LiveInTheDream's DJ v2.5

(SIDE NOTE: I'VE OFFICIALLY BEEN INTO LUCID DREAMING FOR A YEAR NOW! )

Well, I've kind of been absent from this DJ for a while again, but hopefully this time I'll really for real be coming back. I keep on saying I'm coming back but then stuff comes up, I know

Anyway, last night I had a really vivid lucid dream, that, although not very epic, was rather interesting. For one thing, it's the first truly lucid dream I've had in a very long time...one where I actually stopped what I was doing and examined my environment, amazed at how realistic it was, but fully aware that it was all completely non-existent.

The dream began as a nightmare-ish experience. I was in my house, but everything was darker than is natural for just being night-time. I could hear screams and the sounds of what I knew would be hideous-looking beasts in the distance. Watching. Waiting. For me.

But then I looked down, and saw that I was not myself, either. I was one such creature, with leathery, tar-black skin, and a voice that mutated and sounded creepy when I spoke. Instantly I realized it was all just a dream, and I decided I would get the heck out of there before something attacked and woke me up. Besides, I didn't like being an ugly monster anyway . I walked up to the nearest wall and tried to phase through it. Having been a while since my last lucid dream, I didn't immediately have enough sense of dream control to move through, but eventually I managed to force my way through the wall and out to the other side, where I suddenly was caught up into a vortex and sucked away from the house into pitch blackness.

I wasn't waking up, however, and I knew it. I was simply moving to another, better place in the dream world. I watched as the leathery black skin peeled away, revealing my 'real' self beneath. My voice returned to normal as well. Next thing I know, I'm falling into a large gray box of a building, and it was basically empty to begin with. I tried creating a few things in it, but I was frustrated to find that I could barely control anything. Whatever I changed would erase itself and just fade away to the way it was before.

"What's going on here?" I asked myself.

My answer was approaching fast...literally. My sister flew up overhead, creating things to fill in the space around her as she went.

"Oh great!" I called out. "How'd I end up in your dream?"

She just laughed and kept on flying.

"I don't know, but have fun!"

I shook my head and began to fly off, wishing I had a totem like the one in Inception that I could use in other people's dreams. All of a sudden, though, I fell to the ground.

"What was that?" I asked my sister, who was still flying around.

"I just made a rule." She said. "To fly in my dream, you have to be in a sitting position."

"That's stupid! Why'd you do that?"

"If you're going to be in my dream, I might as well have fun with you."

"Yeah. Real funny."

I flew off (in a sitting position) and basically just explored the area and talked to the DC's in my sister's dream. It was interesting to carry on a conversation with DC's that weren't from my own subconscious. They spoke very differently than I'm used to having DC's speak, and often didn't make any sense to me at all.

In spite of minor annoyances it was an enjoyable night, overall. Plus I think I've got something going with MILD now, so hopefully my lucids should return to being much more frequent.

Well, you might have noticed I haven't posted in this DJ for about a month...this is because I've been kind of taking a hiatus from attempting to lucid dream. My success rates were ridiculously low, and I had the feeling it was because I had so many different methods in my head that I couldn't stick with just one, and I probably wasn't doing any of them correctly anyway out of a lack of motivation.

Basically, I'd lost my appreciation for lucid dreams because all of mine were a bunch of very hard-earned crap. I read back through some of the earlier entries of my DJ, when the concept of LDing was new to me, and I was kind of inspired by my enthusiasm from back then, so I figured I should just start over.

I had no real 'return date', just whenever felt right...and I guess that would be now, since I had a lucid dream after relearning MILD and focusing only on that method for a bit. However, it didn't quite succeed the first time, so I'll put down that non-lucid dream as well, for the sake of recall and finding more dream signs.

Dream 1: I was at work. It was a pretty normal day, except for a lot of little behavioral abnormalities in all my coworkers. The differences weren't big enough to make me realize I was dreaming, but they did get me thinking.

Then I went to stock some music that had just come in, and I noticed a poster that had a rather big difference: the band name didn't seem familiar at all. I recognized the album cover, but the name just wasn't right...although...I couldn't really...remember what the right name was anyway.

Suddenly this fact became like taking a blow to the head. I stumbled back, my vision suddenly fuzzy and dizzy. After a bit my confusion grew to the point where I couldn't remember that I was confused, and so all this ceased and I came back to.

Once my vision had cleared, I still couldn't recall the proper name for the band, but this time the name I was seeing sank in. The poster read: "The Lucid Dreamers"

Next thing I know, the dream has gone to me being on a train with a bunch of other people, and eating Pizza. I was annoyed that my sense of taste was so weak. I could taste the Canadian Bacon, but everything else was very bland, like a distant sound is to an ear.

