Threecat's Dreamtime

4:35 AM: I am on a vacation with my wife at Google. We are on the highway driving, and being passed by little Google pod cars--sort of like roundish hover craft-like vehicles. My wife says they are probably just "spy cars." I think they look cool though. We are then standing in a train station, watching the Google monorail pull up. When the monorail arrives, I see that it is a U-Haul monorail (US moving company) and people can put all of their luggage in the nose of the train.

Then we are on the train, looking for a seat. We pass some odd-looking kids while moving through the carriages, and I decide to nose pinch. Either stuffy nose, or just not aware, because I fail the RC, but something still seems off to me. I inspect my hands, but they look fine. My wife begins to tease me.

"Are you dreaming?" she asks, laughing.

"Sweetheart, please stop that," I say, "Something is really not right here!"

I finally decide I must be awake and proceed non-lucidly (!)

We are now in Google village, shopping (sort of a Disney-like atmosphere, for those who have been). I am shoplifting small items, and slipping them into my pockets. In one of the shops, I hear my wife talking to a woman. She is discussing selling or trading something. I realize she is talking about selling her wedding band, and that some agreement has been made. The woman leaves to get her items, and I approach my wife.

I ask her what she is trading her wedding ring for, and she shows me some glass beads. This frustrates me, as the beads are worthless. I try to reason with my wife, and explain how expensive and important her wedding band is, and add that the beads are worth nothing at all. She seems to be considering.

Meanwhile, the woman comes back with her stuff. I explain to her that we may not honor the bargain. She replies that the agreement has already been made. I reiterate not to get her hopes up, as my wife will probably rescind the offer. I ask her what the beads are made of. She shrugs, feigning unimportance, and says, "I think glass." I appeal to my wife wordlessly, giving her a "see there?" gesture. My wife then reaffirms her decision to trade the ring!

I suddenly have a false memory of my wife selling her engagement ring as well, some time in the past. I tell her--almost crying, almost screaming--how money doesn't matter, and that I can't bear to see her do this. I ask why she is giving away the rings that symbolize our marriage in exchange for trash? I am conscious now of making a scene. She begins crying silently and motionlessly, and tells me if giving the rings away will "benefit other beings," then she will do it. Her tears are like diluted red water. I think this is odd but am too distraught to really think about it.

I now turn to speak to the couple--the woman and her husband--but they have gone. They have used the opportunity to abscond with my wife's rings. I run out of the store after them, and scan the village. There are people about, but the couple is gone.

"You pieces of SHIT!" I scream, but then duck back into the store as I don't want to be kicked out of the park.

Dream ends a little bit after, bits of images coming out of hypnopompic.

If you made it this far, let me know what you think

I feel like most of the lucidity pegs were in the holes last night . . . not sure what I was missing, really. Maybe my awareness was low. I have been trying to up that a bit today . . . .

(??): I awake with the distinct impression that I had just been lucid! Unfortunately, not a single memory. Not sure what awoke me either--maybe just the autosuggestion I give myself to wake up and remember stuff! I take it as a good omen, though, and go back to sleep . . .

5:44 AM: I am in a movie theater with my wife and mom. Mom asks my wife why I keep pinching my nose (!). My wife explains to her that I'm "testing reality" and then my mom begins to pester me about RCing. I yell at her while walking down the hallways toward the movie. I ask her if she would rather spend the evening alone, and threaten to sit in the car for the rest of the night if she doesn't put a sock in it. She somehow transforms into one of my professors from college. He wanders down the hallway lamenting, "Literature!" as though I had turned my back on it forever.

My wife and I stop in front of a movie poster. It has black and green detail -- similar to night-vision goggles -- and is about lucid dreaming. She asks if I want to see it and I realize I have wanted to see it for some time. I check the run time (134 minutes!) and then check my watch (!). I realize we will not be out until very late. I am suddenly not so keen. Wife wants to stay now, however. She shows me where our theater screen will be. We will not be sitting in the main theater, but out in the hallway. Our screens are in front of us, to the left, and above us, to the left. She indicates them with a laser pointer, and a little smiley face appears where she points it. She tells me "This is a good thing," indicating the seats. Our view is obstructed by other movie goers. I tell her this is not a good thing and that we have terrible seats. We end up staying. Before the movie starts, we are asked to stand and clap our hands and sing to some music. My wife joins in with everyone. I just stand there because I don't want to sing.

(??): I am walking down a sidewalk and I realize I am dreaming. I also can distinctly feel the vagueness of the dream world. This is not a visual-quality issue, but more of a "this is a very unstable experience." Probably due to being fairly awake while trying to LD. I observe the dreamscape and allow the action to move of its own accord. I continue to mosey along, and then enter a shop to my left through a glass door. The shopkeeper or cashier is positioned behind a counter to my right. She sees me and my NL body attempts to walk past her; I choose to smile at her as I pass. As I make it to the back of the shop, I decide to test stability at this point. I feel that if I can just manage some concrete physical action, then the dream will be good to go. I nose pinch. I of course can breathe but this destabilizes the dream and I wake up, breathing deeply. Really a great time to DEILD, but I wasn't able to pull it off. Think REM needs to be a little more strongly asserted to get there!

I am in an auditorium with my friends, talking about lucid dreaming. One of them presents me with a pillow for light sleepers. The packaging says "cundams." I chuckle at this, look away and look back. It changes to something else, and I figure I read it wrong the first time! I explain to my friend what I thought it said, and laugh a bit. She says that "is gross, please stop."

Another friend explains that he wants to increase the frequency of lucid dreams he has. He has only had one 20-minute experience (in the dream). I explain to him Waggoner's variation of Castaneda's stabilization technique (looking at your hands). I then proceed to hold my hands in front of me and stare at them. I am wearing black mesh workout gloves; never occurs to me that that is odd. I then repeat, "The next time I see my hands, I'll notice I'm dreaming."

Then, finally, I am at work. A colleague comes in to stress about something. I do a reality check, then assure her that we are dreaming, and not to worry about it. I do not have a care in the world. She leaves.