The Labrynth of the Mind

Before bed I took 800mg of valerian and 0.25mg of melatonin.

Fragments from early REM period

I am walking around the halls of my university. There are a lot of people in the halls with me. I believe that I am on my way to class...

... I am part of Uru again. There is a linking book somewhere, I think...

... I am looking at a computer screen. There is a picture of something entitled "dreamsign". It looks like the logo for one of the filmmaking companies. The kind of Celtic looking thing. As I look at it, it looks more like the Yeesha symbol from Uru...

Going to my Grandparents'

I am on my way to visit my Grandparents' house. There seems to be a time constraint on this, and my mother and I are trying to figure out the best way for me to get there. In the end, we decide that I will drive part way there, and when I am almost to their house to park the car and take a ferry across a small lake along the way. Somehow I think that this will be cost effective and possibly save time. I will call and schedule the ferry while I am driving.

Former Workplace

My mother and I are at my former workplace (a toy store) looking for a specific toy. We look in a few places for this thing (some kind of military hovercraft) but can't find quite what we are looking for. Then I remember that it is probably in the action figure section. I take her over to that area, but when we get there we see that all but one of the shelves are missing. I ask one of the current stockers what happened to the other shelves. He doesn't know (he is new). I ask another employee, but he doesn't know either.

Lucid at the Fair

I am walking down the road in the middle of our county fair. It is late in the season, and there are not many people visiting. Many of the stands are closing up for the year, and I look as I walk for familiar games and people. I am in my uniform (as though I were there to staff the public relations booth as I did when I was a park ranger). I am not there as a park ranger, but I have some other reason to go to the fairs. I think how nice it is that I get to go back to these old familiar places, and walk down the road feeling at ease.

I try to think of why I am at the fair. I can't exactly remember. Then I remember that being at the fair is a dreamsign. I stop walking, and turn to look behind me. Things look OK, but I am beginning to realize that I am dreaming.
I try to justify my being at the fair, but I can't. "So this is a dream," I say.

I look up at a concession stand to my right. As I do, I become aware that the dream is losing realism. I am in danger of losing the dream, and consider either preparing for a DEILD or hoping to WILD when I wake up. Then I decide to try my Dream Posession technique to stabilize it, and attempt to summon Monk. I am vaguely aware of somebody's presence at my side, and try to take posession of their body. This is partly sucessful, and I blink a few times to try to get the vision clear.

I decide to fly, hoping this will further put me in the dream. I float up into the air, and then come down through the top of the concession stand. There is a woman working in there. She is not overly beautiful, but she is pleasing to look at. I decide to kiss her, and do so. Around here I loose the dream.

Archaeology

I am with one of my colleagues at an archeological excavation. We are back at a rockshelter where we were two years ago, and are at first digging through snow. My colleague, Dr. B., points to a birdbath in the middle of a field and tells me how much he dislikes it. Then he describes a statue that used to sit in it, and how much he hated that. I think the birdbath is kind of attractive, and like the idea of the statue.

We continue digging through the snow. We try not to make too many footprints in it, but Dr. B. seems to be making a lot. Now the snow is moss, and we are removing layers of it. Now we are no longer excavating, but pulling weeds. And now we are digging through dirt looking for trash.

There is a lot of trash in the dirt, and we move down a line sorting through rubbish to throw away. I come across a pile of items, with some electronic equipment and stacks of old records. I am happy with this find, since I get to keep whatever I come across.

Failed RC

I am walking down a hallway in part of a much longer dream. This leads into a sort of place that is reminiscent of the food section of a fair. I recognize this as a dreamsign, and think that I had better do a reality check. I pinch my nose and try to breath. I can't but I try harder and for a little longer to be sure. I still can't breathe.

I think about trying to fly, but there are too many people around. I figure I would look silly trying to jump into the air, so I just decide to rely on the nose pinch RC.

Anyway, I continue walking in blissful ignorance down the hallway, and come to a set of stairs. Down these stairs is a little courtyard where supposedly I always go to get away from the crowded city. I don't remember it from real life, but I do know that there is something in my life that is like that place. It's a representation of something real. I think about going down to sit in the courtyard, but decide not to. There is a guy sitting down there on a picnic table. I look around, and see that there is graffiti all over the upper walls of the place. It detracts a little bit from the peacefullness, but I still like the courtyard.

