ErraticHopper

It's a blue, sunny morning and I am following my school librarian through the city. I don't think she knows I'm behind her. She's wearing low heels and a flared below-the-knee dress with a book pattern on it, a bag on one shoulder and no jacket to cover her wavy brown hair. Cars are driving past while the sun glints on the glass exteriors of office buildings, cafés and small shops are opening up.

We turn away from the main road and down a smaller street. I recognise it; I took a photograph of it once. The street is perhaps poured concrete and is uneven, with imperfections here and there as though it's been pierced with a fork or blown up by a big bubble. Looking down it the buildings shine and seem to merge with the sky beyond, reflecting the blue and the white clouds. At the top is a stop sign: EXCEPT CYCLES.

Some ways down the street she turns and enters through the double doors of a green-blue glass building. Inside the lobby there's a glass reception office, empty, containing a shiny black desk and a window to allow visitors to speak to the receptionist. The floor is that kind of carpet with metal ridges in it. She enters the office and sits at the desk - looks like she works here. But I realise this isn't where I'm meant to be. A crowd of girls in a dark-coloured uniform different to mine spill into the lobby from within to greet her.

I feel confused and register that she should be working at my school. I ask her about this and receive some explanation in return. The thought vaguely enters my mind that I am late to school.

Lately I haven't remembered many dreams because I've lost control of my sleep schedule a bit. Tonight's New Years but I do intend to start going to sleep at the right time again. I've begun studying some lucid techniques and will update my workbook very soon!

School pool. We are having a swimming lesson, though the person teaching us is not a swimming or PE teacher. The pool is small, two metres deep perhaps, and raised off the ground, the water is blue-green. Beside it the surrounding floor is built in something like sandstone. The floor at the right side of the room is a step below the pool, but that at the back is raised by a big step and what seems like low bollards are spaced out along its length. I look closer and each one has a name on it in slightly raised stone letters. They are memorials. The nearest name looks like 'Marjorie'.

Below the raised pool is a very shallow one, the water is completely clear.

We begin swimming, but now we're not in the pool anymore. It's like we're swimming in the air over the city. Below me I can see skyscrapers and the biggest buildings of the financial district, and lots of houses with red tile roofs. I'm in a group and we float around, laughing, every now and then stopping to rest our feet on the roofs of the buildings. They seem much smaller than us at this distance. I place my feet on a group of houses and feel the roughness of the surface on my skin.

Now it does feel like we're in water again. But we're still above the city. I don't quite get how this works but I feel that the water's surface is far above these buildings. There doesn't seem to be any water down here. It's like two spaces overlapping one another.

I swim slowly, but I keep bumping into a girl in my group. I apologise to her and try to swim a bit further away. She's laughing a lot and with her friends seems to be communicating with someone else far away, I don't know how. While swimming away I turn around and realise she - and she only - is now naked. I'm shocked, and then, I bump into her again. It's much more embarrassing this time.

We are finally back in the murky school pool. I swim around a bit more, feeling good, I can hear my teacher talking. I look up and realise I am the only one left in the pool and everyone else is sitting on the side farthest away at the front of the room. That feels awkward and I quickly get out. The small pool is between me and the others, so I slide in, bracing my hands against the bottom to avoid hitting my head. This pool is really too shallow to swim in. I get over to the other side and get out.

I've been lazy about editing my journals for posting so I've got a bit of a backlog now. Four more dreams waiting to be posted - including this morning's journal! Nothing lucid yet but it looks like my recall is improving, so that's good. Perhaps I'd better move on to trying some lucid techniques soon.

I'm abroad in a different city. I'm sure this is some mainland European country, though it somewhat reminds me of English country towns. The buildings and walls are built of large irregular cobblestones while the streets are paved in the uneven way that's so common in Corsica (to the detriment of my shoes). I catch sight of a large set of wooden double doors, black, wide but not as high as those I see in Italy and France.

I'm guided to the house where I'll be staying by two men. They both wear glasses and seem nerdy, I think they are a gay couple. In retrospect, I'm quite sure the two looked exactly the same - that, or I saw only one and imagined the second. The two are friendly and I remember them talking and laughing with me. They have brown hair.

I meet two more people later on. One is a businessman - broad-shouldered, black suit, cold expression and an office full of heavy dark wooden furniture, thick books and leather upholstery. He reminds me greatly of a character from one of my favourite series. I don't remember the other.

At one point, I'm wandering the streets in the evening, light spilling out of restaurant windows which display scenes of people leaning towards one another talking, cutlery resting loosely between gesticulating fingers, red wine swilling about in glasses, unfinished dishes on the table. I can almost hear the hubbub of hundreds of conversations jostling to make themselves heard.