One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

I'm walking up the stairs of a tall building. It's a shaky metal staircase, like a fire escape. When I reach the top, the character Frank Costanza (from Seinfeld) is running around the room collecting flares. And then he's fighting with another guy. I help him. Then he and I start walking back down the stairs.

Then suddenly it's my mother instead (groan). She asks me if I am divorced. I say I was never married. She warns me not to join a gang. I say I'm too old to even consider that. I'm annoyed that she would even think to ask these things. Then she says she's pregnant. I'm initially shocked but try not to reveal it. Horrified, really. I do my best to act congratulatory without judging.

Chuck's Bad Day and Flirting with Bi-Sexual Winona Ryder
I'm living in a house with a bunch of people. It feels like a frat house. I sleep in a downstairs room shared with two other people. I wake up early and talk to the three roommates. One is Chuck and he says he had a bad day yesterday. Another is Ken Marino and he pulls me aside to tell me he's going to bake a cake. We walk to the living room where there is a whiteboard with math equations on it. Chuck erases part of the board and starts writing more math equations while describing his bad day. I ask something like "Did you really have a bad day? Or did you have an average day that fell short of your expectations?" This suggestion upsets Chuck and he storms off back to the bedroom.

It's still early morning. Other people are starting to wake up in the house. There is an open staircase visible in the living room, like the SAV house, and I sense that people are emerging from the bedrooms upstairs and moving to the kitchen or leaving the house. I walk back to my bedroom to find Chuck. Chuck is at the desk with a laptop and his cell phone. I lay on the bed. He starts talking again, but I don't recall about what. I am looking at the laptop. There's a computer program running that solves chess puzzles. There is an animated chessboard as the program tries different move sequences. When the program solves the puzzle, it sends a text message and starts a new one. Chuck gets up leaves the room. He leaves his phone. A moment later, the laptop finishes another puzzle and Chuck's phone buzzes, showing he got a text message.

So I'm alone for a moment in the bedroom. Once again I remark that it's early morning by the hint of sunlight from the window. A new person walks in and tells me that one of our housemate's boyfriend stayed overnight. I recognize the housemate as Patrick's sister. Then a few more people enter the room including Patrick's sister, a guy (who I assume to be the boyfriend), and a girl with short black hair who looks like Winona Ryder.

Winona flops on the bed next to me and starts talking to me in a very friendly way. It's a bit awkward for me because I don't know this person and all the other people in the room are watching. Winona says she's leaving soon with everyone to go to campus. She has a long day ahead of her. She's a college student and she studies at Disneyland. At one point, she changes position on the bed so that she's laying across my body. Then she asks if I want to hang out later that day. I say sure. She says not here in LA, but down at Disney. Again, I say sure. Then she smiles, happy that we made a date and then she leaves.

So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself but there are still those few people left in the room who have just been watching all time. They seem horrified. I ask what's wrong. Patrick's sister leaves the room, upset. Then Hugh explains that Winona is Patrick's sister's girlfriend that they were talking about earlier. Girlfriend? I thought they said boyfriend. And I didn't know she was a lesbian. Then I ask Hugh who she is because she looks like a famous actress (at this point in the dream, I hadn't yet remembered Winona Ryder's name, just recognized the face). He says he doesn't know her name either. He says to name a movie that she was in. "Reality Bites." He's never seen it. "How could have never seen Reality Bites?" Sorry, name another. I can't think of another. I say, "Just pull out your phone, google Reality Bites, and read the first name that comes up." He suggests a few other names, but I know none of them are right.

Wow, that was long. It felt like at least 30 minutes of real time. After a woke up, I remembered the name Winona Ryder. And I just now remembered that Patrick's sister's name is Jennifer.

Weird Notes
0741: Turn in homework on a laundry hanger. Talk about command when it was a remote controlled robot to send in to space. Sam Johnson. 99 on a test. Japanese.

More Weird
0907: Playing WarCraft on my television. Look at clock and realize it's 4pm and I'm late. My closet is messy. Go to kitchen, see wrong burner turned on the stove. Knock on mother's bedroom door to ask about the stove. Is she hung over?

Celebrities and Weirdness
1039 Jack from Will and Grace (but I call him Julian) want to jump in a swimming pool. Or drop a tennis ball? Lifeguard warns him not too. Two coworkers try to pull off my swimsuit under the water. Walk back inside. Birthday gift, Minnie Mouse bathing suit? Old birthday card for my sister. Walk past Angelina Jolie, but say nothing (mistakenly think her first name is Jolie). Fancy hotel inside a mall. Two small dogs chase around me and then run under a couch. Lance buys himself a trophy. Beauty salon. Girl at a sales counter offers me something but I say no.

OBE-like Dream
Method DILD
Lucidity C
Vividness C
Control D
1109: In bed. Dark. Listening to what sounds like a TV on in the next room. An episode of Star Trek: Voyager? Pizza Hut commercial? I visualize the TV screen. Then seem to drift off to sleep. Seem to wake again to a voice inside my head. I intuitively think it's the voice of my subconscious. It says "Jealous, jealous of your identity. So jealous of your thinking." Then pulled out of my body like an OBE. Kinda frightening. I realize I am dreaming so I am lucid but no control because my body is paralyzed. Float flat to a different room. Then land in a bed in someone else's sleeping body. See many small hands, like children's hands, reach for me as I lay paralyzed in this new body.