I took about 200mg of valerian before bed last night. As often happens, the valerian caused me to have some rather wierd and disturbing dreams.

Weddings and cruiseships

I am in the auditorium of my old high school. My brother and I are discussing people that were at my cousin's wedding. To help us remember who these people are, we take turns with a clamp holding pieces of a bench together. At times we break off pieces of it, too.

My grandparents are there also. The place is no longer the auditorium, but my grandparents' house. They are talking with my aunt about how nobody my age wants to be a sailor anymore. I happen to have been looking for jobs on board a cruise ship, so I tell them that I want to be a sailor. They are reading the requirements for various positions. Meanwhile, I log into my account with a cruise ship job website.

Flea markets and torture

I am at a fair. It is also D'ni. It is also a flea market. I am walking with a guy I used to know from a former workplace, who is also the father from "All in the Family" (which is ironic, because the guy I used to know is black). He is telling me that I don't know much about "smokin'", which in this dream is a slang term for buying and selling junk at flea markets for a profit. I imitate the Mask for no reason and say "sssmokin!"

We enter a junk shop, which is located about where Kadish Gallery should be. It is kind of dark in there, but we browse for a while. I see an old bottle of wine from the 1920's. After a while I see a bottle of something else with the date 1919 on it, and the wine bottle is apparently gone. My friend considers buying this bottle to resell. He tries to give me tips on finding antiques.

Next to the bottle of wine is a bottle of acetic acid, and some laboratory glassware. My friend asks me what acetic acid is, and I say "It's pretty much vinegar". Then I laugh and say "if we poured some of that into the wine bottle, there would be a nice explosion."

We leave the junk store, and cross the street. Things begin to change somehow into a laboratory where a mad scientist is operating on living people with no anesthetic. He hacks them up, mutilates them, pulls out their organs and intestines, while they lay on the operating table screaming. He pulls out one guy's eyeball. He slices open the arm of one guy, and puts something in to intentionally infect it. Someone explains that his plan is to let it swell up, and then hit his arms with something. This will both cause the victim pain, and somehow turn him into a zombie.

Now I see a whole bunch of zombies from the mad scientist's lab, all dancing together like some scene from Hell.

I was up too late last night, and have poor dream recall again. Some fragments:

Monk's Twin

Our senator is in the news. He is in trouble for something, and has been removed from office. Our senator looks exactly like Monk (the detective). He dresses like him too. We nickname him "Monk's Evil Twin"...

...Now I'm at a fair. It's one of those dreams where I always have to go get something. I seem to keep running back and forth between places.

Not really awake (false awakening)

Well, that's about all there was to this dream but this was a pathetic night for recall so I'll add it anyway. I wake up and look at the clock by my bed. In real life, I have a flashlight by my bed to look at the time in the early morning, so I switch this on. It doesn't work. Finally I see the time. It's 8 something. Then I wake up for real, and do the same thing in real life (except I do a RC too).

Before bed I took 400mg valerian, 50mg vitamin B-6 and 0.5mg melatonin. I woke up at 3:30 am and did a WBTB. I also performed a MILD before sleeping. In addition, I attempted to incubate a dream about Myst Uru.

Uru Marker Quest

I am in D'ni, doing a marker quest (this takes a while to explain if you don't know what I'm talking about. You can google these things if you're curious). I am in a big room "upstairs" (a vauge dreaming impression, I don't know what building I may have been in). I follow the markers "downstairs" into a large dark blue grey room. It is a little reminiscent of somewhere in Kadesh Tolesa. The marker quest is describing a murder mystery (taken from waking memory. I was on such a marker quest before going to bed, and it was a location I was at during this quest that I was trying to incubate). The markers tell me about a group of people who "explore the walls". They seem to be suspicious, and I look around the walls of the room. I also call someone on the telephone. One guy in particular does not have a telephone. For some reason this makes him even more suspicious.

