LiveInTheDream's DJ v2.5

Wow...I really don't know why that WILD didn't work. Everything was set up right, I woke up to the alarm and did a WBTB that felt like exactly the right amount of time, and then I went through the WILD just as I had when it succeeded last...only this time, rather than envelope me and pull me into the dream, all the HI and sensations and all that just faded away all of a sudden. I tried just shifting positions and then going back through the process, but that still didn't work. After an hour or so of trying I just decided to get some sleep and not worry about the dream...but it was really strange that it didn't work that time, seeing as everything was in place.

However, I do recall one normal dream from last night, and in the spirit of maintaining good recall, I'll write it here.

My brother-in-law and I were assigned to run the projectors in a theater for the re-release of Avatar. Not all was normal, though...the projectors were two trucks, and we were using computers, not film, as the source media, not to mention we were stationed close up to the screen, off to the left, rather than from the very back in our own little projector room.

About half-way through the movie, both computers froze up. We couldn't get them to do anything. My brother-in-law went to look for help from someone in the theater building, and I went to look for help by driving around outside. This actually was the majority of the dream; me just driving around, looking for help, when the traffic was absolutely insane. No one followed the road rules, and when there was construction on the road, sometimes the road would be closed and I'd offroad to go around it, only to look back and see that the road had been opened the whole time! It was the most frustrating drive ever...eventually I had to give up and head back, only I couldn't find a freaking parking spot! Someone had taken mine while I was out...and of course for the re-release of Avatar, the lot was full anyway. I ended up taking down a 'No Parking: Fire Lane' sign and parking there ()

On my way back inside, I ran into several people that I know. I don't remember what all they asked me about--just random things about real life--but I tried to answer fast and get back inside.

I got back in to discover that the computers still weren't fixed, and no one was able to help us fix it. The audience was starting to get angry, so we went at the computers ourselves this time...by opening up the hoods of the trucks and messing around with the engines.

I don't remember ever actually getting the darned things fixed, but oh well. I won't have to run any more theater projectors any time soon

I'm actually kind of glad I didn't go lucid last night. I probably would have done something other than go through this totally awesome dream I had. It was super vivid and realistic...I seriously felt like I was there. And honestly, I might have been just a tad bit aware that I was dreaming, due to the car thing...but I'll just tell you what happened now.

It was a pretty normal day...to begin with. I had one of my video jobs to do that day, and it required a team of people driving from place to place all day long. We had it all organized and figured out, though, so it wasn't stressful or anything; just another thing to have to do for the day.

The first three film locations were easy and went smoothly. I got all the footage I needed, and everybody did what they were supposed to and did it well. We stopped back at the hotel we were staying in for lunch and planned out the remainder of the day--still normal. But when we were about to leave again, I went to the bathroom and on my way out discovered that everyone had left without me! I gathered up all my equipment as fast as possible and tried to run after the car, but they were already way too far off to hear me call, and it was impossible to run while carrying all that stuff.

Fortunately, a friend was driving by just then and he stopped to ask if I needed a ride. I got in his car (which was unnaturally small, and which I observed without gaining full lucidity, if any) and he took me where I needed to go. However, once at this final location, things would go anything but as planned...

I caught up with my team by nightfall. They were gathered in a dark alley, all of them evidently very scared.

"What the heck was that!?" I shouted. "Why did you guys just leave me back there with all the..."

"SHHH!!!" They all replied desperately.

Then I saw what their problem was. A few feet away from me, out of the pitch blackness, a light turned on, and I heard the familiar sound of a Geth. Within moments, a million other similar lights turned on all around us, the same sound of communication echoed through the walls, and we knew we'd be dead in a few moments if we didn't get the heck out of there.

"Hey! In here!" I heard one of my team members shout.

We all turned around to see him at an elevator on the outside of one of the buildings. We got in as fast as was possible and rode it to the top floor, hoping to escape. But on our way up, we heard the chilling roar of a zombie, and soon witnessed several jumping down onto the glass roof of the elevator. Fortunately they were not too bright, and when they collided with it, they simply were thrown off from impact...but there were more where they came from.

We got to the roof and instantly looked for a door to get us inside and away from harm. We found one, but halfway there, I stopped everyone.

