• Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views




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    nautilus

    It's been about nine years since I was last active on Dreamviews, so my old dream journal on here is archived from back when they were just regular forum threads.

    I still get lucid dreams from time to time since I stopped actively trying, and I did have a couple of years where my dreams were particularly vivid and engaging because I became fascinated with Jungian dream interpretation. For the most part, however, my dream recall and frequency of lucids has taken a real dip and I'm ready to get back into it. While I keep a daily private dream journal, I like to post lucids as well as some of the more memorable regular dreams.

    Current Goals:
    1) Improve dream recall again
    2) Lucid dream more frequently
    3) Build something from scratch while lucid and test its permanence from dream to dream
    4) Dream cartography; explore the natural mental connections between different dream locations


    Also, I'm currently on a polyphasic sleep schedule, Dual Core 1 extended, as of 8-2-20. Entries will reflect which period of sleep the dream occurred in. The schedule is as follows:
    22:00 - 1:30 Core 1
    5:45 - 7:30 Core 2
    14:00 - 14:25 Afternoon Nap

    1. Chosen by a Bear

      by , 11-28-2020 at 03:40 AM

      A set of recurring bear dreams.


      Mid October, 2017

      I was in a variation on my aunt F and uncle C's house where a party was being held. There were so many strange and quirky characters there that it felt more like an indoor carnival. In one room I met a woman who was the caretaker of a semi-trained bear. People took turns meeting the bear, warily, before leaving, fully amused by their encounter. It was a black bear, small as bears go but still large enough to do some serious damage if it wanted to. It followed me around in particular and it kept resting its head in my lap every time I sat down. Each time I would feel a little on edge despite its outward displays of affection. I was worried about making the wrong move and setting off its wilder instincts. After the fourth or fifth time I started to even feel annoyed, not wanting to have to stay on my toes all the time. The caretaker woman seemed to sense my annoyance and she came up to me saying, “It is a great honor to be chosen by a bear.” I wandered out of the room, thoughtful, but not entirely convinced.

      ***

      Thursday Night, 11/7/19

      See "The Jaguar Woman" entry.

      ***

      Tuesday Night, 6/30/20

      I was someone else, a man in his 40's I think, outside at the edge of a forest as dusk was approaching. I morphed to resemble my waking self. I began climbing a large arbor for some reason, treating it like a jungle gym. While I was up there, I discovered a baby elephant hanging from its trunk in the arbor I was climbing. I stared at it for a while, confused by how it got up there. It changed into a bear cub. Das showed up. He thought the baby bear was cute and wanted to pet it indefinitely. I began to think about the implications, however, and I started looking around nervously for the mother. It appeared to be alone out here, but I was still wary.

      "We shouldn't have put our scent on the cub." I told Das, "The mother will smell us and get angry if she's around."

      Das shrugged. "I'm not worried. Look! He wants pets!"

      I sighed and edged my way down the arbor. "Come on." I said, trying not to be too loud, "It's almost night time, we need to leave the forest now if we want to get clear of wherever the mother bear is at." I started creeping quietly away from the arbor and towards a sparser area of trees.

      Das shrugged again but reluctantly stopped petting the cub and trailed along behind me.

      I started to hear sounds in the bushes and a low rumble, and I realized the mother bear had arrived. For a moment I picked up the pace but continued to try to be as quiet as possible, hoping we might somehow get away before it finished locking onto our location. I searched my mind for what to do in case of a bear attack, and I remembered to play dead. The mother bear showed herself, blocking our path. I realized we weren't going to make it. The bear roared angrily and charged at us, knocking down Das first. Then she ripped into me (which didn't hurt as much as one would expect) and I got to see my intestines, right before my right eye was detached from its retina and everything went dark. I woke up. "Damn it Das..." I said out loud.

      ***

      Thursday Night, 11/5/20

      I'm talking with my parents outside on the deck when an adolescent black bear wanders into our back yard and we notice it has an abscess on the right side of its head. My mom wants to go over to it and treat it. I'm also worried about the bear's health, but I do not think it's a good idea to go up to it like that. I suggest maybe calling a wildlife center instead. "I have some leftover antibiotic ointment from when the cats were sick, I'll go get it!" My mom says and goes back into the house. My dad laughs at us and goes back inside to the other side of the house.

      I follow my mom and try to get her to reconsider, but she doesn't listen to me. "Well, here it goes!" She starts heading back outside with the ointment.

      "Mom, no!"

      My mom jumps a little, startled. "Ah, you scared me!"

      "You should be scared, it's a bear!" I look away for a moment, wondering about the wildlife center idea again, but when I look back I see that my mom is way out in the yard heading towards the bear.

