LiveInTheDream's DJ v2.5

Just what the title says. No, I haven't already quit. I just had to take some MORE time off from lucid dreaming unexpectedly thanks to getting sick. But now that I'm 99% better, I can start again with documenting my average dreams and work towards making them lucid once again.

I don't recall my dreams from last night, but I do recall an interesting dream from the night before, so I'll summarize it now.

The dream began as a false awakening. I got out of bed and was about to begin my daily routine when I decided to go back to sleep for a few more minutes. So that's just what I did; I got back in bed and lay my head down and I was out.

Now I was in a dream within a dream (notice the darker text indicating a deeper level?). I found myself standing on the edge of a vast canyon and exploring the surrounding area. Something didn't feel right, but I couldn't tell what. After about a half hour of looking around and finding nothing interesting, I decided to lie down and go to sleep.

Now in layer 3 of the dream, I found myself at a friend's dorm at the college he goes to...only the actual layout of the place was nothing like the real-world college. The dream explained it away as remodeling, and I never caught on that it was a dream. My friend was asking me about dreams, particularly lucid ones, and if it would be possible to share dreams.

"Sure it's possible, I've done it before." I said. "We could do it right now in fact, if I can manage a WILD."

"Well, want to give it a try?" He asked.

I agreed to try, so we lay down and went to sleep.

I was now in layer 4 of the dream, aware that I was dreaming, and in a white void. All around me all I saw was white. I couldn't move anywhere or speak, and when I tried, it simply woke me up into the previous layer of the dream.

"Did you do it?" My friend asked.

"Yeah, but I couldn't stay in for some reason."

In another moment, I woke up from that dream and into the layer before it. I was only at this one a split second before I shot up into the air as the dream faded out into the first layer, and I sat up in my bed.

"That was a crazy dream!" I said to myself as I climbed out of bed.

Then I woke up for real, and was totally disoriented from all the waking up

Well, I've been having some trouble sleeping lately (not stress or anything, I just haven't been tired, so it's weird ), so I never would have expected to lucid dream...especially through a WILD. But after not initially getting to sleep until 12:30 in the morning and then waking back up two or three times, staying awake for half an hour, and then falling back asleep, I found myself wide awake at 6am or so, unable to go back asleep at all. At least, not for a very long time. I just lay in bed and tried to not think about anything, and after an hour and a half or thereabouts, I realized I couldn't raise my right arm to scratch an itch. At first I just tried harder to lift it, but suddenly it clicked in my head: "Oh! I'm in sleep paralysis!"

I started to hear a buzz, and I felt like I could separate from my real body and get into my dream body. I was quickly able to succeed at doing so, and then as I felt real life fall away, everything around me went white.

For a short while I lost all sensation of any body, but when the buzzing grew to an extreme, raging frequency, I found myself physically present in that whiteness, ready to transition to a dream, but unable to do so. I ran all about in the whiteness, knowing I had only seconds before I'd lose the dream, but still I was stuck.

"How do I get in the dream!?" I finally shouted in desperation.

"Just...jump down." A voice calmly replied.

I acted like I was jumping off a ledge, and sure enough, I descended from the whiteness and landed right on the floor in my room.

First thing I did, of course, was pinch my nose and try to breath in, so there would be no mistake about my state. I could only breathe out of one side of my nose with it pinched, but of course that was still enough. I then began to examine my environment. The realism astounded me...if I looked out the window, I could see for miles and miles, even though none of it was scenery from real life. I noticed a fishtank (which I got rid of years ago IRL) was in my room, and I could see my reflection in it with perfect accuracy.

Since I had something to work with, and needed something to do, shape shifting came to mind. I succeeded in shape shifting, but my control over it was very bad, so I ended up just distorting my face to a degree that felt very strange. Giving up on that, I decided I'd just go outside and fly to wherever the wind might take me.

Once I was outside, takeoff was easy, but I thrust my hands out in front of me, which I don't usually do for flying, and it threw off my balance and sent me to the ground. I tried flying a bit more, but couldn't get off the ground for more than a second, now.

Then I had another idea: why not just run somewhere really fast? But...now that I thought about it, I had actually been moving really slowly the whole dream. Running at all was a challenge. Running fast...well...that woke me up.

Not the best LD ever, but it's good to know that I'm coming back.

I DID IT!! I finally was able to WILD from a fully awakened state!

I went to bed last night at about 11:30pm. Woke up (due to awesome dreams about being in love with this incredible girl) at 5:47am and decided to try a WBTB and WILD so I could visit that girl again. I stayed up for about 10 minutes, fully awake. I even splashed water on my face. But at the same time, I stayed away from things that would make falling back asleep a difficult thing to do (i.e. screens).

After that, I lay down on my back on the floor with a t-shirt wrapped around my eyes and ears to encompass myself in total blackness and silence. I was very alert at this point, and concentration was easy. I consciously relaxed everything, starting from my toes and moving up to my head, and then counted down from 10, telling myself that I would be very close to lucid dreaming by the time I hit 1.

