Snacks From the Butler's Pantry

Going Insane
I was jogging through the Oakland hills, trying to find my friend's house. I had just memories of a crazy synchronistic event involving a chain of coincidences with myself, the mayor, my realator, and one of the biggest land owners in the area. I felt like it was too impossible to be real (It was based on actual events to some degree). I was trying to remember it, because I knew it would make an awesome short story. As I was thinking about it, I ran by a girl getting out of a taxi wearing only a bikini. She looked at me strangely, and I realized she was a forgotten friend from college. I gave her a hug, and she told me she was in her bikini as a part of a feminist self confidence program.

I started to tell her the incredible story. Halfway through, I lost track of the details. I was confused, and the memory was slipping away like a dream. My friend was in a hurry, and her bus had arrived. I felt embarrassed that my story didn't make sense. I couldn't put my words or memories together. She must have thought I was an idiot. I told her I would catch up with her tomorrow, when I was feeling more myself.

She got on the bus, and I continued on my jog. I was scared now. It was night, and I was completely lost. I couldn't figure out my memories, my sense of direction, or why I was even running in the first place. I started to panic, and stopped into a nearby storefront that had a group of people meeting inside. I wanted to ask directions.

I interrupted a presentation by an older woman. She was handing out papers for some sort of survey or exam. I started to tell her about the synchronistic coincidence story, and asked her if it made sense. I wanted her to tell me I wasn't crazy. She couldn't help me, so I left. As soon as I walked out the door, I realized something wasn't right. I knew this must be a dream. I walked back into the meeting, stood in front of the class, and told everyone, "Stop! Something is wrong. I think this is a dream." I stooped down under the table, and waved my hand through the table legs. People were watching me like I was insane. I then stood up, and told everyone, "Do what I do. The world is not as stable as it seems. Place your fingertips under the table, and lift up as hard as you can." I followed my own instructions, and my hands squished right through the wood tabletop. It was like it was made of putty.

Now people started to believe me. Suddenly, instead of a group of people, it was a chat room with a group of avatars. One person started lecturing about lucid dreaming, saying, "Lucid dreaming is well understood. It can be cured through meditation and hard work." I couldn't understand why he thought it was a disease.

I realized his voice sounded strange. He was made up of multiple celebrity sound bites, like one of those joke sound boards you use for prank calls. I started to realize he was not real. His avatar started to animate like a flash movie. It grew to the size of the whole screen, and a psychedelic beatles song started playing "Making it happen...Making it happen..." A trippy 60s style music video started playing. It reminded me of Mumbleboy (http://mumbleboy.com/ )mixed with Sargent Pepper.

I thought to myself, "Oh no, he has hacked the chat. I better go tell a moderator before this gets out of hand."

Shopping Cart Destruction
I was measuring a huge half built communal house. I was alone, but on my cell phone with a guy from work, and the contractor. There was a video of the house on a small television. It was a view from the rooftop. I realized the house was huge, and it would take me weeks to measure. I saw one of the guys on the roof pick up a shopping cart, and drop kick it. He kicked it incredibly hard and far. It smashed into a tower, and knocked the roof right off. I thought to myself, "Great, now I have to detail a new roof plan for that tower. Ass hole!"

Something is Wrong
I left the room, and found myself outside on the driveway of my mother's house. It was night time and I could barely see. I was scared. Something was not right. There was a creature on the front lawn. I approached it, thinking "There's no such thing as monsters." I felt like a child, scared of the dark in their own bedroom. I realized the creature was my winter coat balled up on the front lawn. It scared me that it would be on the lawn. Why would my stuff be here? My mother didn't even live in this house anymore. I picked it up, and decided I wanted to go home. Something was very creepy and wrong. I realized that I was locked out of the house, with my car locked inside the garage.

I was panicked. I had to get my car. I leaned against the garage door, and started to press my hands through the cold metal. I stopped halfway through. "Wait a minute. First, I had better do a RC to make sure this is a dream." I pulled my hands back through the door, and looked down at them. In the darkness, I counted six fingers. "Six fingers. Shit! This isn't just a dream, it is a lucid dream!" I hopped into the air, hovered for a second, and then took off into the sky.

Just then, my girlfriend rolled over and woke me up!

The Auction House
I was at an auction at Sotheby's. I was supposed to be meeting my friend who works there, to help me buy a piece of artwork. I wanted it so bad, I dropped everything, and flew all the way to New York to bid on it. The place looked like a giant mall. I couldn't find my friend, and soon figured out that the place was closed due to rains. I thought to myself, "Next time they have an event like this, they should spring for a live band. That way, people can still hang out in this great building, even if the auction is closed. What a wasted trip for me."

The place was abandoned. I was looking for a secret passage to the art department. I passed by an overpriced specialty foods delicatessen type store, and a bakery with great looking cakes. I got lost in the antiques department, in an endless maze of vases, furniture, and other old lady stuff. I couldn't find my way out, and soon realized I must be dreaming. I still felt frustrated and angry, and started smashing all the priceless antiques. Someone called the cops, and they had me surrounded. The hostage negotiator put my parents on the megaphone. They were yelling at me for being so reckless and childish.

I knew it was a dream, so I escaped the mall, and flew out to where all the cop cars, swat team, and hostage negotiators were parked. I flew above everyone's heads yelling, "This is a dream, Fuckers!" I laughed hysterically, while showering them with smashed priceless vases and sculptures. They were all running around like idiots, not knowing if they should catch the art pieces, or dodge them as they came tumbling out of the sky at deadly speeds.

The last thing I remember is seeing my mom and dad in the middle of a ring of police cars, shaking their heads disapprovingly.

I was trying to order food at a crowded taco counter. The line was out the door, and every table was full. Behind me in line, were two creepy kids. They looked to be brother and sister, probably twins. They had light blond hair, and pale blue eyes. They wore matching clothes, and matching bowl haircuts. They looked very alien, and kept staring at me in a strange way. I was glad to get away from them and order some food.

The woman making my burrito kept messing up my order. I had to yell over the crowd to tell her what I wanted, like at a crowded bar. I eventually gave up, and just let her give me whatever she wanted. She is the burrito professional, after all.

I had the strange feeling that someone was watching me. I grabbed my plate of food, found a seat, and looked back over my shoulder. Sitting in the corner, was a woman who looked a lot like my High School French teacher. She shot me a look of recognition, so I waved tentatively, not knowing if it really was my old teacher. I started eating my burrito, looked back again, and saw she was still staring at me. I decided it must be her, so I went over to say hi.

I gave her a hug, sat down, and looked across the table at her. It definitely was not my old teacher. She looked frail and old, but her skin had a spooky ageless quality. She had the same blond bowl cut hair and light eyes as the twins behind me in line. I felt like I knew her from somewhere, maybe a party years ago. She spoke in a thick English accent, and a man at the table next to us kept talking loudly and laughing in an annoying way. I could barely her her over the racket, and was having a hard time understanding her. I was in a hurry to get back to my meal before someone stole my seat.

Finally I realized she was asking about my dreams. She said something along the lines of, "Have you had any twist dreams lately?" I thought she must be talking about lucid dreams. I couldn't talk to her because the aggravating man at the table next to us kept laughing in an obnoxious way. He was listening in on our conversation, and laughing just to interrupt us.

I answered her question, "I have a lot of lucid dreams like this one. Let me show you." I locked my gaze on her eyes, while reaching to my right. Blue energy arced from my palm to the obnoxious man next to me. He screamed as I floated him into the air, and pulled the life force from his body in a flash of blue smoke and lightning. Everyone in the restaurant screamed as he convulsed, and then collapsed back into his seat. I caught him by the back of his neck, lifted him up, and slammed him down on our table. I did all this without removing my gaze from this woman's eyes. People started fleeing from the building. I stood up, placed both my hands on the man's chest, and then blew him to pieces. He dissolved into a cloud of fireflies, like glowing embers from a fire.