      For whatever reason I decide I have no choice but to do things my mom's way now. The least I can do is try to mitigate the danger so she doesn't get attacked... But this is probably a bad move. I head outside and my mom is scaring the bear towards the fence and towards me. I'm worried it will feel cornered. I backtrack a little and grab a bag of cat treats as it's the only thing I can get to quickly. I manage to get the bear's attention with the food, tossing a handful of treats on the ground in front of it to distract it. My mom comes up behind the bear with the ointment. The bear finishes the treats very quickly so I keep having to scramble to get handful after handful ready. I'm worried about the gaps of time where the bear might get aggressive. "When I say stop, stop until I can get more treats." I tell my mom, convinced the bear needs to be distracted with the process eating to not notice her. It's a dubious plan to begin with but I'm clinging to it.

      My mom is applying the ointment to the bear, but I'm struggling to get the next set of treats out of the bag. The bear is slowly starting to look up. "Stop." I say. My mom does not stop. The bear looks directly at me with dark black eyes. "Stop, stop." I say again. Still no response from my mom. I imagine I can see impatience developing in the bear's expression, although it's hard to tell. "STOP!" I'm trying not to be too loud, but I'm starting to panic. I finally get the last of the treats out of the bag and toss them on the ground.

      "Done!" My mom exclaims cheerfully.

      "Mom, get inside, quick." I say anxiously. I make sure she makes it inside while the bear's still eating, then I go in myself and close the screen door first. Why am I bothering to close the screen door first? It's not going to stop a bear and I'm wasting time... I think and close the sliding glass door as quickly as I can. I can see the bear standing in the yard, eyeing the bag in my hand as if annoyed there are no more freebies.

      ***

      Monday Night, 11/23/20

      I'm in a building I don't recognize. My dad is there and says something very mean to me, although I can't remember exactly what it was or why it happened. Rather than feeling hurt or scared, I suddenly feel a deep anger come up as the full implication of the words sink in. "I am not stupid." I yell powerfully. My dad disappears but I yell it again. It seems to be irrelevant that no one is around anymore. I can see out a window onto the unfamiliar street outside. It's night time and raining a little. I still feel the anger, like a raw energy. I open my mouth and a bear's roar comes out, a guttural rumbling. I stop, confused at the ability to make such a sound and feeling self conscious, thinking people will think I'm weak for being too emotional and sounding ridiculous. Then I decide I don't care, even if anyone was around to hear. Twice more, I let out the bear's roar which resolves into a more human sounding scream. The dream fades.

      Updated 01-11-2021 at 11:08 PM by 17503 (fixing broken link)

      Categories
      memorable , non-lucid
    2. Meeting my Departed Cat Again

      by , 08-09-2020 at 02:10 AM
      Thursday, 8/6/20, Core2


      False awakening. I heard my alarm going off but something made me suspect I was dreaming and that the alarm was just part of the dream so I didn't hurry to turn it off. I was laying in bed and not moving easily. A finger count reality check confirmed I had too many fingers but for some reason I still wasn't 100% certain I was really dreaming. I thought about rolling "out of my body" and flying but I was reluctant to fling myself out of bed if I turned out to be awake (it's not close to the floor). What can I do that would be easier? I wondered. I tried to affect my environment. The sound of the alarm faded in and out with my focused thought, then I made it go silent. The entire visual of my room faded as well. Oops. I rolled out of bed and floated to the floor, having now convinced myself I was in a dream and that I needed to stabilize it.

      A lapse in consciousness as everything faded to black briefly. I found myself standing in the upstairs bathroom. Wait a minute, I thought after a few seconds, How did I get here? Am I still dreaming? I counted my fingers; seven, eight. It was very strange because my hands looked so normal even when I stared directly at them. I checked a couple more times just to convince myself once again. I was looking around me in amazement because everything was so realistic, an exact replica of my waking life bathroom. Clearer, even. I stared at and felt the bumps on the wall, saw how light reflected off the semi gloss, mint green paint. I decided to go downstairs to look around some more. I hope I'm not just awake and really sleep deprived. I thought idly, Otherwise people are going to think I've really lost it, staring at the walls and talking about how amazing they are.

      As I walked down the stairs, I pulled at my hand, trying to see if I could morph it. I did, slightly. The weighting of gravity felt so realistic as well that I wondered if I would be able to fly in this dream since it felt like it would be difficult. I tested it by jumping off a few stairs and confirmed I could float. It felt stranger than usual in this environment. I reached the kitchen where my mom was doing dishes. "Hey Mom," I said, "This is a dream."

      "Oh, yeah?" she said.

      "Yeah." I thought of what I wanted to do with my lucidity. "Do you want me to show you how to fly?" I asked her.