Military Base
1211: Military base. Jump forward in time. Steal nuke and launch codes. Find some old friends from the past. Go back to base called "Skylar."

Company Problems, Making Out with Coworker's GF
Method DILD
Lucidity D
Vividness B
Control C
1241: Company meeting in a private home. I'm alone in the bedroom, away from the crowd. AR comes in and tells me the company is losing all it's product lines. He starts listing off a long list of all the ones we will no longer have. I interrupt him and ask for just the products that will stay. Just X. I say, with cheerful sarcasm "Oh well in then in a week the company will be broke and we'll all be out of a job."

Then I see AR's girlfriend. She is younger. She has black hair with blond streaks. She has a black cocktail dress with a purple and white stripe. I say to her: "You look familiar". She looks at me with a wink and replies: "You look familiar too", as if to imply she new I was using a line and she is interested. I lead her into the closet. It only has one sliding door so we can't close the closet. I start feeling her up. She is wearing red underwear. At some point a become lucid and just enjoy making out with her. Her skin feels so good. I pull off my pants so she can blow me. But my penis is blue. I start to think this means something wrong with my physical body. The idea flashes in my mind that I've fallen asleep while driving, crashed, and now my physical body is in a coma at the bottom of a freezing cold lake. I force myself to wake up.

Magical Machine
1355: A programmer makes a machine that accidentally erases himself from existence. Scene with a slightly dirty swimming pool but with floating decorative candles. By some chance, I cause him to come back. The experience has taught him what he needs to change to make the machine work as intended. Now he can manipulate anything in the universe. He asks me what to change.

Randomness
0559: This one is hard to explain. I remember it made sense in the dream but makes no sense now. Just going to dump my handwritten notes: Michael from TV The Office. Halloween skit. Tape record interview about haunted fishing boat or something. Supposed to be 30 minutes but goes over 2 hours. Speaking in southern accent. Describe Bryce character who is a zombie or serial killer or something. He wears bright blue overalls and a bright red hat. Then move in front of audience to all of a different some on the boat.

Summer School, Car Search
0939: This seems to be a occasional recurring dreamplot for me: going to school and then searching for my car in a parking lot. Summer school math class. It's Friday. Pay tuition on Monday. Teacher gives us oven trays with French fries and tacos to take home for homework. One guy raises his hand. The teacher anticipates his issue. He is a vegetarian. The teacher give him a bowl of just fries instead.

Class ends and I leave. It's bright day outside. Teacher walks with me toward the parking lot. Parking lot looks like my elementary school. Teacher has a Tylenol PM sticker on his car. We part. I can't find my car in the parking lot. The lot is almost empty. Some one moved it to the nearby residential street. I hand my keys to some guy, like he's a valet. He hands them back to me. Then I walk to a nearby woman who says she had to move my car.

I go looking for my car, pressing the lock button so that the alarm beeps. Now the area seems more like around my high school. I briefly see old elementary school friend Jason, also looking for his car. I finally find my car. I open the trunk and lay the math homework oven tray inside, which I have been carefully holding this whole time. A stray dog jump in to the trunk.

Lonely WILD
Method WILD
Lucidity B
Vividness C
Control C
I wasn't visualizing this time. Instead I was imaging the sink-through-the-bed feeling. I feel my head sink slightly, as if in the gap between two pillows. I only use one pillow so I know I've transitioned into the dream. But I can still feel the stiffness of my physical body so I wait. After a moment, I start floating like an OBE, without intention or control. I float feet-first off my bed, still in a supine position, and toward my bathroom. I float into the bathroom and my body automatically shifts and moves into a seated position. I float down to sit on the toilet. I notice the bathroom is arranged wrong. The toilet is facing the door. It's where the shower should be.

So now the dream seems stable and I can move my own limbs. I stand up and walk out of the bathroom back into my bedroom. It's mostly dark. My room is full of tall lamps, all turned off. They all look the same: a tall metal pole that splits into three sections, which loop back down and end with a light bulb and a decorative shade. I don't have a lamp like this but it seems familiar. Anyway, there are probably 20 of these in the room. I step carefully between them, like a bamboo forest. Very strange.

I recall my plan which is very simple: talk to a DC. Okay, but there is no one around. I step through the lamp forest to my dresser with the TV on top. I reach for the power switch but stop myself: No, this isn't the plan. I start to get logical: If I'm going to talk to someone I need to find someone first. I walk toward the door and say "More clarity! More excitement!" I see light from the crack under the door. I recall a similar scene from another LD that turned out well, so I am hopeful.

I burst through the door and into the living room, expecting to find someone of something. But no one is here. It's just my quiet living room, dimly lit by morning sunlight. Hmm. I feel lonely. End.

American Psycho Playground
0524: I am in what seems to be a school playground in the middle of nowhere. Sandboxes, grassy areas, pull-up bars, chain-link fences, and so on. Christian Bale from American Psycho is here, chasing me and other people. Somehow he gets stabbed and falls to the ground. He calls an ambulance. The rest of us run and hide behind cover. He can't move but he's still throwing sharp things like knives and and pencils. One almost hits me. He is covered in blood. I'm not very afraid though. Just cautious to dodge the projectiles.

short WBTB, just long enough to drink a glass of water with a B-complex supplement

fragment
In bed, notice the nearby electrical outlet. It's making a noise like running water. I remove the plug from the top outlet and move it to the bottom, thinking that will somehow help.

fragment
My mother is in the next room. I overhear her talking to herself. She says that I was talking in my sleep.