I looked down at my hands to stabilize the dream. I kept them in my field of vision while I rubbed them together. I calmly walked out of the restaurant as the crowds of people trampled each other to escape. I felt the dream fading, so I yelled "Stabilize" and "Clarity". It worked, and the dream snapped into sharp focus. I stood out on a lawn in front of the restaurant, and counted my fingers. My hands looked totally normal, but I somehow had six fingers on each hand. I kept counting to try and figure out which finger was the extra one. They all looked like they belonged.

I stood under the shade of huge oak trees, at the edge of an expansive lawn. The bright sunlight was filtering through the trees, making sharp shadows on the grass. There was a playground in the distance. I was amazed by the clarity of my vision. It was so sharp, I could see the strands of light that my vision was built on. It was like seeing the pixels in an image, or the brush strokes in a painting.

I wanted to feel the sunlight on my skin, so I started walking out of the shade. I was walking very slowly and calmly, but each step was a little jump. I would step up with a short hop, float five or ten feet, and land. It was almost like walking on a trampoline.

Before I reached the edge of the shade, I found myself back in bed staring at the insides of my eyelids. I tried to reenter the dream. I imagined myself standing on the lawn barefoot, feeling the wet grass between my toes. It worked, and for a second I was back in the shade, looking out at the playground. Then I woke up again and decided I should record the dream.

Tricky Bitch!
I did a WBTB last night around 5am. Everything was going well with my MILD. I had just lost consciousness, when I heard a loud beeping sound. I then heard a loud robotic voice saying something about time. I thought, "Cool, some Hypnagogia, I guess this is turning into a WILD!" I slowly opened my eyes, and saw the room lit with an unnatural blue glow. I didn't want to ruin the transition, so I laid still for a few more seconds. I then glanced at the clock, and it said 12:00. I knew my WBTB was at 5am, so I was sure I was dreaming. Confident that I could move, I did a hand RC, but it failed. I then did a nose RC, but it also failed. I laid there for a few seconds, doing RCs before being totally convinced I was really awake.

Turns out, there was a short power outage. This tripped my answering machine to reset, beep, and yell a robot warning about resetting the time and date. This also flipped my girlfriend's spiderman night light on, which lit the room in a blue glow. The clock reset to 12:00 am. Tricky, tricky bitch of a universe.

Ghost Dog
My girlfriend and I were spending the weekend in a small honeymoon town on the California Coast. We were on a tour of a historic fishery & cannery, right on the bay. The main factory floor of the cannery was a huge warehouse. In the center, was a giant glass dome, 100 feet or more across, and 50 feet high. It was enormous. The tour guide was explaining that the glass dome would hold all the fish waiting to be cleaned. Teams of workers would surround the glass dome, and reach their hands inside through cut-out holes.

I was seated at the dome, cleaning fish with the other people on the tour. I was terrible at it. We had to separate the fish guts into separate compartments like a bento box. Each fish that I cleaned had to be sampled to make sure it was fresh. I would have to pull out a piece of fish guts, and eat it to make sure the fish was not rotten. The tour guide was warning us not to eat certain parts of the fish, or it would poison us with a deadly nerve toxin.

This cannery had a shady history, and was supposedly haunted. The original owner was a murderer and a crook. The cannery was shut down, when it was discovered he would leave dead fish in this giant dome for weeks on end. The glass would contain the stench, and rot the fish. This had something to do with his secret to success. Extra tender fish or something. Legend had it, that his pet dog went crazy one night from the rotten fish smell, killed him, and then murdered all the workers in the factory. This dog is still said to haunt the old run down factory.

As we listened to this tale, we heard a howl from the hallways. I then saw a streak of white out of the corner of my vision. I turned just in time to see a gigantic ghostly white wolf leap at me. I jumped to the side, and stood up, face to face with the biggest wolf I have ever seen. It stood five feet tall to its shoulder, its softball sized eyes level with mine.

It lunged at me again, its jaws easily big enough to take my head off in one bite. I dodged to the side and threw my hand up to catch the beast under around its neck. I had incredible strength for some reason. I lifted it by its throat, and threw it across the factory floor. It crashed into a wall 50 feet away, but was back on its feet in a second. It charged at me again, angrier than ever. I waited for it, and at the last second, quickly leaned into a stiff front kick. My kick landed squarely in the giant's chest, and threw it sprawling to the ground. I was amazed by how strong I was. I just stopped 2000 pounds of charging wolf with a front kick?

I was emboldened, and leaped onto the wolf to finish it off. I wrestled and beat it mercilessly, knowing I had to completely overpower its savagery . Each punch seemed to make it shrink. Before long, it was the size of a small poodle. It was bloodied and defeated. I knew I had tamed it, and it would now be my loyal pet.

Together, we drove across a red desert. We were in a white Chevy Impala. We took a short cut up a steep rocky mesa. I realized my ghost dog had turned into the car. The white car looked part dog, and was running on all four of its tires.

My neighbor from earlier in the dream was still playing golf in his back yard with rocks instead of golf balls. He hit one rock, and instead of just breaking my house window, it flew out across the desert, and crashed into the face of a cliff. This started a landslide. My wolf car tried to dodge the rocks as they fell, but there were too many of them. We were buried in a landslide, and I blacked out.

I regained consciousness, disoriented and confused. I was looking down at the rocky red ground. I could not feel my body. I looked down from a strange angle, and saw my bloodied leg and shoe to my right hand side. I thought, "There is my leg, but how am I seeing that from this angle?" My vision was swinging around of its own free will. My vision fell to a trickling stream as if I was bending down to get a drink. I saw blood in the water, and realized what had happened. I was killed in the landslide. I could see my own dead body. Somehow my spirit had merged with the ghost dog.

The dog was in control of its body, but I knew I could take over at any time. Together, we transformed into a sleek white greyhound, and bounded across the rocky red hills of the desert. We crossed hills, canyons, and mesas. After what seemed like hours of running, we came to a town. We transformed into an nonthreatening white poodle, and trotted into the lobby of a hotel.

I took control of the dog's body, and hopped up to a computer station. I started typing out a google search with my front paws. I had the dog's memories, and knew exactly what to search for. I brought up old, 100 year old newspaper articles about the old cannery. It was time to solve this mystery once and for all so both my spirit, and the spirit of the dog, could rest in peace.

I was helping dig up my mother's rose bushes at my old childhood home. It looked like someone had dumped leftover cement into the planting bed, so I had to chip away a thin layer of hardened concrete to get them out. It was a nightmare.

My mother pulled into the garage in a car I did not recognize. It was a black SUV from the early 90s. It looked like it had cement or mud splattered all over undercarriage, and up the sides of the doors. My mom got out with my little brother, and explained that they were having financial problems and had to trade in their minivan for a cheaper car. As my stepfather explained all the features on the car, I remember wondering why they would get an SUV when gas was four dollars a gallon. Especially this old one that obviously needed some expensive repairs. Didn't seem like a smart financial move to me.

I woke up in bed, frustrated that I didn't recognize the dream sign of being at my mother's house. I rolled onto my side, and cuddled against my old roommate. I was stuffed into a bed with her, and my other ex-roommate.

I felt one of my roommates lean back into me, and grind against me. She raised her leg to rest on me, and I slid my hand up her leg and under her panties from the side. We were trying to be really quiet and subtle. We moved very slowly to keep from waking our other bedmate. It was actually very uncomfortable. She was overly sensitive, and her body kept jolting in a ticklish way. She was reaching back awkwardly to grab me through the fly of my boxers. The way she was stroking me was twisting my piercing in a painful way. It was sort of painful, but felt good at the same time.

