large window overlooks a nighttime city scene. It looks like we're about 10 stories up. I phase through the glass and step out onto a ledge, preparing to fly. I leap away from the building, ready to take to the sky... and give a little yelp as I plummet to the street below. I land pretty softly, narrowly missing a parked car. I relax my mind for a moment and then take to the air again.

I'm flying over a huge, grassy field that I think is supposed to be this city's equivalent of Central Park. The grass is short and extremely well-manicured. Golf course grass. Even though it's night, the park itself is strangely well-lit, and a few DCs are wandering through it. I see a couple of fancy archways and a miniature replica of the Arc de Triomphe.

Most interestingly of all, I see a ninja crouched behind a boulder, hiding in the shadows. Perhaps another forty feet away, there's an Imperial Stormtrooper and a man dressed like a World War I-era pilot searching carefully around the park, presumably looking for the ninja.

I remember the Task of the Month -- have a DC guess a number between 1 and 100. I swoop down to where the ninja is hiding and say, "Hey! I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 100. Guess what it is." The ninja seems horrified to see me. He presses his palms to the sides of his head, in disbelief that I would so bumblingly blow his cover. He points excitedly behind me at the Stormtrooper and the pilot. Guess they really are looking for him. "Oh, I see!" I tell him. "Sorry about that. Let me ask them instead."

I'm worried that the Stormtrooper will sound too garbled, so I address the World War I-era pilot. "Hey! I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 100. What is it?"

He thinks for a moment. "22?"

It occurs to me that I didn't actually think of a number from 1 to 100. I feel like a bit of a dummy. Okay, 38. 38 38 38. "Hey, man, sorry about that. I forgot to think of a number before I asked. Will you guess again?"

He pauses. Then a slightly sheepish guess of "Uh... 23?"

"No, but that's okay. Thanks!" The pilot and the Stormtrooper move toward the boulder, but I see that the ninja is long gone. The Stormtrooper growls something angry and garbled and I think how glad I am that I didn't try to play the guessing game with him.

I wander the park a bit more. The sun has apparently started to rise because it looks like early morning now. The number of DCs has picked up. I know that there's something I should be doing in New York, but I can't remember the task. (Task I was trying to think of: Transform into King Kong, climb the Empire State Building, and battle the military.) I think it's Task of the Year, but I incorrectly believe that there's something I should be doing in Central Park. I turn a corner past a food vendor, and rub my hands together. It doesn't feel as real as I'd expect. Things feel like they're slipping and I wake up.