Vivid Lucid With Some Tasks
Method DILD (prospective memory), DEILD
Lucidity B
Vividness A
Control B
1134: Begin recall in my bathroom. The light is off and the door is open. Dim morning light coming through my bedroom window. I remember my own advice to look at my hands and count my fingers. At first they appear normal but I stare at them for a moment. A finger on my left hand starts to look distorted and wavy. Bingo, I must be dreaming. I also notice the orientation of the bathroom is backwards compared to the real one.

I walk out the bathroom, through my bedroom, and on into the living room. There I see my father laying on the ground between the couch and coffee table. He's wrapped in a robe, like he's sick. I ask him a question, but move on. I peek in my roommate's room, but he's not there. I haven't stopped to think of a plan, so I'm just wandering aimlessly.

I exit the front door and find myself in an unfamiliar stairway. I go down one flight and pass by two young women. I think I said to them: "Oh, you're pretty, and so are you." They are carrying piles of clothes. I reason that they are moving in to the building. I stop on the landing of the floor below. It's covered with boxes and more clothes everywhere. I say aloud: "Wow, this place is really messy." Then I think: Wait, this is my place. It is my own dream in my own mind. Maybe the mess is symbolic. I pick up some of the clothes to get a closer look. They are actually neatly folded. I say aloud: "I guess I like my place like this." I'm not sure what I meant by that.

Now I exit the building and find myself in yet another unfamiliar setting. The building I was in is at the top of a rather steep hill. I am looking down a narrow street that goes down the hill with buildings, trees, and alleys on either side. It's only wide enough for foot traffic, no cars. I'd guess it looks a bit like San Francisco more than Los Angeles. Anyway, it's bright day and many people are on the street, going in and out of shops and sitting at cafe patio tables.

About half way down the hill, there is an awning that catches my attention. I think to fly and land on it. I start to fly but sputter and lose height. I land under the awning. I sit down at a cafe patio table. Also at the table is a young man with dark brown "bedhead" hair and a scraggly beard. In a hip way, not an ugly way. He's holding an Amazon Kindle. He's talking to a nearby waitress. Neither of them see to notice my presence.

Dream fades. I DEILD back.

I'm back at the same cafe patio. The man with the Kindle stands up and walks away, never having noticed me. I stand up and now have more lucidity and control. I walk to the middle of the street and look around, thinking of what to do. I'm a bit distracted as I notice a older woman standing at a podium nearby. Maybe the hostess of a restaurant. Or maybe she's selling something. I snap back into focus and remember a few tasks. Meditate. Hmm. Risky. I decide I'm not ready for that. Laugh. I can do that. I enjoy a big loud "HA HA HA!" in the middle of this busy street. Everyone stops and turns to look at me. The noisy chatter turns dead quiet. Am I embarrassed? No, surprisingly.

Now I have everyone's attention. What next? Cry and pick a fight. Not sure why I thought of these two things together. I look around the crowd and pick out the biggest, meanest guy. He's a tall, wide, Samoan-looking guy. I look up at him and taunt him with a childish "Boo hoo!" crying gesture. Then I punch him in the face with a right hook. He punches back but I block with my left arm and counter with another right. He tries a few more times but I block and counter-punch again and again. He swings once more, loses his balance and falls. I place one leg on him, like I'm posing on top of a mountain.

I start to think what to do next, but the dream fades.

fragment
0715: Running in a marathon. One coach suspects another of cheating.

WTF, Incomprehensible Notes
0757: Hulk goes back in time to stop a secret ... dates him. They work for ... deface some paintings with red paint. Then training for war. V for Vendetta. Brad Pitt. Sunglasses. False awakening.

Talking To Girls
0927: In school. It's a military school. I am called to another classroom. Baking cakes. In class. Flirting with Erinne from high school. Then another girl. Sara? Or maybe Erin from college. Talking about going crazy. Erinne sits on a swing set and starts bother me and the other girl who I am now talking with.

More WTF
1049: ... sex with Bridgette. Meet her two brothers. Then want to fight with our cars. So I drive around them and cover the shopping mall car wash food. I am driving a convertible. This is so one-sided. I ask if I can use real bullets.

Baseball
0551: C. I am playing baseball again after a long time. I start with batting practice and my swing is all wrong. I'm not holding my wrists through the swing. But the coach corrects me and it gets better. Then he instructs me on bunting. I realize I can't run as fast anymore either. The catcher is complaining about catching all day and his knees hurt. Then the coach tries to strike me out with some crazy screwball pitches.

Disturbing
0728: Ugh. This dream was weird and disturbing and it ruined my whole night. I don't even know how to describe it and I can't recall much detail now. Weird about my family and camping and people dying and accepting death and abused women.

was anxious from previous dream and couldn't sleep and ending up staying awake for hours

Movie, Cat, Alarm
1231: C. It's a movie with Sara Jessica Parker. She is dating a man and they are staying with his folks. A brick falls in the house and causes a chain reaction which hits the main character in the mouth and knocks out like 10 teeth. I have a false awakening in a bunk bed in the same house as the movie. There is a cat and a mouse and I am trying to keep the cat away. It is very vicious and has very sharp teeth and claws. A false awakening again to my phone alarm reminder to pick up the friend from the airport. But that should be in the evening. Is it really that late? Wake for real.