The County Fair

In this dream, I am back at my old job with the Army Corps. I am working at the public relations booth at a local county fair.

My former boss is supposed to call me (taken from waking life. I had to call my present boss this morning because he was supposed to call me and didn't). I am at home, but I know he is talking to someone about my phone number. He can't remember my number, and therefore can't call me. I somehow walk into his office as he is saying this.

"You need my number?" I ask, surprising him. We exchange greetings, since we haven't seen each other in a while. Then he sends me out to the county fair.

It is cold and rainy, and many vendors have pulled out of the fair. I myself am a little disgusted with the fair for some reason. I am hungry and decide to get something to eat. I stop at a booth selling hot dogs. I order a hot dog since it is only 75 cents. Then I decide to order french fries too, even though I wasn't going to at first. I fall into conversation with the vendor while he prepares my food, who is also disgusted with the fair.

"This fair ain't like it used to be" he says, squirting ketchup and mustard into a plate and then dumping fries in. "Look at all the people who have pulled out".

"I know," I say, "I think this is going to be our last year here." In fact, I know it is, because I am the one who schedules the fairs. He hands me my food. The fries have onions and peppers mixed in with them. It looks pretty tasty.

I walk for a while, and come to some railroad tracks. There are some people walking on the tracks. What they do is wait for the warning lights to flash on the track signalling a train is coming. Then they jump on the tracks and walk, as though that is the safe time to walk. I try to warn them not to do this (though I seem to be walking on the tracks with them). I describe to them how "two of my relatives - or ancestors, I guess" were killed doing this.

The above dreams were recorded at 3:30AM during the WBTB. The following dreams I recorded this morning.

Western Christmas Carol

I am with some bad guy, in a sheriff's office of the Wild West. The bad guy has a rather distinctive face, looking like a typical bad guy. While we are waiting for the sheriff, another guy walks in and leans on a counter in front of us. Those of us waiting in the office are startled to see how much this new guy looks like the villain. They could be twins, except this new person is much younger. Then a second person walks in and leans on the counter next to the first person. He too looks exactly like the villain, but he has a big bushy beard. Those of us waiting (the villain, myself, some other person, and Peter Lorre - I don't know how he fit in) talk about the coincidence. Then the villain starts reliving past memories.

The past memories are brought on by the fact that the first look-alike reminded him of his own youth. It is like the Ghost of Christmas Past for him, and he begins to soften up by remembering how he used to be. Then, when he sees the second look-alike, he thinks of the present, and how things could have been different. This then, is the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Then the sheriff walks in. If we were surprised before, imagine our shock at seeing the sheriff - an exact double of our villain, except for the badge and hat. This is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, with the ominous foreshadowing of a hanging.

Sad Dream

This dream may have been part of the Western Christmas Carol dream, as it started out in a similar scene. It deals with some issues from the waking life that are sad and personal to some close friends, so I won't go into much detail in the first part. It cheers up a bit by the end, though.

A man, falsely accused of a crime or imprisoned for a petty crime, has a heart attack while in prison. They could have let him out to go to the doctor, but they didn't. He dies. This makes the following events even more tragic and frustrating for the family. Some other things happen (taken from waking memories) that add to the family's grief. There are some scenes of sadness.

Somehow the scenes above lead into a story of three guys who go to Russia. They send a letter to the United States' government threatening to do something extreme. This causes the government to go into a tizzy, and then reports come that the three guys have taken over Russia. What actually happened is that they claimed Russia and nobody bothered to argue with them. It was so silly that it wasn't worth Russia's effort. However, the newspapers pick up the story and blow it out of proportion. Some of us get a big laugh out of that. "Then violence spreads" as it was said in my dream. I am sort of writing this as a story and living it at the same time. Everything disintegrates into a big fight and mass destruction. I buy candy.

The Minivan in the Kitchen (Lucid)

I am walking down the hallwau in my house towards the kitchen. I enter the kitchen, and on the left where the table is supposed to be is a large minivan. This isn't right, and I realize that I am dreamin. This realization seems to cause me to jump, and I wake up...