I was just thinking, "Oh man, how the hell is this ever going to work?" When I saw our sleeping bedmate climb out of bed to get dressed. We froze, and tried to pretend-sleep for a minute. I was sneaking peeks at her naked body through my lidded eyes, but I could tell we weren't fooling her. She started being overly sexy with her dressing, and kept casually brushing her hands across her naked body. Before long, she was back in bed with us. The rest of the dream was a blur of arms, legs, and impossible positions. I don't know why people give dream sex a bad rap. It was pretty awesome, and no matter how many orgasms I had, I didn't wake up.

I got out of bed to wash up, and found myself at a pornography convention instead of my bedroom. I was looking for a bathroom, but got distracted by my friend Tera Patrick who I haven't seen in a while. She was working at a booth signing autographs and selling some wacky lube & toys. I was uncomfortable, because I really needed to wash up. I ended up finding a men's room, but woke up as soon as I saw the toilet.

The toilet apparently made me realize I really did have to pee. I got up to use the bathroom. I returned to bed, but something was strange. As I remembered the FA I just had, I realized I was having another one!! The realization paralyzed my body in bed. I was in that weird body distortion zone of bending and separating. I tried to imagine something tactile. I ended up visualizing myself standing out in my courtyard garden, running my hands up and down the ropes of my hammock and feeling the texture on my fingertips. Tracing the twisted knots of the bumpy cords shifted my consciousness to this dream body. I got really lost in the maze of knots and weaves. I found where they ended, in a wide canvas sail. There were two rectangular holes cut in the sail. I knew they were there to keep the forces equally distributed across the surface of the sail.

I was woken up by my phone ringing. I didn't want to answer it, so I lied in bed trying to remember my dreams for a minute. The answering machine picked up, and a woman's voice started speaking. She was jabbing about some conference I had to attend. Apparently it had been moved from my office, to a convention center in Oakland. I was confused, and was trying to remember if the conference was today or Monday. I thought it was Monday...

I tried to remember what this conference even was. (In reality, there was no conference, another freaking FA!) I remembered the conference as being a sequel to the movie Star Wars. It was a continuation of that movie where the dude drops a bomb into the giant robotic planet. Instead of dropping a bomb, he dropped me down into the hatch. I slid down some huge slide-chute, and landed in a giant space station type place. I had to destroy Dearth Vader to blow up the planet. The way I remembered it, this was what really happened at the end of that movie. They just waited to show it all until the sequel came out.

Three False Awakenings in one night. I still feel good about the night. I accomplished my goal of having more dream sex, and I had a brief lucid moment when I caught the FA, and popped into the hammock.

Curious, how the first FA happened. The dream transitioned to my bedroom, and me thinking about missing a dream sign. I guess, technically, I did catch the dream sign, because I was still asleep. Maybe the dream sign caused the FA somehow. That has to count for something.

The Sex

I arrived at work to find last year's summer intern waiting at my office. As soon as I stepped in the door, she pounced on me, and started kissing me aggressively. I was shocked at first, but didn't resist for very long. We stumbled to the back of the office, still kissing, and tearing off each other's clothes along the way. We fell out the back door, and started going at it right on the floor of the garage. It was real intense, and animalistic. I was too caught up in the moment to notice a car disassembled in the garage, as if it was being serviced. When I did see it, I got nervous that the guy I work with might be coming back any minute to finish the repairs. We were having too much fun to stop, so we moved inside, to the bathroom. Things got even hotter, and before long, we were scrambling to clean up and find our clothes.

We only had time to find white undershirts, before I heard people walking around in the front room. It was the guy I work with, and he was pissed that we had sex at work He was under his car working in the garage, the whole time. He started lecturing me about it being illegal to have sex with interns. I started defending myself saying, "She's the one who initiated it! She's 22, we're both adults, and we can do whatever we want!" We got into a huge arguement, but I was too uncomfortable to defend myself much, since I was completely naked from the waist down.

Somewhere along the line, the owners of the house (wasn't it originally our offiice?) came home. The intern was now my girlfriend, and we went outside to meet the owners. We were still wearing only T-shirts, and I kept having to pull mine down to cover my junk. My girlfriend didn't seem to care that hers kept blowing up and exposing her. I kept jealously telling her to cover herself, but she didn't care. She kept saying, "Lighten up, will you? You're such a prude."

The owners drove up in a white 1980's Lamborghini Countach. It was covered in purple Transformers decals, and had strange metal antennae coming off the doors that looked like wings. I realized it was a Transformer, when the owners opened the door, and the car transformed into a strange hi-tech white machine. The owners were Jermaine Clement and Brett McKenzie from the TV show "Flight of the Conchords." They came upstairs, and we started hanging out in the kitchen, making food. I cooked up a huge skillet of shrimp in some sort of cream sauce. It was delicious.



The Awakening

I went into the back room of the house. As soon as I opened the door, something about the scene made me go instantly lucid. It was one of those really intense and surprising realizations. The intensity made the dream start to fade, and I could feel my body back in bed. My vision was completely filled with a pale peach colored diffuse light. I remained calm, and tried to re-enter the dream. Nothing was happening, until I realized the pale light was coming from a frosted window pane that completely filled my vision. My vision zoomed out to show the room I was just in, with the frosted glass window in the center of the wall. I leaped forward, and flew through the window hands first. The glass shattered, and I made sure to feel the pain as all the sharp shards cut my skin.

I landed outside on a flagstone patio. I was now completely lucid, in a very vivid and beautiful dreamscape. I think I was more lucid than I have been in a long time. Maybe ever. Just standing there was an amazing experience. I turned to my girlfriend next to me, and said, "I want to show you the amazing things that you can do in a lucid dream. If I could give you one wish, what would it be?" She looked skeptical, and said in a mocking tone, "If you could clear this cloudy sky, I would be really impressed."

No problem!

I looked up, to see a sky covered in a thick veil of purple grey haze. I raised my hands, together in front of my face, and then spread them apart in an 'open sesame' motion. The row of clouds closest to us rolled open like a purple curtain. I did the same motion again, and the next row followed suit. Each row of clouds turned two-dimensional as it opened, but the sky still looked incredibly hyper-realistic. It took several passes to clear the clouds completely.

Now there was only high wispy clouds in a beautiful purple sunset. I held my girlfriend's hand and watched the sun creep down towards the horizon. The scene was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. We were standing on a bluestone patio, looking out over a cliff. A large complex sculptural fountain stood at the edge of the cliff, with the water cascading down out of sight. Beyond the cliff, the scene opened up into a vast wild valley, shadowed with the oncoming twilight. It resembled Yosemite valley, and I could see Half Dome in the distance. As the twilight deepened, the shadows stretched realistically until the valley was covered in a pale shadow.



Now, I could make out the glowing forms of a city in the valley basin. The buildings looked enormous, and each one was lit with an orange glow. The scale of the city looked impressive, so I tightened my grip on my girlfriend's hand, and together we took off flying towards the lights.

The Dream

We ended up in a futuristic city that looked to be carved out of monolithic sandstone. Every surface was perfectly smooth and without joints. The buildings seemed to be stacked vertically in a series of terraces. Columned arcades surrounded every building, like an Egyptian or Greek temple. Ramps and staircases spiraled up to multiple terraces. From where I was standing, the city seemed limitless.



I had the impression of sleek flying machines hovering around the city, but I don't remember seeing any specifically. The streets were packed with people, like there was a parade or festival happening. I recognized many people in the crowd as friends from college and high school. I approached several people to say hi. I remember messing with one of my old roommates. He was standing with his girlfriend, talking with a group of people. I made myself invisible, and sneaked up on them from behind. I gave both him and his girlfriend a friendly slap on the ass, and then watched as they blamed each other, and looked around confused. I kept pestering them by giving them pinches and slaps, before I finally became visible to chat with them.