So I'm trying to get back focused on my tasks. My lucid rate has been ok lately but they have all been kinda aimless and accidental. I want to get into my fun and rewarding tasks. Didn't actually succeed in any this night, but it was a good effort so I feel good about it.

First Cycle Randomness
0755: B. First cycle. Bunch of randomness here. Not sure of the order. I'm in an airport, picking up lots of loose change. I think there was just a party of something and there's a bunch of change left. There are also pushpins with people's names written on them. I think the one I read said Bill. I am careful to keep the coins and pins separate. Then my father is here and he's haggling with a man to buy a coin sorting machine. I really want him to buy it to make my job easier. The fact that he's haggling over the price makes me think he is cheap. Then I'm talking to my father about the pushpins and the names on them. They were part of some party event where each person is given a pin and you're suppose to find the person whose name is on it. Or something like that. My father and I are talking about the psychology of it. Something about how people's anticipation always leads to disappointment and therefore people's happiness is always going down. Weird. Then I'm at another party or maybe back to the party that started it all. A group of people are sitting on couches around one guy. He looks like a frat boy with a backwards hat and t-shirt. They are talking about the pushpin game. He's bragging about how good he is at these party games. Last time, the game was to annoy people and he won four times in a row. He also has his own internet video feed on him all the time called "HD Hale." Then I'm watching a TV commercial for MetLife with a statue at the top of a building. The voice-over is talking about how they have solid investments on Mars. The statue is of Abraham, Jesus, and 4 other monks holding torches. But then the commercial turns into a comedy skit. Jesus is now Robert Downey Jr. and he's talking to the Abraham statue, who is played by someone named Carmack. He's saying, "Hey Carmack, why do you always get to be the father of God?"

Street Fighter Documentary
0927: C. Hugh is watching a documentary about Street Fighter. The original stages were in an underground hideout of a gang called the Panthers. But they abandoned it because it was radioactive. Then it talks about the possibility of a sequel and what will happen to the characters after many years. I see an older Ryu with his face starting to wrinkle and his hair starting to go gray. It says Blanka won't be around because he can't have children.

Counter-Strike, Lucid
Method DILD (spontaneous)
Lucidity B
Vividness B
Control C
0949: Very quick time from the previous dream. I'm in a game of Counter-Strike. I must be T because all my enemies look like CTs. A guy is camping upstairs in a building with the Para machine gun. I sneak in through a window and kill him. I take his machine gun and start camping the same building. I'm at the top of a stairway, overlooking the front room of the building which has a front door and several broken windows. Many CTs try to attack me from this front door and windows. One has a shield. But I mow them all down with my machine gun.

As I'm doing this, I sense that I'm narrating the action in my head. It's as if I'm trying to help myself recall this later for my dream journal. Now one more enemy comes to the front door with a flashbang in his hand. He throw it up the stairway and it goes off near me. This sudden flash combined with the self-narration makes me lucid. I stop fighting. I walk down the stairs and outside. I still see the CT enemies around but they are just standing still doing nothing.

I look at the scenery. Vividness is pretty good. It's bright day. It seems like a small town in France or Italy with cobblestone streets and stone buildings. I'm in a large city square or courtyard, with impressive buildings on three sides and a street lead up a hill to the north. I've been walking up the street on the slight incline of the hill. I start to remember my plan. I rub my hands and look at them to stabilize. Feels pretty good. Next task: summon music. For some reason, I think I should be indoors for this. I turn around and see one of the buildings. It's an old stone church with stained glass windows. Think Notre Dame. It's beautiful and vivid. I start walking toward it, but the dream fades.

More Gunfighting
1108: B. It starts a bit like the end of the last dream. I'm in a quaint European town, but now it's near the ocean. I'm in a large courtyard again. In one direction there looks to be a shipyard. In the middle of the shipyard is a futuristic airplane that looks like a giant green and purple hornet. Hugh is here and I guess it's his plane. He's sort of like Batman and the hornet plane is like the Bat-Mobile. Hugh says he just got all the armor upgrades for it. He gets in and it flies way.

Skip. The scene is now similar to the beginning of the previous dream. I'm in an old building that feels like a church. I'm on the second floor balcony that overlooks the large room below. I'm alone with a machine gun and I'm fighting off enemies below. This time, I think they look like marines from Starcraft. After a wave, I am reinforced by my friend H who leads a small group of his own marines. He says we need to move out. Before leaving, I pull out my dream journal, lay on the ground (still in the dream), and start writing in it about this dream.

Bus Station, Failed Task, The Moon and Mars
Method DILD (false awakening)
Lucidity C
Vividness C
Control C
1201: I think I am in a suburb of New York City. I am near the river at a bus station. It's early morning and it's mostly light but the sun isn't fully up yet. I'm looking around for someone or something, not sure what. There are a few DCs around and in the booth selling tickets. I walk all the way around the building and give up on what I was looking for. I am wearing a black sweatshirt and sweatpants but white shoes. I exit the bus station through a chain link fence. I get on a skateboard and start skating away toward a residential neighborhood.

