CanisLucidus

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #231: Fedoras and Flatulence

I wake up feeling disappointed that I didn’t manage to have a lucid dream. Well, too late for that -- Wife and the kids are up and getting ready and my folks are here too. I feel grumpy and sorry for myself, but I get started with the day. Lots of mundane stuff happens and eventually we all wind up sitting at a cafeteria table across from a pedestal.

The pedestal fascinates me. It has the vague outline of a statue on it, which will fade from looking fully physical to almost completely invisible. It’s a statue of Artemis, and I know that nobody can see it but me because I’m the only lucid dreamer in this whole place. As I’m staring at this statue, a brown-haired woman in her early 20s sits down in the chair next to me, a little closer than appropriate. She touches me on the shoulder flirtatiously and leans in. “Hi! What are we looking at?”

I feel uneasy about how close she’s getting but also attracted and flattered. I feel like I don’t know how much information I should reveal about being a lucid dreamer, so my answer is guarded: “That’s supposed to be a statue there.”

“Well, what do you see?” she asks.

The truth: “It’s a statue of Artemis. I can see it because I’m a lucid dreamer.”

“That’s amazing!” she says. She makes a few more comments about lucid dreaming and then stands up. Her inner thigh brushes my left hand as she gets up and I again get that mix of attraction and discomfort. She smiles. “You should call me if you ever want to talk to me about it.”

I think that I’d have no way to call her because I don’t have her phone number. I’m about to ask her what it is but stop when I realize how bad that would sound. This all feels strange to me now. I look to my right and my family isn’t here with me. It’s just me. I take the nose pinch reality check and I blow right through, becoming semi-lucid but just not completely convinced. .This feels so real, am I sure? I hit a second nose pinch and now I’m fully lucid.

I get up from the table and move into an adjacent room, remembering my intent to summon Dreamer. My go-to method has been transforming an existing DC into her, so I look around at the few dream characters wandering this scene and confidently grab the nearest one. It’s a short, pudgy Asian male, overall a really abysmal candidate for this transform into Dreamer. I want to be confident though so I go right ahead with trying to transform this dude.

I press my hands along his scalp, spreading Dreamer’s purple hair color along his scalp. He’s smiling and kind of chuckling at this, seeming to find it funny. The purple is coming out but whatever paint is coming out of my hands feels really clump and uneven. The guy’s scalp is kind of sweaty, too, and the purple paint even starts running down his face. His hair isn’t even half purpled before I get frustrated after a long time trying. Okay, maybe he looks too different, try changing the face. I start mashing on his face with my hands, trying to change his look into Dreamer. He seems to be getting kind of pissed at me for this and the whole thing just becomes awkward.

Okay, move on. I leave and walk into another room with a strange, gently wavy floor. I try the behind-the-back summon, narrating that “I feel Dreamer’s hand over here,” but I feel this doubt like I’m not doing things properly. I call out “[Dreamer]!” (using her real name) and vaguely hear a response, and I decide that she must be up ahead in some nearby room. I decide to use my old trick of demanding that the dream show me the way, and now when I call for Dreamer, a doorway glows with bright yellow light.

I continue moving through another series of 3-4 doors this way, demanding to be shown the way and the dream complying. I wind up in a large, cavernous room filled with DCs. There is a group of nuns near one side of the room that are dressed in unusual red habits. A large number of adults wander the room (more women than men) and close to the center of the room there’s a shallow pit where a large group of children are playing together. I ask the dream to show me where Dreamer is, but the glow effect always seems to be slightly out of view, frustrating me. I demand out loud that “Everybody point to where [Dreamer] is in this room.”

Every character in the scene turns toward a young, blond girl that’s playing in the pit. She’s about 6, her hair much shorter and lighter than I would have imagined, but I feel like this is her. I walk up to the child, who looks up at me with a goofy, slightly crooked-toothed smile. I place my hands on the sides of her head and say, “This is you, you’re [Dreamer].” As I say this, she grows to full height and now she looks completely like herself, apart from the fact that she has the little girl’s short, blond hair.

“Thank you for finding me!” she says. Dreamer puts her arms around my neck and we briefly hug. Almost immediately, all of the DCs in the room move toward, all of them smiling at her, greeting her, and wanting to interact with her. Some of them congratulate her. I stand by a few feet to the side, interested and amused. As each of the DCs greet her in turn, at one point a man comes up with a tiny fedora and placed it onto her head as if he’s crowning her.

