Exploring My Mind

More radio silence for an entirely different reason this time around. These past handful of days, I've been recalling little fragments. Although they were little, however, they held important significance. Each one dealt with a pretty symbolic subject matter corresponding to stuff that's been going on in my life lately. A shame more detail for them wasn't recalled.
Which leads me to how things have been IRL these past few days. Lately, I've been undergoing a change in attitude. It was a busy week for me and my family, as we had my aunt and cousin over and we never see them since we moved, so we did a lot of stuff. One thing of note we did was go to the beach.
The beach holds a lot of meaning to me, when it comes to lucid dreaming anyways. First and foremost, it's a relaxing place. Everything about it; the sounds, the breeze, the vastness of it all. It helps that we went at dusk. It also holds meaning due to my use of it in my lucid dreaming story Dream Gazers, as a meet-up place for the protagonists' shared lucid dreams. I find myself thinking about lucid dreaming a lot whenever I go to the beach anymore, and sometimes it can bring on strong, vivid dreams. In this case, it didn't, but that's okay.
Since that night at the beach, I've sort of been re-analyzing my path in life and what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I want to do now. My life got turned upside down last year, and I've been scrambling to piece it together since then, barely able to grasp hold of something concrete. It's just difficult, sometimes, figuring yourself out, y'know? I've had to re-adjust all my expectations, all my feelings, all my views after losing someone special, and now, I think I'm starting to gain a foothold.
Multiple plans of action have been laid out before me, and in thinking hard about these things, I've felt a lot more happy and clear headed these past few days than I have in a while. I've been doing my standard LDing practices in the course of that time, but I haven't been 100% going at it, as I've busied my mind so much with the future. In any case, that's done nothing to throw me off the track, and I'm thankful for it. To cap all of these thoughts up, I remembered (and wrote down) a non-lucid this morning, with moderate detail. ^^
I was visiting my friend's house (call him A) and hanging out with the girl (K) from my prior dream (I'm starting to think she may be a dream sign) where she asked me to that dance. IRL this girl is A's niece, and I'm good friends with both of them. Strangely, A appeared to be absent. K said he was upstairs, but while we hung out down in the kitchen eating breakfast, he was no where to be seen, and we certainly couldn't hear him upstairs. What was strange about the setting of this dream was that it was shot like a movie. I could see myself in third person, and multiple dramatic effects and music scores would play when certain things happened. At one point later in the dream, I rushed back into the house, my mom and aunt following closely behind me. We were running from something outside, but I don't recall what it was, or if we even knew what it was.
Also later on in the dream, K appeared on the news. Nothing bad had happened, thankfully, but I don't remember why she was on the news or what they were talking about, yet she was sitting right across from me still. She looked at the TV with an amused expression, and we resumed our daily activities.
So that's been me these past few days. Life's just being life.

Monday morning's dream was a pretty teeny tiny fragment, involving a super smart yet annoying guy barging his way into my house and demanding me to solve his riddles.
This morning, however, was a bit more fruitful! Especially due to the re-appearance of a dream sign of mine.
But first, middle-of-the-night-wake-up-fragments.
I was on a huge ship in the middle of an ocean being ravaged by a raging storm. Alongside the storm was, of course, a sea monster, and the whole crew (me included) had to square off against it in an RPG-styled battle. And thennnn!
I was homeless, and wandering the cold, dark streets of a city I didn't really recognize. I was trying to find shelter in whatever place I could, till eventually I met this family who decided to take me in for the night.
Now for the non-lucid.
I was in the house I used to live in, and sitting on the couch nearby was my ex and her boyfriend. All three of us were getting ready to watch a movie, but I was feeling pretty glum and sour about the situation, so I moped my way over to the kitchen area and pet my ex's dog for a little while. Eventually, I decided I'd just leave, and this was no small undertaking as I knew it'd be a long 6 hour drive back home. I relayed my plans to the two of them, and my ex pleaded that I stay and enjoy the movie. I, however, was resolute. I headed out. The in-between here is a blur but I do remember driving my way home on dark roads.
Too bad I didn't do an RC. I've been training myself IRL to reality check whenever my ex sends me any messages, or if I catch a stray thought about her. However, she hasn't appeared in my dreams much lately; this was the first time in a little while now.

Haven't posted any entries in 4 days, but rest assured, I'm ALIVE. Rather than not posting due to no recall, however, I didn't post the entries for the 1st and 2nd of September simply because they were extremely mundane dreams.
Literally all they consisted of was me hanging out with my family and going about day to day business. Nothing really to write in depth about.
The dream I had for the morning of the 3rd (or, yesterday, as of this time of writing) was an interesting one involving the concept of inception.
My cousin was going to get married to this jerk of a guy, and I wasn't okay with it, so I decided to pull a Leonardo DiCaprio and delve into her dreams to perform inception. A dream about dreams, as it were. Deep.
And then, this morning's. All of these dreams don't have a whole lot of detail recalled, but rather, specific plot points. One thing that has been improving though is my ability to recollect these things even after falling back asleep, as usually that's enough to simply wipe my memory of it if I didn't write it down.
I was hanging out with this girl I used to know really well IRL (we haven't hung out in literal ages), and we were sitting on this outdoor park bench. Yet, half of the area was covered in what appeared to be a house. So it was like half outdoors, half house. I can't even find a good way to describe that, it was a sort of reality warp-ish type of dream scene, the kind your dream self can understand just fine, but in real life you're like 'wtf'
Anyways, strange dream scene aside, we were sitting on this bench, a nice breeze blowing through, and just sort of happily people-watching. All of a sudden, she turns to me and nervously asks if I'd like to accompany her to her school's Snowball dance. Shocked, but pleasantly surprised, I happily accept. Almost immediately, in comes a lot of people I know and associate with this girl. They just begin walking by, mumbling their thoughts about that turn of events. Sorry if this one sounded bizarrely described, but that's cuz it really was sort of bizarre. It had a nice peaceful atmosphere, but a lot of weird stuff that you'd usually only notice upon waking (or maybe not, in the event of a successful DILD, which has yet to come. But that's okay!)
Anyways, sorry for the radio silence, and happy dreaming.

