CanisLucidus

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #215: Hubris

I’m in the office with my friend Z, talking to him about lucid dreaming. I’m in my rolling chair pulled up next to his desk, my foot rudely up on the wall like I was raised in a barn.

I’m telling a story about a guy who was trying to do shared dreaming. I tell Z, “And what he didn’t even realize is that she was in a completely different time zone!” I say this like it’s some kind of punchline and wait for him to laugh. He doesn’t react and I think, Wait, that’s not funny. Not even a little bit. I check my state and realize that I’m dreaming.

Z has vanished, so I get up out of the chair, thinking over my goals. Okay, take things slow at the beginning, then summon Dreamer. I hit the nose pinch reality check and breathe right through. I keep the nose pinch clamped on and enjoy the feeling of breathing in and out through pinched fingers.

I wander slowly around the office, which has grown to about three times its normal size. There are cardboard boxes of paper scattered here and there, something I’ve never seen in the actual office. I walk over to the kitchen, look out at the fridge and spot an extra water cooler that wasn’t there before.

When I return to the office there are more and more boxes of paper. When I notice this, they seem to multiply every direction that I look. An older guy, a well-dressed, gray-haired man in his early 50s, walks through the door and nods a greeting at me before wandering off.

Suddenly I become obsessed with keeping the dream stable and start congratulating myself on what a bang-up job I’m doing of keeping all of this held together. I start thinking of my sleeping body back in bed and wonder what position I’m sleeping in. How cool it is that I’m here and “it’s” over there! I wonder if I’m sleeping on my side right now. Am I breathing in and out at the same rate as I am in the dream?

This stream of boastful thoughts continues for a while until my self-congratulation peters out into... an awakening in my bed.

The good news for this LD is that the light switches worked great! The bad news is that my prospective memory wasn't the best and my DC summons didn't work like they should, but I had fun trying. Some more focused mental prep and reminding myself of my goals would have helped, I think, so I'll just blame the short WBTB.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #89: Under Construction

I'm walking down a hall in my office with my friend "Leroy" and one other guy. The hallway is dimly lit and even though we're far from any windows, somehow I know that it's night outside. We're looking for some room that we can use to host a remote meeting that's scheduled to start in a few minutes.

The door at the end of the hall has been replaced with a thick sheet of plastic and the entire area looks like it's under construction. I think, "How do I know that this isn't a dream?" and I become lucid. I run my fingers over the wall, and it feels just like the walls at the office. "[Leroy], I'm having a lucid dream." Leroy doesn't respond and just stares robotically ahead. I continue to mutter about how I'm dreaming, but the target audience is really just me -- Leroy seems to have checked out.

We reach the end of the hall and I phase through the plastic into the next room, which should be a large, windowed room of cubicles, adjoining offices and meeting rooms. The windows are there but all of the furniture is missing and the room is incredibly dark. I reach for a switch on the wall without looking, knowing that it will be there, and flip it. The lights come on and I watch as the room quickly populates itself with gym equipment! I see a treadmill, a couple of stationary bikes, and a weight tree with 45-pound plates appear. I stare at the weight tree for a moment, and the image wavers self-consciously, forming odd little rectangles and finally disappearing entirely.

I decide to "give the room a moment", and look over my right shoulder at the wall for a few seconds and then look back. The room is still mostly the same but now there are five or six arcade-style redemption games arranged back to back in a circle in the middle. (The sort of ticket-winning games that you might find at Chuck E. Cheese's.) I take a quick lap around the games to size them up. During the lap I notice that Leroy is still standing by the room entrance and still seems unresponsive, so I don't worry too much about him.

I have the nagging sense that I'm supposed to be doing something but I can't remember what it is. I try to think of the tasks that I had planned but nothing comes to mind, not Task of the Year or Task of the Month. I remember talking with NewArtemis about trying to see whether her DC could shapeshift the way that she can in dreams, so I attempt a handshake summon, averting my eyes and extending my right hand. I do it incorrectly, though, more asking for her to show up rather than expecting that she will. Nothing happens for a while and at the end I rather pathetically say, "[NewArtemis], don't leave me hanging!"

Now I've become fixated on summoning so I decide to try getting Xanous to join the scene. Again I do the handshake summon, but the result's the same. I think of shapeshifting again and realize that Xanous can do this too. For some reason I remember that he uses the term "blutbad" in conjunction with shapeshifting so I randomly blurt out "Blutbad!" like that's going to help somehow. No idea what that was all about, but it doesn't work!

Edit: I remembered one more part of the dream. I give up on the summoning for a moment and try speaking directly to the dream. "Show me something important!" Nothing happens, though, and I try this twice more before giving up.

Amazingly, the thought of simply phasing through the walls and flying off into the night doesn't occur to me. I turn my attention to the redemption games, hoping that this could be fun and might even reanimate Leroy. I stand in front of one machine that's about 6 feet high and has a joystick on the front and a tall, tapering tower of lights inside its case. The lights are illuminated in a wave that moves repeatedly from top to bottom. I place my hand on the joystick, noting the little red button on top, and the dream starts to fade. I feel it coming and ready myself for DEILD, but when I emerge from the dream I'm too awake to go back in.