The happy throng of DCs congregate around Dreamer as they all walk toward one of the room’s exits. I feel sad to see her leave the dream scene so early but all of this feels very natural to me, so I don’t resist it.

Once I find myself alone, I walk through another exit into an office scene with lots of people working at desks. It looks like we’re high up in a skyscraper. I make some mischief in here with telekinesis, throwing a plastic sign, tossing a desk, picking up one poor guy who’s just trying to get his work done. The office workers start seeming uncomfortable with my presence, so I look for an exit.

Off to the side is a platform with a waiting helicopter, so I climb aboard. Another DC tries to get on with us, and there’s a brief argument about who should get to come aboard. The pilot says (referring to me) “He can do whatever he wants,” and we take off. We fly over the city for a good while and I spy a few buildings that look reminiscent from spots in Breaking Bad. Eventually the helicopter hovers over a forest clearing near a building and I jump out. The helicopter flies off and I’m alone again.

I remember that I have a lucid dare from Dreamer that requires me to perform a Super Advanced Fart (one which is “very long, loud, and powerful”). At first I feel like this will be impossible. My body isn’t giving me “the signal” that anything can be conjured up. I know that this is a dream, though, so I convince myself that a bubble of pressure is forming in my stomach. Once that’s there, a good push sends me into a full eruption. The emerging fart is ultra loud and super powerful, lifting me gently into the air. It feels like there’s a hand or a platform under my butt lifting me upward. I wobble around unsteadily in the air, leaning left and right and bobbing a bit. It feels like I have a jet pack on.

I’d hoped to have enough propulsion to reach lower earth orbit, but I never get more than 15-20 feet off the ground. As the “event” ends, I settle back down to the ground. Dare achieved!

I’ve still got some dream left, so I decide to find Dreamer again. I ask the dream to show me where she is, and a door glows on a nearby building. I head for the door but before I reach it, I have a false awakening at the foot of a bed. Wife is lying on the bed, completely unclothed, writing on a notepad. I feel extreme sexual attraction and I curl up next to her. The moment that I kiss her neck, though, her clothes reappear. Then she shows me that she’s making a list of personality quirks that makes her good at Jeopardy questions. I’m still trying to figure out how to turn things frisky when my dad walks by on the way to the kitchen. The mood is officially ruined, so I get up for the day before waking up for real.

This was my first encounter with a hostile, physically violent DC. Great learning experience, I think. I also wound up giving an LD mini-seminar in dream, which was interesting to say the least!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #18: DC Wants a Piece of Me

I hurry into a grocery store to pick up some items, passing my friend R on the way in. (The only IWL friend I have that regularly LDs.) I say hey and we catch up about the time he's been spending in Seoul, South Korea. I'm in a hurry so I tell him I have to run.

As he's leaving, I call back to him and ask, "R, what city are we in right now?" He thinks for a moment and then says that he doesn't know. How can we both not know? Something's off. "Buddy, aren't you supposed to be in Seoul? I've never been to Seoul." We agree that it's strange neither of us know where we are and I realize that I'm dreaming. "I figured out what's going on, R. I'm dreaming. Well, one of us is, I guess. Probably me." He congratulates me and agrees that it's "probably" me having the LD and not him. I clap him on the shoulder and head into the store.

I walk through a set of automatic doors and casually explore the store, taking my time marveling at the items on the shelves, the level of detail, and the sheer number of dream characters buying food for the week. I spend several minutes just enjoying the people and texture in the place. One DC, a bulky man in a football jersey and baseball cap, gives me a slightly unfriendly look, but I ignore him.

A more serious confrontation is next. I'm approaching the frozen foods section when a fat, enormously tall man locks eyes with me. His many chins quake with rage and his fists are balled up for a fight. The huge man strides toward me, flaring out his arms like an obese grizzly bear. I hear him grinding his teeth. The sound is awful, like ice cubes being crushed against one another.

My own temper starts to smolder but I catch myself and say, "Wait. You're not upset with me. You're angry about something else. What can I do to help you?" He stops and drops his arms to his side, mouth hanging open in surprise. Sheepishly, he says, "Drumstick." I point to one of the cases in the freezer aisle and it begins to give off a warm glow. "The ice cream's in there," I tell him. "I made this place. That means it's my fault it didn't have what you needed. I'm sorry for your trouble." He smiles broadly and waves, turning toward the ice cream.