...But it's a false awakening. I find myself walking down the same hallway, and enter the kitchen again. I look to my left, and there is the minivan sitting there. This reminds me that I'm dreaming. Once again I jerk when I realize that, and either wake up, have a FA, or something. I can't remember anything else.

Last night I took 150mg of Ginkgo Biloba, followed by a brief period of exercise (50 pushups). In the past, this has greatly increased the amount of dreams that I either experience, recall, or both. I also attempted to incubate a dream in which I would be in the computer game Myst Uru.

Myst Party

I am at the church that I went to when I was little. My parents are with me, as are a couple of other people. My mother is eating a cookie, or a cupcake, or something like that. She tells me she got it downstairs. I ask someone else about it, and this other lady tells me that she got it "in the room beneath the rooms" or something cryptic like that. I know that by that she means that the cookie came from a room down in the basement near the boiler room, in an interesting set of stairwells and hallways that always fascinated me when I was little.

We sit down in a pew, either towards the back of the sanctuary or up in the balcony. I look over to the end of the pew and see a big sign that has been hand written. It is advertizing a "Myst" party, as in the computer game. According to the sign I am either too late for the party or will not be able to make it.

At the Mall

I get a new job, working as a security gaurd at the mall. I am at home with my family, and we decide to go shopping. When we get to the grocery store we were originally going to go to, it turns out to be the mall. I decide that since I am a security gaurd, I can walk along with them and shop, and still be able to do my job at the same time.

We split up. The rest of my family goes one direction, and I go another direction with a girl that I knew in college. We go into a couple of shops and look around, and somehow I loose my socks. I go into a gift shop where they are selling a pair of socks for $3. I debate for a while whether to get one pair or another. Then I check to make sure they are all $3. I see a sign on the box of socks that says $3, so I am informed of the price.

I go out of the back of this store, and keep on going. The girl is still in the mall, but I walk on down the street until I come to a grocery store. I go in and walk around, and then get a cup of coffee. Then I think maybe my family and the girl will wonder where I went, so I go back.

Back in the mall I meet up with everybody. They aren't too concerned about where I went.

Blue Blotch

I have some kind of a welt on my forehead, and next to this a big blue blotch. I am worried that this blue blotch may be the sign of some disease, so I look it up online. I know that looking up symptoms online is a bad idea, but I go to WebMD anyway and check it out. When I type in "Blue Blotch", I get a page with a terrible illness. It shows a deformed and barely recognizable person who is being killed by a disease that started with a blue blotch. I decide not to trust WebMD.

The Fair

In my old job, I often went to fairs to talk to people. In this dream, I am back at one of the fairs. It is cold and cloudy, and my mother is with me. We set out looking for a certain barn (I think it had model trains in it, but I'm not sure). We walk out to what appears to be the end of the fairgrounds, but I can see that beyond us is more buildings. My mother does not seem interested in looking anymore, so we go back to wherever we started.

Old Mr. cedward1

I'm an old man in this dream. However, I am a powerful old man. I seem to be very skilled at my job (I think I am a lawyer). I am well known and well respected. Some people probably fear me. However, I am all alone. I never wanted to marry anyone or have a family of my own, and now in my sunset years I begin to regret it. I wonder if it is too late to find a wife, but then I think that even now I might not want to give up my freedom.

For a brief period, the dream is about a queen somewhere who is in the same predicament. Then it is back to me as an old man.

I am eating steak and a baked potato. I pur butter on the potato, along with a bit of white cheddar cheese and steak sauce. I mash the potato up and eat. It tastes pretty good for being dream food...

... The dream changes quite a bit. I am no longer an old man, and am walking through the woods. It is late fall or winter, and all the leaves are off the trees. My job is to see if people have been logging near a creek that runs through the woods. I inspect a while, and then my mother's beagle runs away. She can't get it back, so I call it. The beagle come trotting out from behind a tree.

Another Shopping Dream

I am at my Granparents' house. Everyone goes shopping, which is referred to by an odd name like "simple country" shopping, supposedly because they are going bargain hunting. I decide to stay behind, but as they are leaving I change my mind.

We all go in to town. Some things happen that I can't quite remember.