      "No that's okay, I already know how to do that. I've done enough of that lately." She went back to doing dishes. I was somewhat mystified by this decision.

      "Oh, okay." I wanted to go out back so I started looking around for the nearest exit. I went and opened the front door. "Well, see you later." I added. Wait, why am I looking for a door to go all the way around? I could just take a straight shot through the kitchen wall. I changed course and flew at the wall. I can't believe some people get stuck in walls, it's never happened to me. All you have to do is not think about it. So then, of course, it happened to me. I got stuck in the wall halfway through. It felt like I was moving through molasses and everything went dark for a couple seconds. Then I could see an extremely vague back yard scene. I focused on a point relatively far away - since the closer focal points weren't yielding results - and I set a strong intention to go there directly. I essentially teleported to the intended spot and the scene became vivid and clear once again.

      I flew above my yard, which was roughly accurate to waking life but much bigger. I spotted my late cat Pascal, a fluffy, 24-pound Maine Coon, laying in the yard just past the redwood tree. He was staring up at me. I flew lower and slowed, with a bit of difficulty controlling my height and speed initially. "I don't regret any of it!" I announced to him out of nowhere once I landed in front of him. "Well, except I wish we'd realized how sick you were sooner so you didn't have to go like that. We wanted to be there." I knelt down next to my cat and pet him, talking to him about our time together when he was alive, telling him how much I loved him, and pulling twigs and leaves out of his fur. He just continued staring at me with big eyes and purring, though I got the sense he was listening.
      The dream lapsed into a non-lucid.

      Spoiler for Additional Notes:

      Updated 09-15-2020 at 12:19 AM by 17503

      Categories
      lucid , false awakening , memorable
    3. The Broken Lighthouse

      by , 07-20-2020 at 12:40 AM
      Saturday Night, 7/18/20

      I had an FA. I noticed that the perspective was wrong for waking up; I was looking down on my bed. I floated around the room a bit, confirming I was dreaming. I noticed the room was vague and the dream did not feel very stable. I aimed for the floor of my room and landed, bounced up and down a little trying to feel the carpet on the soles of my feet. I could hear a soft crunching sound, like the sound of velvet being gently crushed. The dream faded anyway, my vision going black. However, I still felt more connected to the dream than to my waking life body so I tried to imagine "throwing" myself back into the dream. I opened my eyes, a bit uncertain whether it would work, but it did. I was back in my room standing on the ground. I floated again to confirm. Up near the ceiling I grabbed onto the top of the cube structure where there was a wooden platform (it's sort of like the top of a bookcase). I alternated between staring at the wood grain and rubbing my hand across the wood. Sure enough the grains of the wood became incredibly detailed and lifelike. Looking around I could now see the lines on the palms of my hands, the bumps on the blue walls, the sharp outlines of various pieces of furniture.

      Satisfied that the dream was fully stabilized, I phased through the window of my room and glided over the land below. It was quite beautiful out, sunrise coloring the clouds. Although my backyard was much bigger than in waking life it was otherwise consistent with its current configuration. At least up until the stand of bamboo at the far end. Behind there and off to the right, instead of a fence, I found an open plot of dirt with a partially built lighthouse. At last! I thought, Although, I was kind of hoping to have it by an ocean... I considered that on the one hand it was convenient to have it close to my house but on the other hand I would have to use some trick of the mind in order to make use of it as I'd originally planned, as a lighthouse by the sea.

      Off to my left a woman and two young children were wandering from the bamboo forest into my backyard. I waved at the family. The youngest child, the boy, seemed to be the only one who saw me. He tried to get his mother and sister to look over. The mother squinted in my general direction and shrugged before continuing on her way. The little boy looked confused. I told him not to worry about it. It wasn't clear if he could hear me. I returned my attention to the lighthouse and saw that the first floor was thoroughly encased in rock and therefore inaccessible. I had planned to have steps carved into rock leading up to the base of the building and I mused that the dream must have constructed it this way like a bug in a video game when it was placed somewhere different from the intended landscape. The next two floors were far smaller than I'd planned. Beyond that it was completely unfinished. I began planning how I would fix it and build it out as if I were using Minecraft blocks. I wondered if I should leave it with its current black and white colors or change them to match the colors I'd planned for it when I designed it in waking life. I had only just begun modifying the structure when I heard a loud sound. Annoyed, I looked up to see that some random guy on a motorcycle had ridden up and parked behind the lighthouse, apparently oblivious to my presence. When I saw that he wasn't going to interfere further I tried to return my concentration to the task at hand
      but the dream faded into a different scene and I lapsed into non-lucidity.

      Spoiler for Additional Notes:

      Updated 09-15-2020 at 12:19 AM by 17503

      Categories
      lucid , false awakening , side notes