"No." I said. "We have to finish this!"

I clamped together the tripod legs on the camera I was carrying and tightened the camera itself so that it wouldn't budge from its position. It was a metal camera, and I figured it would make a great club.

"We can take them."

My friends got the point and hurriedly threw together some makeshift weapons. Then we waited. Before long, zombies and Geth and headcrabs and other such creatures began climbing up the side of the building and trying to attack us. With a loud war cry, I swung the camera and tripod through the air, doing a spin move, and landed the camera right on the head of a zombie. It was thrown back over the side of the building and burst into pieces when it hit the ground (it was probably an 80-story fall).

It was a huge battle. We had to stop each and every creature from climbing onto the roof, or if they made it all the way up, we had to knock them off the edge immediately. My group and I were doing well, but it was only a few of us against millions of them. Even with my camera-club (which was by far the best weapon we had) and crazy attack moves we were slowly being pushed back.

I hurled my whole body against an oncoming zombie and threw him over the edge. The effort made me stumble and land on my knees right on the edge of the building just as another zombie was reaching up to pull himself to the top. I remember his face...skin totally white and rotted from death. His hands and arms had no skin left, just a bloody mess of muscles and bones. As I sat and watched this monster approach me, I thought for sure he would grab me and throw me over the edge before I would have a chance to do anything about it. And then...

The Indiana Jones theme began to play as the man himself burst out of the door behind us and start pulling off awesome moves with his whip and gun. Shortly after that, Lara Croft, Luke Skywalker, and Jake Sully (in his Avatar) showed up, too! We had a chance now, and with my renewed hope, I grabbed the face of the zombie with my bare left hand, ignoring how disgusting it was, and then bashed it in with the butt of my tripod. The creature screamed and then fell, defeated.

After that, the fight was an easy victory. The last thing I remember is peering over the edge and looking at all the bodies in piles below...

and then I woke up. But here's a funny little sidenote: all the moves I did in the dream with the tripod I can now do IRL! Hmm...

Well, after a day full of reality checks and a watch of Avatar before bed (you know, for lucid dreaming inspiration ) I was decently set up for some good dreams...except for recall. It still stinks after going so long without working on it. Oh well, I'll get better again.

I'm actually not sure if the RC's helped me out any last night or not. I know they will as they become habitual, so I'm not disappointed, but to be honest, I can't remember any of my regular dreams. So maybe they did help and I went lucid and totally don't remember it; I don't know.

But, at 6:00 I woke up to my WBTB alarm, and that's when things took a turn for the better. I went for a WILD this time, and it half-worked. I went right into a dream, but I wasn't completely sure of if I was dreaming or not. I was looking for confirmation either way, but never once remembered to RC.

Before long, I was caught up in a group of DC's comprised of both people from real life and fictional characters. I cannot recall exactly what they were doing, but I believe they were looking for something very important, and although they weren't enemies, there was a lot of competition to see who would find it first.

I only had to go with them a very short while for it to sink in that this was a dream. The terrain was weird, for one thing. We had moved along from a very realistic looking place to something like a video game from the late 90's. And then of course the Na'vi in the group were kind of a dead giveaway

Knowing it was a dream, the DC's bore no weight on me anymore and I didn't care to stick around their group any longer. I just stopped and took some time to feel things around me, and before long the realism of the place increased tenfold and I grew more lucid as well.

What happened next is mostly uncertain. I feel like I did something first, but at any rate, I ended up in a false awakening and lost lucidity. I was back in bed, lying down. I thought the lucid dream was over and I had woken up, so I got out of bed to get ready for the day. But no sooner had I opened my bedroom door than I was standing back amidst that group of DC's, and it hit me again that this was a dream. Unfortunately, this time I didn't think to even feel things, so my lucidity was pretty low. I never thought to leave the DC group and do more interesting things. Instead, I just went along with them and showed off all the things I could do while knowing that physics didn't exist.

It gets really hazy after that...I remained lucid for a very long time and did a lot of stuff, but eventually I lost it again and the dream continued on non-lucid for the remainder of the dream.

When I woke up I had been asleep for over two hours, and I'm sure about an hour of that was lucid...too bad it wasn't very high lucidity, and my recall wasn't so great. But at least I'm making progress again!