False awakening. I'm in an unfamilar bedroom with very little furniture. I'm sleeping on a cheap cot. There's just a bit of morning sunlight coming through a window to my right. This is all wrong so I become lucid and back it up with a nose-plug RC. But for some reason I question whether I am really dreaming. I nose-plug several times, each time confirming that I am indeed dreaming.

So I finally accept that I'm dreaming and try to remember my plan. Rub my hands. Ok, I do that but I bit rushed. Summon music. The song I have in mind is "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I imagine it in my head for a moment and expect it to keep playing on it's own. No. I try to will the universe to play it for me. No. I gesture with my hand, as if pressing a button on a remote control toward a stereo. No. Hmm. Not working. Discouraged, I abandon the rest of the plan.

Instead, I hop out the window and hover and land on the street. It's a quiet residential neighborhood, like in the scene before the FA. The street is framed with big trees whose leaves have turned orange and brown for the fall. The sun is just rising in the distance and the sky is still a bluish-black with stars visible. I can also see the moon and Mars, which is right next to the moon and almost as big. The colors are so rich and it's a beautiful scene. I think to fly to the moon or maybe fly to Mars instead. I run and jump and get some height but then halt. It's like my rockets ran out and I slowly drift back down to the ground. Now I'm stuck and I start the feel my physical body. I can feel the sleep paralysis and so now my dream body can't move. Even my neck is stiff but I'm still looking up toward the moon and Mars. I know I'm waking up soon and I can't move, so I start bring the moon down to me! I pull the moon closer with my mind and it's getting bigger and bigger. It's about to fill my view and crash into the Earth when I wake up.

Zerg, Driving, Bar
1247: C. Was patrolling for Zerg (Starcraft again). I found some but forget to write down where on the map. (I think that was a false memory in the dream and I didn't actually experience it.) Anyway, I'm beating myself up for that mistake. Now I'm driving home in my car. The street looks like the area around my real office. I want to stop at a bar. I have to make a left turn into the parking lot and I have to wait a while as other cars are pulling out of the lot. I think I cut someone off. I walk into the bar and it's very small. Everything is wood paneled. I accidently bump into a guy near the door. He's with a group of rowdy people. They must be college students and I want to avoid them. I walk to the bar area. The stools are all out of place. I pick up one and place it at the bar and sit down. I'm sitting next to a middle-aged guy to my right. I think he says hello to me. There are two bartenders which I think is weird for such a small bar and only a few people inside. They are both young guys with short black hair. One says hello to me and asks what I want. I think for a moment and order a Corona Light (which I though was weird because I'd probably never order that in a real bar). Dream fades.

Very unusual night so this will be an unusual entry. I slept 11h 17m. But I still don't feel rested.

I dreamed that my mother gave birth to a pair of twin girls. I either have a wife or I live with my sister. I also have a son and maybe another daughter. They might be adopted as well. None of my family members look or act as they should. I feel like I'm another person in another family. Anyway, we split the newborn twins so that my mother cares for one and I care for the other. This seems to be a point of contention in the family. I want the children to be raised a certain way while my mother wants another.

Then the dream skips around through the childhood of these children and I get to see the difference between the twin raised by my mother and the one raise by me. I recall one scene where we are outside a movie theater. Our kids get into a fight with a group of bullies. I break up the fight. Then my son starts drawing something on the sidewalk in paint and everyone watches like he's a virtuoso artist.

Throughout the night, this dream theme recurred in different ways. In one, I am sitting in a dark movie theater, watching a movie about the same storyline. My part was played by Dustin Hoffman. Which now reminds me of his portrayal in Death of a Salesman. Something about appearing on the cover of a magazine dressed as an astronaut. In another dream, I am married and either me or my wife is dying of cancer.

I mostly recall that all these dreams were emotionally charged. I have all this anxiety about family and being a father. Today I feel drained and tired.

Four from the night and two from an afternoon snooze.

fragment
1103: D. Traveling as a drug mule. With daughter of the drug boss. It's actress Kristen Bell, as I recognize her from Deadwood.

Cooking Emergency at Work
1233: C. Emergency at work and Myra has to cook something quickly. Something with noodles in it. She will miss her wedding party because of it. Everyone feels bad for her but she's so self-sacrificing. Then I'm in the back seat of a car. Joe R is driving with Myra in the passenger seat and Lance also with me in the back. Joe is dropping Myra off while he is going to the airport. He's talking about how airports around the world are all the same because they all have the same familiar noises. I think he's going to Japan.

The Ig Fish
1317: B. At a Japanese restaurant. Want to order a simple fish dish, salmon I think. The waitress is a middle-aged Japanese woman. She doesn't hear me right. She thinks I order a really rare and poisonous fish called Ig. I point to what I want on the menu. She asks "are you sure?" a few times. She finally accepts it.

Skip to several minutes later. A Fedex package has arrived at the restaurant with the fish I ordered. The waitress shows me the package and says "Look, we had this very rare Ig fish delivered for you!" There are two fish in the package, each wrapped in plastic. This isn't what I wanted but since it was so much trouble I might as well go with it. I hand it back to the waitress with my approval. She sends to it kitchen to be prepared.