Then I woke up.

Of course technically my MILD hadn't yet worked, but it sure had gotten me a long ways. I had seen and recognized differences in multiple senses and circumstances, and my mind was obviously thinking about lucid dreaming due to the poster. It happened to be early enough in the morning for me to go back to sleep and try again, so I wasted no time. I repeated my MILD a couple more times and was out once again.

Dream 2: The dream began with me as a soldier in a futuristic city that strongly resembled what you see in the movie Minority Report. I was part of a squad that was taking down a group of Koreans that had invaded the place. (no offense if you're reading this and you're Korean, of course, I just play Crysis from time to time) Suddenly, however, I realized something...I was in a sci-fi city, firing a weapon, and wearing a suit of armor. All of this was cited in my MILD as dream signs to watch out for.

I smiled to myself then, looked through the scope on my weapon, and picked off all of the remaining enemies as if I were an aimbot. Precision and accuracy was 100% all the way. I threw down my weapon then and flew up into the air to get a good look at the place. The thought occurred to me that I should reality check, but I decided against it.

"I already know that I'm dreaming, and usually if I nose-plug RC when I'm like this it wakes me up." I told myself as I glided over the vast expanse of the world.

Below me, everywhere I looked I saw cars speeding along multi-level highways, rotating 90 degrees and then plunging straight down to reach other levels when need be. All of the buildings they rushed in between were shiny and steel; cold, clean, and sophisticated.

It was also all fading away.

"No, this dream can NOT end now!"

I rubbed my hands together furiously, but things were still fading out. So I tried spinning then, still rubbing my hands together. The city only spun about me as it finally faded into blackness.

"Rats...I failed." I thought.

But after a few more moments, I still hadn't woken up. I looked around me again, and now I saw a grid of white dots everywhere in the blackness, increasing in clarity every second. I rubbed my hands together again, and one by one each of the white dots became a building, every one more detailed and clear than before. It wasn't long until the whole city was back, and I was ready to head out on an adventure.

Unfortunately, this is where my memory begins to fail me, thanks to the unpleasant way the dream ended. I just know that I did go on many adventures and they were thrilling and satisfying to say the least. The dream tried to fade out multiple times, but I was always able to bring it back without problem. Somewhere along the way, that girl from multiple previous dreams was back again and we went on a lot of the adventures together. It was great.

But then the dream transitioned, and although I was still lucid, I decided I was done for the night because those adventures had ended so well and I didn't want to mess up such a great ending by doing something else, so I allowed myself to become non-lucid again and just watch the last few minutes of the dream.

What a mistake that was!

I was still in the same city, but I walked home, and everything there was still normal, further convincing me I was not dreaming any more. Then I got a phone call from that girl I mentioned, and she said she had to see me. I told her to come on over, but it turned out she was already just outside my door .

"What is it?" I asked as I let her in.

"I just had my first lucid dream!" She exclaimed. "It was amazing...I know you've told me about them before, but I didn't realize how incredible it really is! I even wrote it down in a dream journal just like you said you do. Here, look!"

She handed me her dream journal and I read it. It was the lucid dream I had just been through, but all from her perspective.

"I know." I said, handing the journal back. "I had this same lucid dream!"

That really blew her away. She was so excited she hugged me, and I thought I'd never let go. But...then I got another phone call. It was another friend of mine, asking if he could talk to this girl. She took the phone, but I could hear the voice on the other side saying:

"That guy is a moron! I know you care about him, but I just need to warn you. He's seriously messed up. I've got his dream journal open on my computer right now; he talks about a lot of really weird stuff and he actually believes it. I'm telling you, he says he found a Dream Room and can enter other people's dreams, and there's even these posts about using self-hypnosis for lucid dreams, or the theory that ghosts are lucid dreamers..."

I couldn't have been more annoyed. Or scared. I saw tears enter the girl's eyes as she slowly sank against the wall and slid down to sitting on the floor, and I thought she might try to run away, so I sat down as well and put my hands on her shoulders so she'd look me in the eyes.

"I can explain everything!" I said. "He's twisting the truth to make me sound crazy! I promise!"

The tears receded, but she didn't seem fully convinced, since she kept listening to this guy verbally murder every aspect of my reputation.

I woke up in a sweat and with my heart pounding...for a moment I still was afraid that that relationship was in danger, but of course I quickly realized I had woken up and all of it was not a real problem.

But aside from the unpleasant awakening, I'm quite happy with this MILD technique! I think I'll focus on it for a while longer now and see what I can do