They told me about the city. It was the last city on earth after the apocalypse. It was called "The New Acropolis" and was ruled by an elite group of tyrants who horded their high technology to keep themselves in power. This gathering of people was a religious ceremony to worship this ruling elite as gods. They called themselves "The New Pantheon." I thought this sounded like great fun. I said my goodbyes, and took off flying to cause some trouble.



I soared across the amazing cityscape, wondering at its complexity. I made my way to the highest point in the city. It was a huge round temple resembling the Pantheon in Rome. Inside, was a large domed room, ringed with high stone thrones. Giant people sat in each throne, in some sort of trance. They looked like statues. I climbed atop a stage or pedestal in the center of the room. I started singing a beautiful song about dreams, and danced in place. As I waved my arms around, blue lightning started shooting from my fingertips. I was soon surrounded in a crackling sphere of glowing blue electricity. I sang my song, harmonizing with the hum of the electromagnetic field. As I finished my song, I released all the built up electricity outward. It exploded, and shattered the statue-like people sitting on their thrones. The entire building crumbled, as I flew away satisfied.



The Aftermath

I was now part of a group of outlaws trying to rebuild society. The world had a post apocalyptic junkyard type of feel to it. I was still mildly lucid, but caught up in the story. My lucidity made everyone view me as some kind of traveler, or time traveler. I was a prophet to help lead the rebels. I remember joking with some of them about how cliche this storyline was. I made some pun about the movie Terminator 2, making fun of the post apocalyptic genre. I had a bad attitude, like I really didn't care about this world, but I would do my part to help. Jermaine and Brett were with me again. I remember someone making a joke about me and Jermaine having the same sideburns and fashion sense.



At one point, we were fighting a battle in the ruined streets of a huge city. People were dying, and kept asking me to do something. I decided to summon something to help. I planted my feet, and concentrated on creating a robot or tank to help them. It was really hard to concentrate, and I couldn't make anything happen except a flash of light in the middle of the street. I remember wishing I played more video games, or watched movies about this sort of robot crap. Frustrated, I decided to play a joke. I thought of a toy from when I was a kid. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party Wagon. It popped into my hands in a flash of light. I threw it out into the battlefield. As it flew through the air, it grew from the size of a shoebox, to the size of a jumbo jet. Everyone piled in, and I drove through the battlefield shooting plastic pizzas to knock people down.



We ended up at a safe house on the top floor of a hi-rise building in a really run down part of town. Everyone was now happy, playing video games, and watching TV like zombies. I ran around trying to remind people of the war going on. I didn't want the dream to end on such a boring note. The last thing I remember was looking out the window and seeing huge two legged robotic battle machines surrounding the building. One of them was right in front of the window aiming a huge cannon into the room. Finally, some action! I jumped behind a couch, and started yelling at everyone to get down.



I woke up to my alarm, and completely forgot this entire series of dreams. I had a faint sense that my MILD worked, but my mind was totally blank. Thank god I took another minute to try and wrack my brain. How the hell did I forget this?

EDIT: I just remembered another piece of the dream. I was at dinner with a bunch of friends in the rebel camp. My friend, Allison told my girlfriend that I had sex with the intern earlier in the dream. I was pissed that she would be such a bitch. I flew across the table, and grabbed her by the shirt. I carried her across the room, then landed. I held her up above my head, and blew her up on a molecular level, into a cloud of atoms. Everyone was mad that I would kill her, but I told them not to worry, I just scattered her molecules apart for a while as punishment. She would reform at her family's cabin in the mountains, and have a hard time getting back to the city alone.

Unleash the Beast

I was waking down a busy street in San Francisco, packed shoulder to shoulder with people. I knew I was supposed to be meeting friends for dinner, but I also knew it was a dream. I was having a hard time moving through the crowd, and was worried I would be late or wake up before I could get to the restaurant. I laid my hands on shoulders of the stranger in front of me, and vaulted over him while pushing down on his shoulders. It was like leap-frog superhero style. I went flying over the crowd, higher than I expected. As soon as I landed, I bounced back up into the air with another leap. My jumps were probably 30-50 feet high, and I remember grabbing onto a building's roof at one point, and then swinging off like spiderman. It was a real thrill.

I reached the restaurant, and found a long banquet table surrounded by dozens of my friends. I took a minute to greet everyone, and tell them how exciting this was to have them in my dream. Food started arriving right away, and people started digging in. I ate a crab cake that tasted like cream cheese, and a giant coconut shrimp the size of an apple. There was not enough food, and people were complaining. I was trying to convince people it was a dream. I took the plate of crab cakes, held my hand over it palm down, and made the food multiply. I did this to all the dishes, until the table was covered in food.

People still did not believe me that it was a dream. They thought it was some sort of magic trick. To show off even more, I made a fist with my hand, with my index finger extended. I laid my index finger on the edge of the table, and then slammed my other hand down on my closed fist. The leverage made my index finger snap off like it was made of plastic. There was not blood or pain. It was like I was made of rubber. People still did not believe me. They thought it was some sort of sleight of hand. I picked up my severed finger, and flipped it across the room. In mid air, it turned into some sort of toy. My finger grew back like a plastic doll. I plucked it off my hand again, and threw it into the air. It too, turned into a a toy. I started plucking off my fingers, one by one, and flipping them into the air rapid fire. They all turned into video games, toys, and other fun stuff.

I was having fun putting on the magic show for all my friends. "Watch This!" I rolled up my sleeve, and my hand started growing and pulsing. My fingernails grew into long claws, and my skin sprouted dark fur. The wave of fur moved up my forearm, and my muscles twisted and grew. I pulled my shirt off, and looked down to see my chest muscles swell and sprout dense dark fur. I was werewolfing out pretty hard. I felt my chin extend into a snout, and my teeth grow into long fangs. I fell down on all fours, and could feel incredible strength and power. I knew I was a terrible beast.

Strangely, I stayed in this werewolf form, and finished dinner with my friends. They believed it was a dream, and were throwing me food to catch in my wolf's mouth. It was a great party. Towards the end, we were packing up the leftover food to take home. I grabbed a whole uneaten pizza to take home to my girlfriend. I thought she would love it when she woke up in the morning. I also gathered up all the toys to give to my little brother at his birthday party the next day.

Halfway out the door, I remembered that I could not take anything with me to the waking world. This frustrated me. I took the bag of toys, and tossed it out into the landscaping. All the toys scattered in the bushes, and I saw a bunch of little kids run over to pick them up. I was still holding the pizza box. I used my werewolf strength to throw it out like a frisbee. As soon as it left my hand, I felt myself rip apart physically and mentally. A fearsome looking black wolf leaped out of my body, chasing the frisbee-pizza across the lawn. I remained standing, with my arm outstretched from the throw, but I was now completely human. My consciousness was in both places at once. I was watching the frisbee fly away, and the powerful wolf chasing it. I also felt myself in the wolf's body. I could feel all four of my legs pounding on the wet grass, and could see the frisbee flying just out of my reach. I leaped in the air, and sunk my fangs into the cardboard box. I also watched from my human body, as the wolf jumped to catch the pizza box. It was very strange.

Just then, a group of kids brought me back the toys I had scattered in the bushes. I explained why I had thrown them away, and told them to keep them. When I turned back around to look for my wolf, it had vanished in the darkness.

Pause and Fastforward

I was playing a game with two of my friends from my childhood. It was a hide and seek type of game, but much more serious. There were some sort of life and death consequences to the game. I was stalking these two friends as they ran around an outdoor cityscape of ramps and stairways. If they caught me following them, I would lose the game. If I could follow them successfully to their destination, and arrive there before them, I would win.