I see a young woman at the next table eating the same Ig fish dish. The fish is colored with dark red and blue strips. It has many feather-like fins all over it like a coral lionfish. It's propped up on thick fins underneath, almost like feet. The woman says something about how she can't eat all of it and she likes to cut it a certain way.

fragment
F. I recalled this while writing down the previous dream. Something about making tools for, Google, and Chrome.

Database Cleanup
1811: C. In a house with my mother and two people from high school, Chris and Brian. We work from Frank? He arranged a promotion deal with a satellite TV company. Chris inserts some data in our database but he did it wrong. He's leaving for somewhere so it's left to me to fix it. Brian is trying to explain the situation but he isn't technical enough. I need to actual list of accounts that need to be removed from the database. I look for my mother, hoping she knows where that information is. She is asleep on a couch the kitchen. The kitchen is a bit like the SAV house. The room is mostly dark and there is a very noisy fan on. I wake her up and apologize for doing so. I ask her if she knows which accounts need to be deleted. I turn to Brian and he's dressed like a Boy Scout. He's about to leave for a meeting.

fragment
D. Feels like a documentary about the wild west. Reminded of Deadwood and Red Red Redemption. Something about the development of the Bowie knife. Hunting wild rabbits near a road out in the desert wilderness.

0820: Amusement part. Christmas for Hugh's younger brothers. Video game theme. I am announcer of the ride as they go down.

1115: Tom Cruise ... in ... Suggest it is a ...

1400: In math class. Learning about Heydinger Bollinger fields. French teacher watches. I feel like I am not following.

Unusual circumstances on this night. Took B-Complex in the evening, about 5 hours before sleep. Didn't get to sleep until I was really tired. Woke up after just 3 hours of sleep to drive roommate to the airport. Was out of bed for about an hour total. Returned to sleep and had the lucid, technically in my third sleep cycle. The rest of the dreams were all very random, but more exciting then my usual boring dreams.

Rooms, Sprinklers, Flying
Lucidity C
Vividness B
Control D
0730: The beginning is jumpy and difficult to recall. I don't seem to have a dreambody, I'm just watching like a movie. It's in a house at a fancy dinner party. A few old people are talking about arranging to meet at a restaurant or country club. Then it's like a commercial. A young woman in a formal dress and hair styling peeks into the room and recommends watching a TV show. Someone asks, which TV show... Buffy? Then I recognize the girl as Alyson Hannigan from that show.

At some point, I sense that I have a dreambody and I am in the house alone. But maybe it has changed into my work office? I step into a room with tall windows all along the far wall. Sunlight is shining brightly through. The floor is grass instead of carpet! The grass is overgrown and spotted with weeds. I think to myself that someone in the office should maintain the grass. I think the new employee should have to do it as an initiation.

I walk out the side door of this room. It leads outdoors and now I am in the side yard of my old house on Daisetta. It's a narrow concrete strip that leads to the backyard. I walk to the backyard and it's fairly familiar. Except there are a row of short fake palm trees lining the lawn. They have big plastic bananas hanging from them and I think it looks really tacky. The sprinklers are on and they are really strong. The water shoots about 6 feet high and is soaking the whole yard, not just the grass. I start to think this is weird. But I don't want to get wet so I turn and run back into the door I came out of. In the Daisetta house, this should be the garage but it's still the room with grass. I notice the size of the room is about right for the garage though. Now sprinklers are on in here too! Ok, I really must be dreaming and I tell myself to do a reality check. I run through one more door to be out of the water.

I plug my nose and confirm I'm dreaming. Yay! I remember that it's been a long time since being lucid. I had a scene in mind but I'm not sure how to get there from here, so I go outside and just start flying toward the horizon. But my flying sucks! I can only hover a few feet off the ground and move very slow. Then I remember one of my cues to invoke the Superman schema: Lois Lane is in trouble and I have to save her! My flying gets a bit better. I'm flying faster and higher but still not great. I try to focus on where I am going. On the horizon, I see an ominous factory on top of a mountain. Lois must be trapped inside! Smoke is billowing out. Then I see an explosion. I sense the urgency and danger and try to fly faster. But it seems so far away. Discouraged, the dream fades.

Family and Old Acquaintances
0849: C. Very jumpy and random. At Daisetta house with the whole family. Mother hands me a book about politeness and etiquette. She says my father read it but doesn't follow it. I'm supposed to go to work but I'm staying home late. I'm dressed in a blue stripped shirt with matching shorts, which I think is weird. I remind myself to change into pants before leaving for work. Then talking to my sister and one of her friends. Then I get a message on my Xbox from someone with initials C.C. I struggle to think who that is. At first I think of Sean, but that's way off with S.F. The closest I can think is E.B., Erinne from high school. I turn and see her in the room at an impressive desk. She's dressed nicely and looks like a lawyer or executive. I ask if she knows who C.C. could be. She asks me what her own phone number is. I'm confused. Do you mean your non-cell phone number? I pull out my phone to look. See calls her own house and talks to her housekeeper. Then my mother brings a big slice of ice cream cake. My sister and I eat it with our hands.

Saving Private Ryan
1012: C. In a war setting. In a small troop, looking for someone like the movie Saving Private Ryan. We find him and he's really shaken up. He's the only survivor of a big battle. I let him use my phone to make a few calls, but no one answers. Then my phone rings with an incoming call, but it's a wrong number.

