nautilus

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:

Definitely one of my clearest LDs, and a really euphoric feeling to see Pascal again. I loved that cat so much. When he was old and sick, he started having trouble breathing and we rushed him to the vet and said yes when they asked if we wanted them to do a procedure to try to save him. He died on the operating table and I really regretted not being with him at the end. In hindsight we didn't recognize how close he was to going so we weren't prepared to let him go and also didn't have time to think it through fully during the emergency. I was determined not to repeat that mistake, and I didn't the next time one of our elderly cats, Talis, no longer had quality of life. It was very tough to make that decision and to find the right balance, but I know that in that case Talis' needs came first. Anyway, it was still good to finally get to tell Pascal how I felt and how much I loved him, even if it was just in a dream.