I was sneaking around close behind them, but they were getting further and further away. I asked myself in a loud psychic voice, "How can I catch these guys? They are so fast." I answered myself from a separate level of consciousness, "Slow time until you catch them. This is a dream." I now had two levels of awareness. There was a 'first person' and a 'third person omniscient'. It was like I was on the phone with my consciousness.

I snuck around a corner, and time slowed to a crawl. Everything was moving super slow. I asked my omniscient self, "Is there a way I can move faster?" I answered myself, "Yes. Fast forward yourself, while you keep the world slowed." I started moving with crazy super speed. I moved so fast, it felt like I was teleporting. I stopped right behind the kids I was chasing. I was less than a foot behind them. They were moving in slow motion, but I could see one of them turning around to look at me.

"Help!" I asked myself. "They are going to see me." Omniscient answered back, "Pause time. Now, remove yourself from time. Now hide behind the stairs, and resume time normally." I followed the instructions, and was now behind a staircase, watching my prey as they looked around, confused. I know they had heard me behind them, and were baffled by how I could disappear so fast.

I had a level of lucidity above the dream. When I was 'first person' in the dream, I had only a low level of lucidity. I was fooled by my surroundings. The 'omniscient' level of consciousness was totally lucid, and aware it was a dream. It was strange, because all of the communication between the two levels of consciousness was completely verbal. It was like a telephone conversation between my lucid self, and my dream self.

I was on the run for murder. I killed two people in a VW Beetle, and buried the whole car under a tree in my friend's yard. They found the remains during a barbecue, and I took off running.

I ended up hiding in the local museum. While there, I uncovered an ancient artifact that allowed me to summon a flying machine from a long extinct civilization. I shimmied up a long climbing rope to board the craft. The contraption was made of countless white ropes all knotted together to form hammocks and nets. The ropes were all suspended from a hot air balloon above. There were multiple levels of hammocks, but they were all fairly small. It was a little dizzying to be climbing around on nothing but ropes, while hundreds of feet above the earth.

I was amazed that this thing had survived since ancient times. Just as I was considering this, I realized I was not alone. The ship had a caretaker. He was a robot who looked almost human, but very leathery, with pockmarks that revealed shiny metal beneath his skin. He was programmed to maintain the craft and pilot it according to my instructions. I could not move very much in the precarious hammocks and nets, so I had to lie still and order him around. I instructed him to take us up to 2000 feet, so we would not be able to hear any sound from the earth below. I wanted perfect silence to enter a meditative hibernation state.

My robot butler would climb down the rope to bring me food and news from the earth below. After years of hibernating in seclusion from the world, my butler told me that I needed to return to civilization. My girlfriend was getting married to a man who wanted to use her for his political schemes. Together, my butler and I foiled their schemes, and in the process, found out that I had been framed for the murders. We uncovered a conspiracy involving several powerful families who used my friends as agents on the inside. Over the course of an amazing adventure, we cleared my name, and rescued the girl.

[QUOTE=Robot_Butler;796923]Friday night I tried 8mg GM. After an hour with a pounding heart and distracting thoughts, I took 3mg Melatonin, and moved to the guest room to avoid my girlfriend's snoring.

I think the melatonin messed up my dream recall, because I had a series of short dreams with FAs and real awakenings in between. I sort of remember them all as one long dream.

I started with GH's relaxation technique and some Reverse Blinking. I entered a trance within minutes. I felt Sleep Paralysis set in, with some strange body vibrations and such. I could hear my girlfriend banging pots and pans in the kitchen, and then watching old episodes of Roseanne in the living room. I knew this was impossible, because we don't have a TV. Still, it sounded so real, I considered that maybe she somehow was watching them on the internet.

The Dream Guide

I heard some rustling in the darkness of my room. I could not see anything. It sounded like short animals or people too small to be seen over the side of the bed. I was trying to roll myself out of the paralysis and into a dream without much success. After a few minutes, I heard a small mousy voice call out my name. It surprised me so bad, I popped right out of SP.

At least, I thought I did. I rolled to my side with some difficulty, not sure if I was asleep or awake. I could not move to perform a RC, so I wiggled my toes until I could move my arms. I heard the voice again. It sounded like a child's voice. It said, "Where do you want to go? What do you want to do tonight?" The voice was coming from behind me, just outside my field of vision. I assumed it was some sort of dream guide, so I answered it, "I want to go to France. To Paris." I was still gently struggling to free myself from my sleeping body, or turn around to see who I was talking to. The voice asked, "What is France?" I replied "Montmartre, Le Chat Noir."

I freed one of my arms, and reached out to the darkness. I asked, "Help me up." Out of nowhere, an old ghastly looking woman's face appeared. She latched onto my hand. She is babbling about a hunger, and a need for human touch. I heard my dream guide yelling at her. He was threatening her with his child's voice, and yelling at her to let me go. More greedy hands grabbed at me from the darkness. One bent my arm back painfully in an arm lock. My dream guide's voice was yelling warnings to me and to the greedy spirits. I knew this was an illusion, and I was not afraid of the spirits. I stopped the argument by yelling out, "Help me out of bed, and I will let you touch me all you want."

Somewhere during all of this, I woke up multiple times. I was sleeping on a futon unfolded to a bed. While talking and trying to roll over, I remember the futon was upright, like a couch. I was propping myself on my side with the back of the couch to try to see who I was talking to. I then snapped awake, and I was flat on my back with the futon in its real position as a bed.

My memory is hazy, I think from the melatonin. The next thing I remember is being in the guest room in full daylight. I was playing with a young alien looking child or dwarf, and asking him really deep questions about dreaming, life, and death. I can't remember his answers!!!! I do remember we were playing with Transformer toys, and he answered one of my questions by saying to me, "Let me show you..."


The Toy Junkyard

My vision zoomed into the toys we were playing with. Suddenly, I was watching a movie about the Transformer toys on a junkyard planet. They had just landed, and were scouting around for life. They each took on the shape of a ruined machine they found in the junkyard. The villain, Megatron, was a giant plastic T-Rex dinosaur. The good guys were trying to fight him, but they were outmatched. They were exploring the planet trying to find and free other robots to help them in the battle. They ended up finding a Robot Cheetah.

Another Megatron landed on the planet. He was a giant helicopter. He was very cocky, and volunteered to fight the dinosaur version of himself. While they battled, a countdown started to launch missiles out of missile silos. The team of good robots ran to bury themselves in sand bags, hoping it would protect them from the radiation. The Robot Cheetah couldn't find a place to bury himself, so he ran to the missile silos to try and stop the launch. He found the silos empty. The missiles were already launched long ago, and that is why there was no life on this planet. They were all destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. The Cheetah ran at super-robot-speed to all the missile silos on the planet. They were all empty.

The Succubus

After waking to record my dreams, I relaxed back into another WILD. I entered SP again, and heard the door to my room open. I could not turn to see, but I felt a woman enter the room stand next to the bed, right behind my head. She was whispering in my ear seductively. Her voice sounded evil and threatening despite her words. I felt her lie down behind me, and press her lips against the back of my neck, right at the base of my skull. She was pretending to kiss me, but when her lips touched my neck, I felt an intense pain. She latched onto the base of my neck, her lips locked against me, and something sharp pierced my spinal cord. She was sucking out my thoughts and energy.

I was lucid, and not fooled by the dream. My memory is hazy, but I remember turning to embrace her. The dream turned into an unbelievably awesome sex dream, but I don't remember the details!!! I lied in bed for a loooooong time after awakening trying to remember the details, because I don't have many sex dreams. I only remember a general sense of mind blowing sex with several women in every room of my house.

The Bear never stays in one place for long. When his work in one world is complete, he must move to the next. There are too many worlds that need his help. Each world is contained by a translucent shell, and they are strung together like a necklace of pearls. No one knows if the inhabitants of each world can travel to the others. They never try. Each globe contains everything the inhabitants would ever need. The Bear is the only one who has ever traveled between worlds, and for him, travel is an addiction.