Speed Racer, Secret Mission, Rugby
1123: C. I start as a racecar driver. Feels a bit cartoonish like Speed Racer. But it's just my cover for a secret spy mission. I'm in a team of spies with me, Hugh, Leonardo DiCaprio, and maybe a couple other people. We are in some third-world country. I am reminded of the movie Spy Game (but DiCaprio wasn't in that one). Leo comes up to a fruit stand to make the secret exchange, pretending to buy a basket of fruit. But something goes wrong and we have to abort the mission and run away.

Then it seems to be years later. Hugh and I have returned to the same place. This time, his two younger brothers are with us. Maybe we have come to avenge Leo? We go to the same fruit stand. Some of our faces and Leo's are on "wanted" posters. So we send in the brothers because they are new. The vendor at the stand starts arguing with them. Things seem to go bad again.

Now I'm in the middle of a game that's a bit like rugby, but not quite. I sense that I am not good at this game. I'm on the team to fill a spot and I shouldn't interfere with my better teammates. But the ball comes to me and a run and kick a field goal. We win and I climb up on the uprights, which look like the big arch in Chinatown.

I Thought I put in a good effort this night, but no lucids.

Spooky
0328: C. Typically weird first cycle dream. Trying to become an actor? Playing DDR-like game with the arrow keys of a keyboard with my left hand. Images of playing cards. The game is hard and I can't keep up. As I miss the notes, the screen gets distorted and starts playing really spooky wailing noises. I feel frightened, like I've offended some evil spirits. Just a dream... Just a dream...

Fighting the Soviets
0652: C. Small troop in the army. It's me, childhood friend Ashwin, a random third guy, and our commander is my apartment building manager. There's a military stand-off with the Soviet Union. Something about railroads. We sneak into Russia on mini-trains. We are wearing USC hats instead of helmets and that seems to fool the Soviet army guards. We fight and win two small skirmishes. A woman thief has been stalking us. She can turn invisible. She steals all the coins out of Ashwin's pocket. I see her and ask to stay and help us. She is familiar but I can't place her. Long black hair and tan. We settle down in an abandoned train station to sleep.

WBTB+MILD 10 minutes

Random School Scenes
0800: C. Not sure of the order of events here. It was probably the reverse of my notes. Going to junior high during the summer. My PE coach is Gordon Ramsey. I'm in third person. Looking at myself I'm wearing blue jeans and a white polo shirt, the same as Gordon. I look really buff. Then in math class. A friend, Chris, is sitting behind me and gets called out of class to the office. He asks me to watch his backpack. When class ends, I leave the backpack with the teacher. But I forget the teacher's name and am embarrassed. Then in a giant bathroom with many trough urinals like a sports stadium. Most of the boys in the bathroom are much younger than me.

WBTB+MILD 60 minutes, read DV, B-Complex vitamin, water and piece of bread

Ice Cream and Being Locked Out
1000: C. This might have been two or three dreams connected with hallucinations or short waking day dreams. At a strip mall looking for something to eat. Pass through a Weinersnitzel. Find an ice cream stand. Get a medium cup of strawberry (residue from a few days ago).

Now at home. I live with Lance? I'm in my room and hungry again. I leave to get some ice cream across the street. Forgot my keys and locked out. Find an open gate in the parking lot which leads to a bunch of maintenance access tunnels and ladders. I follow these and they lead to a trap door in the floor of Lance's room. He is watching TV. I apologize for intruding and explain what happened.

Now I am back outside, maybe the next morning. I sense I am well dressed. I lay down on a mattress that is lying at the curb of the street. The street is dirty and the area is a bit sketchy. I am near an intersection. A man walks out into the intersection to block traffic and starts taunting a guy in a van. Another man in a pizza delivery car gets out of his car and yells at the guy in the street to move out of the way. The guy apologizes and says the man in the van he is taunting is his friend. The pizza man returns to his car but he has locked himself out. He pushes his car out of the way.

Still laying in the street on a mattress, I notice the building next to me is one of those payday loans places. A few really hot women step out of it and walk near me. One steps over me in a skirt. It seems like they are trying to get my attention.

Thief with Powers
1127: C. I'm in a sketchy part of a city. I climb along rooftops and I can slip through water drains and air vents. I use these powers to sneak into a donut shop and steal all the money from the cash register. For a while, I continue to stake out this shop. I am watching for the reaction of the people and waiting for another opportunity to steal more.

Like yesterday, several short dreams mostly late in the morning. I woke up more times and recalls some other tiny dreams and hallucinations but didn't write them down.

Fire Breath
0328: D. In a movie/video game. Stars David Duchovny and Jennifer Aniston. Though sometimes I sense the female character is my mother. Fighting hordes of evil demons. I choose one weapon and it's fire breath. It's super effective. Something about smelling like Patchouli oli.

Frisky Girl
0449: C. I'm in a hotel room but it's really big. There are four queen-sized beds lined up. It's dark. I'm on one of the center beds with a laptop, playing some classic game. A couple stumbles in and gets on the other middle bed next to me. The girl is Asian, the guy is middle-eastern or Indian. They start having sex. I feel a bit awkward. I watch for a bit, then turn away. I turn off the screen of the laptop and try to sleep. They finish and then the girl jumps on my bed. She's really friendly and frisky. She straddles me. Again, I feel weird but start to go along with it. The other guy doesn't seem upset. The girl and guy push our two beds together. But the guy lays in his bed while the girl lays with me in my bed. I'm showing her something on the laptop. Then I want to turn it off but I have trouble pressing the right button.

