The Lab Notebook

Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

Night of May 20-21

I'm in the upstairs bedroom of a house. Built into one wall is the entrance to a long slide, which I go down. The first part of the slide is plastic, tubular, and constantly curves back and forth in random directions. After a bit, the plastic tube slide connects smoothly to another section of slide, this one made of polished, light-colored wood. The wooden portion of the slide turns through 90-degree corners in between straight runs, and it goes through a series of spacious rooms that are made of the same light wood.

Later, I'm back in the upstairs bedroom again, with some other people who want to go down the slide. I describe to them what the slide is like.

Night of May 21-22

I'm in the main hallway that runs through the middle of my church. There are tables lined up in the hallway, and I'm sitting behind one of them. Other people from my church are sitting behind the other tables. We're all talking to each other about the church activities we do. [This was all day residue. This dream was essentially a replay of what I had just done that day in real life at our church's spring talent festival. I count this dream as further evidence in favor of the hypothesis that dreams are produced when your brain is recording the day's experiences in long-term memory.]

[I had a lucid dream in the next cycle, but I've forgotten a lot of the details. The following paragraphs contain what I do remember of that dream.]

I realize I'm dreaming and think, Oh, cool. I'm dreaming. That means I can do anything I want to. I find myself in a rectangular room in which all the walls are full-length mirrors. I look at my reflection and notice that I have my long hair and bangs again [which was the hairstyle I had for most of my life until last October], and that my bangs are chopped off all unevenly, with little sections that end in different lengths. I either exercise, or just think about, two or more of the dream abilities I've already learned [I'm not really sure, because I don't remember this part very well], and then I decide to try an ability I've never tried before: changing my appearance.

I close my eyes and visualize what I want my reflection in the mirror to look like when I open them: I want to see myself as an old woman, with my hair gray, but still long. I open my eyes, only to find that it didn't work. My reflection still looks the same as it did before. The thought of trying to shapeshift into some kind of animal crosses my mind, but I decide not to because no animal that I particularly want to turn into comes to mind.

[Different dream, later in the night.] I'm visiting my boss's house, which is huge and very nice. My boss gives me a very kind, generous compliment about my after-school teaching. He says something along the lines of, “You're a great teacher. You treat them like people.” [“Them” meaning the students.] I'm very flattered.

I go outside my boss's house. There is a small, private jet parked outside. A group of people I know and I are about to leave on a trip somewhere in the jet. Before we leave, I decide to go and use the portable restrooms that are located on the opposite side of the grassy field I'm in. One of them is a standard portable restroom, and the other is bigger and wider; it was removed from a commercial airplane, I know. [It made sense in the dream.] I can't get into either of them, though, because my mom is blocking the entrance to them. She tells me that I can't come in because P. is in the restroom right now.

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Side notes:

In real life, I have two jobs, each with a different boss. The boss who appeared in my dream was not the one from my after-school teaching job; he was the one from my office job. It makes sense, though, in a sideways kind of way, that Office Boss would compliment me on my teaching in a dream. Two things that I know I really, deeply want are for my teaching efforts to be appreciated and for Office Boss to like me. I think my mind just combined the two desires and had Office Boss express appreciation of my teaching. (Office Boss has seen me teach in real life, but only once.) This dream, and the one I had on March 26 about being hired for that one job (which I did not get hired for in real life, by the way), lead me to this observation: Sometimes, when you really, really want something to happen in real life, your mind will grant you your desire in a dream.

Cool, my first attempt at forging. It was unsuccessful, but I'm not really surprised. I'm looking forward to continuing to work on that skill.

I begin to understand why we have a thread devoted to pictures “for daily lucid inspiration.” Lucid dreaming is beginning to feel routine and unremarkable, even when I'm in a lucid dream. It felt that way in this one. My initial excitement about the phenomenon has worn off. Now I see why one would want a source of daily lucid inspiration.

Awake, Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

[I don't remember much about my first dream, except that I went,] “Hey, isn't that Ken Watanabe?” I realize that I'm waking up from a dream and attempt, for the very first time, to DEILD. It doesn't work, probably because I have no idea what I'm doing. I wake up and take some notes, as usual, and then go back to sleep.

[Warning: Disturbing imagery ahead!]

False awakening in my current real room. [I completely fail to catch it.] My parents' alarm clock radio is playing music really loudly.

I go down a big slide made of foam padding with canvas on the outside of it. It takes me down to a beach, but this beach seems to be the bank of a river rather than the shore of an ocean. When I get to the bottom, the end of the slide goes on for a little way so that riders can come to a complete stop. When I do come to a stop at the end, the end of the slide partially deflates under my weight, and I discover that there's a cute little kitten lying on the end of it. It has some of its fur and even a lot of its skin missing, so it's mostly gray bone plates. It curls up into a ball and gets the most awful look on its face. The lady who is there watching it says that he's freezing. I decide to give the kitten my beach towel to keep him warm, as well as my fried chicken. There are lots of other people around us on the beach. I'm a little afraid of them, because I know I'm in the middle of a very large city.

I realize this is a dream just as it's ending. I woke up and was very surprised to discover that I'd actually fallen asleep while lying on my side, something I've never done before (okay, I probably have, but it was when I was too young to remember it).