It almost worked. I felt that beginning sensation of disconnection with the conscious mind, and knew I was close. But I still needed some help. So I visualized a hand reaching down out of the blackness and pulling at the center of my brain. That went far better than expected. Instantly, the hand drew back, but the difference was, now I was moving along with it! My eyes started to move rapidly; I was entering REM, the place of lucid dreaming. Unfortunately, my heart rate increased very dramatically at the shocking success of the visualization, and it was like I fell from the height the hand was holding me back into my real body, and my eyes stopped moving so fast.

I tried to just go back through everything again right there, but somehow I just couldn't. The hand wouldn't pull me back with it anymore, my eyes would never move very fast...I didn't even see HI anymore.

So then I got up (or at least I attempted to; one of my legs had lost its circulation, so it was like rubber and I couldn't stand on it, so I had to pull myself into bed with just one usable leg ) and tried the same thing in my bed. By now it was 6:30. Time was running out. I thought the change of location might be enough to get me in. But after a couple minutes of no luck with that, I just thought: "How often do I fall asleep on my back? Almost never!" And then I just got into the most comfortable position I could, re-relaxed (which was a bit more difficult to concentrate on this time, but I did it) and then watched the oncoming HI and waited.

In a very short time, things started to shake, I felt myself slipping away, and next thing I knew...

I was sitting up in bed. I didn't really need to RC; I knew where I was. But I didn't want to take any chances, so I did a check and found myself to be dreaming. I jumped down from bed and started going around the room slowly. I felt the walls, I looked out the window, I looked down and could see myself standing there...it was all incredibly realistic. I ran all over the house, then calling out for this girl, hoping to find her around a corner. But I never did.

BLACKNESS!

I was back in bed, wondering if I had woken up. Did a reality check, and tested to still be dreaming. This time I flew outside, doing a corkscrew simply to see if the dream world would continue to function realistically if I were upside down. To my amazement, it did. Once outside, and with my orientation corrected, I hovered in the air, looking around me. I laughed with pleasure when I saw how realistic everything was...there was even a road construction crew out in the distance, just like in real life. I was going to fly off to the girl's house, then, but...

BLACKNESS!

I was back in bed, and wanted to get back to work, so I did an RC as I threw myself over the edge of the bed and on to the floor. I remember thinking: "The people on DV are going to have a fit when I tell them my reality check was throwing myself on the floor to see if I fell through!" I did fall through, however, and attempted to teleport as my body passed through.

Where I ended up was not at all what I had intended. It was some kind of restaurant with old-looking wooden rooms. Many of my friends were there, and even some family members. One of them was asking me to go fill up three drinks. For some reason, this temporarily caused me to lose lucidity. I tried to get the drinks for them, but the soda fountain was made from obsolete equipment, the cups were difficult to find, and the method of payment was so strange I never did figure it out. It was something like this: you'd put a couple coins into a slot on the desk, and then there was this tube with rings around it. You'd slide all the tubes to the right to correspond with how much money you paid, even though it wasn't sufficient to cover the cost of the drinks. Everyone around me said that was all I had to do; they never compensated for the extra cost. I got annoyed with them for not understanding my point that it was a bad system, and for their annoyance with me for not being able to figure it out.

BLACKNESS!

Back in bed, lucid once again. Threw myself on the ground as a reality check. This time I ended up teleporting to some farm where two pirates were standing in front of me. They were threatening in graphic terms to tear me apart and kill me. I just smiled at them the whole time, and then used descriptive commands to transform them into girls about my age. "Shorter. Skinnier. A bit younger." With each command, they would automatically be transformed. (This is, by the way, a method of dream control I've used ever since I was 4, when I had my first lucid dream) It took a couple minutes to get them both looking right, but the results looked like they'd be good.

BLACKNESS!

Now I was getting a bit ticked off at my frequent blackouts and false awakenings. I did one solid reality check and then tried once again to stop all the nonsense and find the girl I'd come into the dream to find. I looked all over the house, tried to call her on a phone, but I just couldn't get her to show up anywhere! So again, I tried teleporting.

This time was very different, though. Rather than be presented with a new, weird location, all I saw in front of me was a panel of buttons. There was one for each location I'd been so far. I pushed the button for the farm and was dropped there immediately. The pirates were still girls, now also in normal clothes instead of the pirate stuff they had had before. And for some reason, one of them had aged about ten years, while the other remained exactly the same. I invited them to come to the restaurant with me. I'm not sure why, but I just had this feeling that they'd help me find this girl that I was looking for.

"No thanks." The younger one said. "I kind of like it here. So peaceful and quiet. Especially at the lake! I think I'll go there right now. See you later!"

The older one was fine with coming, though. "Good enough," I thought. I put a hand on her back and prepared to teleport...

BLACKNESS!

There was the restaurant...we were there.

BLACKNESS!

There was a static image of several dream characters.

BLACKNESS!

I was in bed, I did a reality check. I could still breath through my nose, but it was partially blocked now.

BLACKNESS!

Then I sat up in bed for real. It was 7:30am now...I'd been in a dream for nearly an hour.

The blackouts sure were annoying, but I'm really glad I've found a way that I can WILD from being fully awake! This could even work in the afternoons...which would be really awesome indeed! Then I'd have a couple chances for LDs every day!

I'd say WILD has now become my focus once again. Wish me luck! I'll keep you guys posted on what happens