I walk further down the freezer aisle, studying the ice cream and shelves full of frozen dinners. (My subconscious seems to mostly produce lasagna and meatloaf.) At the end of the aisle, I come to a door that leads into a hotel banquet hall with a view high above the city. (What city? Still don't know.)

I'm barging in on some sort of convention and the well-dressed DCs act shocked to see me. They protest at first but I inform them that all of this is my lucid dream, so they'll just have to be patient until I'm through. They become very interested, peppering me with questions. A small crowd of well-dressed young professionals gathers around me, asking me why I keep rubbing my hands together and prodding at my arms. I explain a bunch of LD concepts to them, starting with stabilization, going through how I enter an LD, etc. None of it feels like a waste of time. If these DCs represent some part of myself, what could be better than reviewing the basics?

I tell them that I have to find the Cretaceous sea. I hold my hands out and will the Cretaceous sea to illuminate. A chunk of the horizon starts giving off a warm glow (just like the ice cream!) I try to push through the window, which fails, and then try to punch it. It acts like plexiglas, wobbling and vibrating but refusing to break. I finally grab a chair and knock out a smaller panel.

I squeeze myself through to the outside of the building. The wind is fierce, tugging at my clothes, and the ground looks far, far away. I cling to the building, suddenly more afraid than I was prepared to be. I start to calm myself but it's too late -- I'm awake.

Tonight was my first chained lucid dream (achieved via DEILD.) The first lucid segment was induced via SSILD. I chained from this one into my second with DEILD. This was a very cool experience but it came with a price: I lost almost all memory of how I became lucid in the first dream!

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #11: Lucid Chains, Lions, and Evasive Olympic Dreams

I'm standing in the vast courtyard of a Shinto-style shrine. There are signs to guide me but they're all written in Japanese. It's early morning and the sun is just beginning to rise. Dream characters mill about peacefully in the courtyard.

I walk by a dream character that I recognize as DK, a very old friend that I grew apart from in childhood. I had not thought of him in a long while. We shake hands and exchange pleasantries, reminiscing about the past (especially the "Quest for Glory" game series.) However, when I ask DK what he's doing with his life and what sort of career path he took, he will no longer answer me. He looks guarded and embarrassed.

We walk to the edge of the courtyard and find a waterfall. Next to this is an enormous rollercoaster here that goes along a track which is somehow made entirely of water. I leave DK behind and grab on to the roller coaster. It immediately starts rocketing along the track, spraying water on me and rushing alongside the temple wall. I realize that the roller coaster car has no seat but only tiny handholds that I must cling to for dear life. Feeling completely exposed and unsafe, I jump off, falling about 30 feet to the ground.

A nearby sign is in Japanese but has a tiny bit of English text warning me (in big red letters) that this is a "Nature Preserve". A few feet away from the sign, a dangerous-looking lion has his eyes locked on me. I try to remember what you are supposed to do when you're close to a lion. I have no idea, so decide to try backing slowly away. This isn't good enough and the lion charges at me, knocking me to the ground. The jolt is enormous but I'm seemingly unhurt. I choose "flight" over "fight" and run back toward the temple wall, the lion charging after me. He bashes me again just as I'm running through a door into a poorly-lit room with a single table in the middle of it.

I wake up but don't open my eyes. I decide to try to chain back into another lucid dream via DEILD. I think about that little room for a while and seconds later, I am lucid again. The room's better lit now but otherwise the same. I decide that I'm going to try for the Olympics again. There are four exits from the room and I command the dream to show me the one that will lead me to the Olympics. Obediently, one of the exits is illuminated and I step through it into an auditorium full of howling spectators. There's a table tennis table in the middle of the auditorium -- so table tennis it is, then!

After approaching the table, I find that rather than a proper paddle, I have an old, deflated latex balloon in my hand. I put it out of sight and will it to turn into an excellent paddle with top-notch rubber. This works. My opponent comes bounding down the stairs and the crowd goes wild for him. They're all cheering for him rather than me in my own dream! Ah well, doesn't matter. This is my dream, so it will be his butt receiving the shellacking.

The crowd starts performing this ridiculous, choreographed rump-shaking dance in celebration of my opponent. I command them that "You will stop doing that stupid dance!" They obey but my opponent runs up into the stands, whoops once, and starts doing laps, refusing to come down to face me. I'm exasperated by his obnoxious behavior and soon wake up.