He saved my world once. I helped him as much as I could in my old age. I used to be a fierce warrior, and a fearsome fighter pilot. By the time The Bear needed my help, I was too old to offer him anything but friendship and advice. My hair was thin and wiry, and my skin dry and ashy from overexposure to the caustic gasses of the upper atmosphere.

I remember shaking his hand as we said our final goodbyes. His grip felt hot with the energy and vigor of youth. My own bony fingers dug into his strong, muscled hand, It brought back memories of sinking my teeth into a thick cut of roasted meat. No one had eaten meat since the world's energy gave out. The livestock stopped reproducing and the crops died in the fields.

Now that The Bear had set in motion the healing process on our world, I tried to convince him to stay. I told him tales of the beautiful sunsets over the high terraced grasslands. I described the way the great silver blimps shifted the magnetic fields to make the air shimmer with rainbows.

I knew that there was nothing I could do to convince him. He could never be content with peace and beauty. Other worlds would need his help, and he would be drawn to their turmoil like an addict. With all the worlds he would save, I wondered if he would ever stay to see the end result of his healing.

I was in charge of surveying abandoned houses to see if they could be rehabilitated. I was sent to measure the abandoned house in the crater, just outside of town. When I got there with my partner, everything seemed normal. It wasn't until we entered the basement that we angered the Centipedes and the Millipedes. At first, there were only one or two of the small millipedes. They were poisonous, but nothing we couldn't handle. A quick tap of my boot, a satisfying crunch, and they were out of the picture.

After crushing three or four of these fast little twerps, the big Centipedes came out to investigate. They were the size of small dogs, two or three feet long. Their segmented bodies were fuzzy and black. Shiny round red shells lined their backs like a stack of soup bowls. They appeared from the shadows in large groups. They would only approach us one at a time to examine us, then run back into the swarm.

I became more and more nervous, but we were almost finished with our measuring. My partner taunted me, saying "Whats wrong, scared of the little bugs?". I ignored him, kept alert, and finished measuring fast. As we exited the building, the swarm of giant Centipedes followed us up the stairs. They seemed angry now. From the corner of my eye, I saw one charge straight towards me. The thing was faster than I had previously thought. I fled up the stairs and out of the house, only pausing long enough to kick down the dilapidated front door.

I looked back over my shoulder in time to see the Centipede curl up like a spring, and then leap in the air. It landed on my back, and dug its razor sharp armored plates into my upper arm. I felt it squirm around like a snake as it worked its barbs deeper into the meat of my shoulder and upper arm. As I struggled to wrench it of my flesh, I saw more of the miniature Millipedes squirming all over my back. They were all over me, biting and stinging me in a thousand places. I realized that I had been covered in the millipedes the entire time I was in the house. I had only noticed the ones that had fallen off my back and dropped onto the floor.

The night before last, I took Galantamind, and didn't sleep very well. It was a great experience, but I definitely missed some REM periods. I think I had REM rebound last night, because I swear I was dreaming non stop all night. I had several awakenings, but each time I would pass right back into a dream. I was too tired to really worry about being lucid, but I slipped in and out of lucidity anyways.

The Implants
I was on the subway in New York, when I recognized my friend who I haven't seen in a while. I went to say hi, but she was having a hard time recognizing me. I had to tell her several old stories about us together before she even remembered who I was. I thought this strange, because I still talk to her on the phone all the time.

As we were leaving the subway together, I recognized her boyfriend sitting in the front of the train. He didn't seem to recognize either of us. In fact, he was such a zombie, it was like he couldn't even talk. He seemed to be in some sort of a coma. I have dealt with unaware DCs before, so I knew what to do. I put my hand on top of his head, like I was ruffling his hair. I felt a little static shock, and he immediately snapped out of his trance.

I was heading to a shopping mall, but they were catching another train. I waited on the platform with them, chatting. When we said goodbye, I think we all made out together instead of just giving friendly hugs.

I exited the station, and went into giant shopping mall. The place was located in a pretty bad part of town, but the stores inside were all extremely upscale boutiques. It was deserted. Totally empty. I found a lobby area that was decorated like an expensive hotel, with bookshelves, a fireplace, and shiny leather furniture. A homeless woman had set up camp with sleeping bags and a shopping cart. She was delusional in that street-person kind of way. She thought she was on a reality TV show, and was getting paid to eat these huge squirming grubs worms. They were 6 inches long, and she had to eat them in multiple bites like a squirming candy bar. We spoke about the empty mall, and she told me the place had been deserted for months because people were lining up to get their implants.

I kept seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. Finally, I caught a good glimpse of a young 7 year old boy running from store to store hiding. I chased him all over the mall, and eventually came to a dead end at the top of a huge ramp that spiraled up through four stories of shops. The boy was precariously climbing up the rail in the center of the spiral, oblivious to the danger. When he was almost at the top, he slipped and teetered backwards. I planted my feet and lifted my hands. In an instant the whole spiral ramp, shops and all, collapsed upward like a giant spring or slinky. All the storefronts merged into the ones above them, and the ramp collapsed upward to a single story ring with a pond in the middle. The boy fell backwards, and splashed into the pond. I helped him out, and we made our way to an emergency fire exit.

Outside, the city was a shining futuristic utopia. Everything was made of clean shining metal. Ramps and stairways spiraled up to multiple terraces styled with classical details. There were white stone bridges and silver metal arcades. Every building looked like a courthouse or a Greek Temple. The streets were packed with people waiting in huge lines that wound around city blocks, up staircases, and zigzagged back on themselves. It was nuts.

The scale of the city was daunting, so I held the child's hand, and teleported us from terrace to terrace. It really hurt my knees, and at one point the boy said to me, "You better be careful, by the time you're 30, your knees are going to be so ruined you won't be able to walk up stairs, let alone teleport." We walked up and down the lines trying to talk to people. They were all zombified in comas, similar to my friend on the subway. No one would talk to me. I stood in the middle of a courtyard, held my arms out to my sides, and slowly turned in place. The world around me froze like I stopped time. I explained to my new 7 year old friend what the plan was. He ran up and down the lines of people, picking their pockets for ID cards, bank receipts, or scraps of notes that gave some hint of who these people were. I then walked around pressing my palm to the tops of people's heads to zap them and jog their memories of who they were. I woke up several people this way. As I woke them up, they became unfrozen, and gathered in the courtyard.

We became a team of rebels who were investigating the cause of his worldwide phenomenon. I thought it was some sort of alien invasion, but it turned out to be a totalitarian govenrnment plan to implant people and control them. I guess the crazy homeless lady was right. We established a base at the top of an abandoned skyscraper. We gathered the children together in a nursery. There were constant risks of sniper attacks, so we had to be careful around the windows.

The whole adventure took hours, I think I was in and out of lucidity all night. It was really fun. I'll write a few fun parts.

I found a secret passage in an abandoned house that led to a long stairway. I had to pick the lock with a safety pin. It was so easy I became lucid. The stairs led straight down for a mile or more. They led to more underground bunkers and houses. At every level, a gate or door was locked, and I had to pick the lock. The last flight of stairs ran underneath a long banquet table. I could only see people's legs under the table, and hear their voices. There was a secret government meeting going on. I was crawling around under the table trying to understand the conversation and gathering supplies. Of course, my idea of supplies was pokemon video games, socks, and bags of candy. I remember lucidly thinking how amazing it was that my brain was able to create dozens of conversations all at once, and that I could understand them all.

There was an action packed firefight in the desert with these huge burrowing worms the size of buildings. It was like a mix between that old movie 'Dune' and the beginning of the new Transformers movie. The worms looked like the grubs the homeless woman was eating in the beginning of the dream. They were somehow related to the implants in people's brains.

