Night Vision

In the earliest parts I can remember, I’m traveling on a ship with a friend when the water underneath starts to swirl. Soon, a whirlpool has formed, and we’re spinning around as the wall of water grows higher around us. It now seems to be just us in the water – the whole dream was a bit iffy on continuity – and I see a smaller spiral under the surface near me. I move away, but it follows. It strikes me that this thing is only after me, not my friend, so I pass them something which is supposed to be a useful tool of some kind and encourage them to leave.

I am alone now. The ship (or something, anyway) seems to be back, and there’s nothing to do but wait, I figure. I pull out a book—The Hobbit—so I can read until it feels like manifesting.

At some point, a dark, oppressive energic atmosphere begins to form—not something visible, but a feeling hanging over everything—and it does show itself – in the form of Bilbo Baggins. Simultaneously with this, I now seem to be Frodo. “Bilbo” starts going on an exaggerated diatribe about what an awful book “The Hobbit” is. This goes on for quite a while, interspersed with my occasional sarcastic responses. The continuity continues to be rather sketchy, with “Bilbo” occasionally disappearing and subsequently reappearing elsewhere, and once, apparently accidentally, walking into view undisguised before the previous one has finished talking, appearing as a figure cloaked in black, face hidden beneath a hood.

But then, a little later, it’s back to “Bilbo” again. He now has his own copy of “The Hobbit,” enclosed in a bubble wrap packing envelope which he’s holding by one corner as if it’s something disgusting. There’s a whole tub filled with bubble wrap beside him. I haven’t been taking anything that’s happened the least bit seriously so far—I’ve been treating it as if it’s some kind of unavoidable everyday nuisance rather than an actual threat—but somehow, in this whole improbable series of events, it is the bubble wrap that gets me thinking critically about what’s going on. “Bubble wrap. Why?” I say aloud. There is no bubble wrap in Middle Earth. I think it over just to be sure. No, it’s quite impossible. Couldn’t happen.

I then proceed to do the only logical thing one can do under the circumstances: transform myself into a cat and leap into the bubble wrap-filled crate. But it’s just then that the dream ends, and I awaken.

4.11.21

Last night, I once again found myself lucid, once again without being entirely sure how it happened. It felt like the dream was close to an hour long, although it was technically two dreams since there was a brief awakening and reentry in the middle. Because it was so long and I spent the whole thing just exploring the house I found myself in and messing around, it wouldn’t make for very interesting reading, and so I’ll just include a few highlights of it.

-Finding a series of books entitled “More Than 21 Cats” on a bookshelf.

-Devoting more attention than usual to maintaining awareness and focus. My lucid dreams almost always end with no warning whatsoever, and while I used to consider this something I couldn’t do much about, I’ve been wondering lately whether preventative stabilization might help. This intention seems to have carried over, and as the dream was longer than any I’ve had for a while, I’d call it a success.

-Receiving a few gifts for no apparent reason from people who were around. I spent a good chunk of the dream opening them, resisting the urge to go off and do other things since it seemed like that would have been ungrateful, even if it was a dream.

-Moving a wardrobe with my mind. I extended my hand, interfacing with it on a mental level—if that makes sense—and then pulled. And then I pushed it back.

-Having the dream briefly interrupted by a message displayed over the scene as if it were a screen. It was a rather ominous message, but it seemed to have no immediate effect other than turning everything in the house green and shifting some of the furniture into new styles and/or positions. This may have been a direct result of moving the wardrobe as it happened shortly afterwards, and the last time I tried to control things in a lucid dream was also closely followed by something weird and threatening happening.

-Two more visits to my M--- basement, the first before the green shift, the second afterwards to see if anything had changed. It had: the second version had a closed door where the tunnel often is in dream versions of it, as well a sort of workshop behind the same wall, visible through a couple small windows.

-Lots of cats around, but probably less than 21.