WBTB 60 minutes, B-Complex vitamin

Chasing Game
0753: D. Watching Ben play a game. He runs around a sports track chasing a monster. He is a deer. It's overcast and the ground is covered with snow. He quickly taps one button to speed up but he keeps accidentally pressing the Start button which pauses the game and breaks his rhythm.

Stationary Tactics
0835: D. I'm in the game Counter-Strike. The old one. The map is Office. I'm CT. I think I'm just playing with bots. I don't move. I just stand in the spawn and wait for the bots to find me. When they do, I headshot them with my pistol.

fragment
1102: F. Some cultural debate about Europeans?

Enjoyed a lot of alcohol the evening before, so no recall for the first several hours. Then I had some REM rebound and recalled these short dreams. In bed for a total of 12 hours.

Chelsea Clinton Playing Lacrosse
0527: C. I have to write a report on Chelsea Clinton. I am looking at the wikipedia page, but I am upset because someone deliberately removed all the images. Later I realize that it's just a written essay and I don't need images. Then I'm watching a women's lacrosse game on TV and Chelsea is the star of one of the teams. Her team is up 7-2 and she gets taken out to rest. The other team scores two quick goals to make in 7-4. I think I'm watching with my father.

GTA in SAV, Hangover
0630: D. I'm stealing cars and escaping cops in SAV, like Grand Theft Auto. Not much recall.

False awakening that I totally missed. I'm in my own bedroom and I'm still drunk (day residue). Everything is really weird, but I account for it as drunk stuff I did last night. I'm under the bed comforter but not under the sheets. I get up. I'm wearing a heavy jacket and a pair of swim trunks. My bedroom door is wide open. The water in the bathtub is running. I walk into my closet to change. I see something in the corner of my eye to my right. I think maybe it's my own reflection in a mirror. I move, but it doesn't which freaks me out. Turns out to be Dave who was hiding in my closet.

Comedy Show, Wrong Page
0808: D. I'm at a Dane Cook show in New York. In the first part, he's in front of a small crowd. Then as part of the big opening, this small section of seats separates and moves down into a large theater. Dane Cook continues with his act but it's like a classroom and everyone is following along with books and notes. I don't know what page we're supposed to be on and I panic. There's a girl sitting to my left and one in front of me. I guess we are in a group. They are upset with me and trying to get me to the right page. As I flip through the book, it becomes my dream journal. This happens a few times. Now Dane wants someone to read aloud from the book. We are at the far right of the theater and there is a microphone nearby. The girl to my left is supposed to read but she has lost the page too. I am embarrassed.

Touch Football, Libido
0921 D. I'm with a group of people. I sense they are friends but I don't recognize anyone in particular. We are in a convenience store, goofing off. Running through the aisles and knocking things off the shelves. The employees are upset. Then we divide into two teams to play football (day residue) in the middle of the store. I'm on a team of another guy and a girl. The other team is 4 guys. I don't think that's fair.

We have the ball first. Me and the other guy on my team alternate as quarterback. We basically ignore the girl and just pass to each other. The first time I catch the ball, I turn and see the other team running toward me. I think, wait, we said touch football, right? Not tackle, I hope? It's touch football and no one gets hurt. My team is successfully driving down the "field". The endzone is the freezers at the end of the store. I get the ball, run to the freezers, open the door, and place the ball inside among the frozen pizzas and ice cream. We win!

At some point I become lucid. I'm still in the convenience store but no longer in the group of friends. I have no control and the dream is not very vivid. I just know that I'm dreaming and there's no consequences for whatever I do. So my libido takes the lead. Naturally, I look around for the nearest woman and tear her clothes off. She looks to be in her thirties but I'm not bothered. Her underwear turns out to be some rather scandalous light purple lingerie. I move in and kiss her but this narrows my field of vision. I close my eyes and the dream fades away.

Lucid Supermarket, Libido
1021: C. I'm in my car, driving at night. I'm hungry and stop at a supermarket to get something to eat. The supermarket claims to specialize in lucid dreaming. I think at one point the store is called Lucida Monica Market. Then later it is La Lucida Market. But it's in Culver City (day residue), not Santa Monica. Inside it looks like a typical supermarket. I search up and down the aisles for something to eat but nothing seems appetizing. There are quite a few DCs browsing the aisles and also way too many DCs behind the counters working. It seems like they are all staring at me, waiting for me to ask for help. I feel a bit paranoid and shy.

Then I come to the aisle that is supposedly for lucid dreaming. The signs above mark the sections with various lucid dreaming topics. The one I remember is "Expectations". But the items in this section are just a bunch of mirrors, knick-knacks, and craft supplies. I struggle to see exactly how this is relevant to lucid dreaming.

Once again, I'm bored and my mind turns to sex but I'm not lucid as in the previous dream. I scan around me for the nearest woman. Like the food, nothing seems particular appetizing, so I continue to wander for a woman. Before long, the dream fades.