I was making myself invisible and sneaking around a town filled with people. It felt so real, and I could physically feel the invisibility like I was shifting myself out of sync with the world. I could look down on my body, and see myself as translucent.

I was in and out of lucidity, but I had amazing dream control. I could manipulate the whole dreamscape just by thinking about it. I could rearrange buildings and streets. I could change the scale of things, and make the world collapse on itself by changing the focus of my vision. At times, this was all so easy, I just took it for granted and forgot I was even lucid.

Part 1
I was orphaned at a young age, and taken in by a wealthy family in Georgia. The patriarch of the family, Hamilton, always treated me well, but never adopted me as his own son. His money was all old money, family money, and the family politics kept him from ever treating me like a real son. It never bothered me, because he educated me well and taught me to take care of myself so I would never need to rely on any kind of inheritance.

Hamilton's only daughter was getting married, and the wedding was lavish beyond imagining. It was an orgy of food, drinking and dancing that lasted three days. All the big families came in from across the state to celebrate at the mansion . I was working with the kitchen crew to keep the party flooded with booze.

On my rounds refilling the champagne, I could not find Hamilton anywhere. He had been brooding since the party started, so I figured he must be outside. I bundled up in my warmest coat, and stepped out into the cold night to explore the plantation grounds. As I passed by the family mausoleum, I noticed my friend Angela sitting on the old stone ruins. She was dressed in a light summer dress, but the cold wind did not touch it, or move a strand of her unbound hair. I was happy for some company in the cold night, even if it was the company of a ghost. She glided over to meet me, and we talked about the upcoming wedding.

She spoke more honestly than I was used to, sharing family secrets I was not supposed to know. She told me about the cruel history behind the family's money. Money that came from the early days of the slave trade. The money was cursed. As the family's wealth grew, so would its misery. Death and tragedy seemed to plague the family's history, and it would continue until the last generation was destroyed. She called this the prophecy of the moon.

As she finished her story, I heard screams and shouting from the main house. I hurried back, but was too late. The place was no longer a celebration. Somehow, things had turned violent. Two of the most powerful families had started to fight, and the wedding had become a battleground. I heard people yelling about rape and murder as I ran from room to room looking for Hamilton. What I found were the remains of the bride and groom. Hamilton's daughter was on the bed with her dress torn to pieces, and her throat slit. Her future husband was crumpled in a corner with a pistol in his hand, and a knife in his chest.

This was too much for Hamilton. It destroyed what little spirit he had left in him. He spent the following weeks in a drunken stupor. He would not take any visitors, and would barely eat. My fiance and I moved into the house to care for him, but it took a month for him to finally speak with us. He told us he had to get rid of his cursed money. He had a plan to give my fiancee a job that would pay her everything he owned within the first two years. Get the money out of the family. My fiancee refused, saying she could not replace his dead daughter.

That evening, I found him on a hill overlooking the family mausoleum. The spirits looked restless. There were more out than normal, and they were milling around the tombs as if looking for something. As I sat down, they started walking up the hill to meet me. Hamilton opened a box with two curved blue daggers, and handed one to me. As the ghosts approached, Hamilton's dagger began to glow with a soft blue light. Each shade had a dagger, and they came in pairs to touch daggers with Hamilton as if giving a toast. When the finished with him, they surrounded me. They looked at my dull lifeless dagger with sadness. I did not belong. Each shade approached me and touched the point of their knife to my cheek, right below my left eye.

A heavy bass beat started to pound out a rhythm, and the night was suddenly filled with pure white light. The ghosts became solid, and started to dance and celebrate. Hamilton and I were carried along with the music and dance, and soon the hilltop became a beautiful party.

As we danced, the party became more crowded, until I was in a sea of people. Eventually I noticed that I was in a separate room with half a dozen dancing ghosts. It was not that the crowd was getting bigger, it was the room that was getting tighter. I started feeling claustrophobic. The music changed to an evil sounding heavy metal riff, and the white light started to fade to a murky green.

I recognized the feeling of a nightmare approaching, and struggled to fight it. I looked up to see a ceiling covered in sharp spikes, and the room started to slowly rotate. The ghosts around me were now demons, and as the room turned, they started sliding down he walls to be impaled on the spikes. I knew it was a nightmare, so I fought to escape it. I floated off the ground, spread my arms and legs, and started to spin in place sideways, end over end like a cartwheel.

Part 2
I became very disoriented, and suddenly found myself alone in the guest room of my own house. I was still floating in the air, rotating slowly. I turned myself one more time, and paused upside down to take a look under the futon. I was disappointed that there was nothing under it except for a crumpled dark blue jacket.

I shot out the window, splintering the closed wood blinds, and shattering the glass. I found myself over the open ocean at night. I could see the lights of a city skyline, so I flew towards it. As I approached the coast, I searched for buildings I recognized. I saw the Chrysler Building, and figured I must be in New York. I was now close enough to be flying amongst the skyscrapers. I saw the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and thought it funny that they were still standing in my dream. Each tower had the graphic outline of a key on the upper right corner.

I wanted to land and find some interesting dream characters to talk to. I decided San Francisco would be a more familiar city to experience at street level, so I started looking for buildings in the San Francisco skyline. I was searching for the Transamerica Building. Instead, I found a strange futuristic stepped pyramid built entirely of glass. I was surprised, and figured I must be in the future. I landed, and was convinced this was the future. The sidewalk looked metallic, and there were broad canals carved between the buildings instead of streets. There were no cars in sight.

I saw an old man crossing a bridge over the nearest canal. I waited for him to approach me. He was carrying a yellow phone book, and reading it like a newspaper. I stopped him as he passed, and asked casually, "Excuse me, you do know that this is a dream, right?" He looked up from his phone book, startled and annoyed and said something along the lines of, "Well, its about time." I asked him another question. "Do you recognize me?" This really made him stop. He looked me in the eyes in a creepy way, smiled and said, "Of course I recognize you. Do you recognize me?" I then recognized him as my future self. Me as an old man. I looked down at my body to see that I was old also. I was wearing the same clothes as him. "You must not have been paying attention to the dream I gave you " he continued. He lifted up his phone book, pointed to the headline and said, "First manned space flight to the moon in 1969. It took 15 years less than their first, unmanned flight. So you figured out a shortcut? Do you think this matters in the long run?"

He then pointed to the bridge he had just crossed. A young man was walking towards us, carrying a white rose and a stack of greeting cards. I thought must be here to meet me. I remembered him as a character from the story in the beginning of the dream. I think he was the character I was playing. As he came near, I started to speak, and was startled as he walked right by me. He handed the rose and the cards to a young woman. I felt sad that I can never be reunited with the characters from the beginning of the dream. They can not recognize me now that I am lucid. I will never see the end of the dream.

Part 1
I was lost in a dense and ancient forest. The trees and plants all looked very realistic, but the way they were arranged was strangely alien. Redwoods dominated the landscape, but they were covered in twisted hanging vines. Tropical grasses and low bamboo formed a dense underbrush, but the air was cool, and the floor was spotted with clumps of thick damp moss. Overall, it was a strange combination of a redwood forest and a tropical jungle. It felt very alive.

I made my way to the center of the forest, and stumbled into a large open clearing. The trees and underbrush stopped in a wide ring, like a wall. The spongy moss continued out to cover the entire clearing like a carpet. Two giant redwood trees stood alone in the center of the clearing. The bases of their trunks were so close, they had begun to fuse together. It was an amazing sight to see these two majestic trees standing alone, but framed with the background of the dense forest. It wasn't until I started walking towards them that I realized their immense scale. I underestimated the size of the trees and the clearing, and had to run to reach the center.

By the time I got to the trees, they were changed. They did not look healthy. I could see gouges in their bark, and blackened diseased sections. I walked around the perimeter of their intertwined trunks, with my hand outstretched to run my fingers against the rough bark. The more I touched them, the more they seemed to be dying. Aggression and anger seeped out of the bark into my fingers, and I started to feel scared.

Before I had made one complete circuit, the fear overcame me, and I turned to leave. I don't remember visuals of what happened next. The scale of everything was too overwhelming to make sense. The trees started to attack me. I ran, and they somehow gave chase without uprooting themselves. It was like they grew in size as I fled. I could feel the vibrations of gigantic footsteps shaking the earth, and I could hear the cracking and groaning of breaking wood, but I could not see. I don't know if I was too scared to look back, or if there was nothing to see.

I fled as fast as I could, but I felt them coming closer. At the edge of the clearing, I saw a metal dumpster full of construction waste. I jumped into it to hide, like a bad action movie.

Part 2
I lived alone in a landfill. It stretched as far as I could see, and I was the caretaker. The landfill provided me with everything I needed. It was not garbage that surrounded me. It was everything I ever wanted. There were piles and piles of my favorite foods, mountains of designer clothes. One pile had every toy I had ever wanted as a child. I was thrilled. It was almost like a game. I would think of something I wanted, or something I wanted as a kid, and it would be right on top of the pile. It was awesome.

I was digging through a pile of packaged, unopened toys, and I uncovered a scaly patch of leather. I dug deeper to see what it was, flinging cardboard boxes and action figures away without even looking to see what they were. When I had exposed a large enough section, it started to move.

It was a giant mouth. It started eating mouthfuls of the junk, helping me clear away the boxes under which it was buried. Soon, the whole face came into view. It had no neck, head, or body, just a face. It was the size of a small car, and could easily swallow me whole. Its mouth took up most of its face, like a cross between a human and a frog. Its gray-blue skin was blistered and scaly.

It was a monster, but not a frightening one. I felt sorry for it, but I knew I had to destroy it. Fire was the only way to kill it, so I ran to find something that would burn. As I ran towards a pile of burning trash, I noticed more of these huge creatures eating their way out of the piles of junk. There were dozens of them that I could see. It was like they were hatching, or breaking their way out of cocoons.

I grabbed an armful of flaming garbage, and threw it at the face I had helped to free. It caught it in its mouth, and instantly went up in flames. It shrieked as it melted, and I felt bad at the human quality of its screams. I wondered if maybe it had the ability to talk.

I was an idiot two nights in a row, so I have to post them here as punishment. Feel free to throw tomatoes at the man in the stocks.

Lucky To Be Alive
I had this brilliant idea to set up my friends Mike and Bella on a date. They would make a crazy hot couple. I remembered this great beach bar near the Kahala on Diamond Head. It would be a perfect romantic spot for these two kids. I made some phone calls and took off to meet them.

I was running late, and speeding dangerously. Driving along the coast, I came around a sharp turn and lost control of my car. I felt the tires lose traction, and I drifted towards the cliff. I was in a complete panic. I had a split second where I saw edge of the cliff drop away below me to the rocky surf. The first thought that went through my mind was, "I'm going to die. This is just like one of my dreams where I lose control of my car, but this time its REAL and I'm going to die! I wish this was a dream, because this is really going to hurt."

I tumbled down the rocky slope. The glass of my windows and windshield shattered against the sharp volcanic rocks. I rolled for what seemed like way too long. I don't have a lot of experiences with driving off cliffs, but I imagine it happens pretty quick. This was just maddening. It got to the point where I was a little bored as I slid and rolled along. By the time I hit the sand, I was just glad to be able to get out of the car. I felt like I had just been on a long boring road trip. I don't have time for these things. Glad to be out of the car, I stretched my legs on the beach, and went to meet Bella at the bar.

Falling Asleep Disturbs my Sleep
I was trying a new WILD technique. I woke up 5 hours into the night with an alarm. I ate a banana, and read some of The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep for 5 minutes.

I laid back down, trying to enhance the visualizations that my brain was naturally coming up with. I was feeding a scenario of myself in my front yard wrapping duct tape around a concrete bench sculpture. Things were going great. I felt my body get heavy and numb. My consciousness was starting to feel detached from my body. I was staying remarkably lucid while the visualization took shape. I remember thinking, "This should be a great lucid. I'm outside in bright daylight. No sticky body, annoying darkness, or house to be trapped in."

Next thing I know, my mind goes totally blank and I get startled awake by.....the feeling of falling asleep. The shift I normally feel that alerts me that I'm entering a dream was too disturbing. Falling asleep woke me up? No F.A, no entering the dream. Just me totally awake feeling like an idiot.

It felt a lot like when you nod off during a boring lecture or meeting. As soon as you feel yourself fall asleep, you jolt yourself back to reality, 100% awake.

The Ghost Detective
I am a detective in Victorian England. I am investigating the case of a rich woman who can't leave her bed. She believes the bed is haunted, and the spirits bind her to the mattress. At first I believe the woman to be crazy, so I examine her with olde-tyme doctor's equipment. Somehow, I come to learn that the case is not as simple as it seems. I meet the maid who tells me a story of two children who were drowned in the bathtub.

I decide to investigate. I lay down next to the woman on the bed, and induce an Out of Body Experience. I want to communicate with the spirits of the dead children. I enter the spirit world with my OBE, and realize the woman is really a ghost. The children were not killed in the bathtub. The mother went mad, and nearly drowned her twin children to the point of brain damage. She then locked them under her bed and killed herself.

Somehow, the children were half dead. Half in the spirit world. When the mother killed herself, the children trapped her soul halfway between life and death. She could not leave the bed, because she could not leave he place of her attempted suicide. I free the children from their prison under the bed, which restores their minds, and frees the woman's spirit.

The Smell of Cedar
I live in an old run down row house in my childhood hometown. I nostalgically take on the task of restoring it to its former beauty. The contractor wants to do a walkthrough of the landscaping in the back yard. He is tearing out all the overgrown trees to pour a new concrete patio. Like an idiot, I accidentally step in some wet concrete. To repair the damage, I use a large, thick syringe. I pierce the hardened skin of the cement, and draw fresh wet cement out of the center of the slab. I then squirt this into the damaged areas, and smooth it over, good as new.

One of the slabs is too badly damaged, and I volunteer to help re-pour it. I go into the garage to get my concrete sculpture equipment, but it is all entangled in overgrown roots. I end up having to carry a huge tree stump out to the construction site. While I struggle to untangle the roots, the contractor tells me about his plans to cut down all the trees in the yard.

I get an odd feeling, and my sense of smell becomes super heightened. I can smell everything. The wet concrete, the nutty smell of the treeroots. Most of all, I can smell the old trees themselves. They smell absolutely incredible. I walk around the yard smelling all the trees up close. I am intoxicated by the clean pine, the hearty redwood, the sharp cedar. As soon as I get a whiff of the cedar, I become completely lucid. I look around and realize this house is not just a house in my hometown, it is the house I grew up in. I get a flood of my waking memories, and all the nostalgic memories of my childhood empower me. My sense of smell is still heightened, and I reach out through the smells to touch the trees with my mind. I pour all my memories directly into them, and they begin to grow.

Their branches start twisting and reaching. Their roots burst out of the ground. I see freshly poured concrete torn apart by the tree roots. The branches touch the walls of the house, and rip through them like paper. I feel like the trees are part of me. We are connected through their strong earthy aromas. Pushing out with my branches, I feel the man made materials of the house disintegrate under my power. Soon the house is a pile of rubble, and I am reaching out to the sunlight with my wide branches.

I do not want to wake up yet. I know it is a dream, so I want to enjoy the feeling before I lose it. The sunlight strengthens me, and the breeze stretches my trunk like a satisfying morning yawn. I try to remember the powerful scent of all the different wood. I hope that when I wake, I will still have this ability to reach out to the world through my sense of smell.