Hit another two day snag of no recall. Whereas lately I've been recalling a pretty similar handful of fragments and small non-lucids, this morning's dream was a very long non-lucid, all recalled in a lot of detail. So, without further ado, here's the latest dream adventure:
The real world was set up as a sort of role playing game, with items, stats, levels, and magic all being just a normal part of this dream's universe. In comes me, just a humble guy from the local village, preparing a large building in honor of the upcoming arrival of a very important guest. This guest was apparently some famous girl, a girl my dream self seemed to be rather infatuated by. It was normal to be though, as everybody in the village adored her. According to local rumors, she had mystical powers. Some said she was the chosen one. Me, I was just happy to be setting up this nice place for her. According to the people who assigned me the task, the building would need prepared for her to stay in while she visited the village. I even had to go grocery shopping so there was plenty food and drink for her.
So the girl, I sadly cannot recall her name, arrived. I took her on a tour of the building, and she was extremely impressed. It's here where things get hazy. But next thing I know...
In a twist of fate, the girl turned on the townsfolk. She revealed her true evil intentions, and transformed the building into a deadly dungeon filled with traps and monsters and just all around evil crap. It had turned out that all my preparation of the place was really just a trick to get it in good shape for all the previously mentioned things. I was devastated. Heartbroken. The townsfolk held me responsible, saying that I must go deal with her or suffer the consequences. And so I did.
Heading into the building, I was surprised to not find any traps or monsters at the front door, but instead, the girl herself. She was acting more like her kind self from before, but this illusion didn't last long, and she quickly transformed into her true form, a hideous red monster with wings.
It was then that I knew what I had to do. Running outside, I quickly found a climbable pathway up the side of the tall building. I scaled it, and reached the open-roofed top, where I found some potions to help me conduct a powerful magic spell. The spell, which took quite a moment to prepare, transformed the entire building back to normal in a dazzling flash of light. As for what happened to the girl in the aftermath...nobody saw her ever again.
An explosion of detail, if I do say so myself... Let's keep it up! Also, what a dream.

Had a two day period of no recall, but I didn't let that deter me, and this morning I was able to recall two non-lucids. What was frustrating about the second one, however, is that I was almost lucid! Well, frustrating isn't quite right. It's more both heartening AND frustrating, nice and bittersweet. Here's the first non-lucid:
I was being chased by these government agent types; they were an army of about 10 men and women dressed up in black suits and equally black sunglasses. They were after me for reasons I didn't know, but what I did know was that I needed to hide. I ran all over the place trying to find a good enough hiding spot. Seemed like we were in a sort of hotel-like place. I ducked through a stairwell, noticing a guy as I passed by who I knew from real life, somebody from my high school, and for some reason, he was wearing a sombrero. He shook his head and looked away. Eventually I found a tucked away corner behind a column and waited. They passed me by, and the leading lady was barking orders left and right, having the group split up. Did I get caught? Well, let's hope not. Dun dun dunnnn.
The second dream:
I was in a classroom that looked like my old psychology class's classroom from high school. I was minding my own business, but the guy I recognized from high school in the previous dream was also in this classroom (no sombrero this time, a shame...) and he was ranting like crazy, to the point where it was bothering others. I couldn't take it anymore, so I slammed my hands on my desk, stood up, turned around, and shouted at him to just shut up. He gave a snappy retort back at me, and the entire class fell silent. I gave him a glare and sat back down in my seat. Suddenly, I got the strangest urge to do a reality check. All I could think was, I should probably reality check right now. ......And yet, nah...I'll do it later. Dismissing that thought, I noticed a fictional character from a game I play walk into the classroom. In this game, she's a little sister to the main character, so she happened to be my imaginary little sister here. She was bringing me cookies, which cheered up my grumpy mood a little. All I can say is...CURSE YOU, DREAM-SELF!!! On the one hand, I'm delighted my non-lucid self is thinking those thoughts. That's a good sign of progress. BUT SO CLOSE. Yet so far. In a dream that wasn't all that weird, funny enough, at least compared to the antics of the dream before it.

Here's this morning's collection of dreams, which had a sort of holiday theme going on.
I stood in a grassy field with a friend I vaguely know in real life. It was night time, and we were waiting for fireworks. All of a sudden, multiple fireworks shot up into the sky. They were abnormally huge, and all the more beautiful because of it, filling the sky with a multitude of wonderful colors. Before I could really get out a word about how great it all looked, this friend of mine kissed me. That's all I remember here. Pretty odd my friend was involved in this manner, as I don't know her all that well!
I was swimming in a pool that looked a lot like the pool we used in P.E. class in high school. As me and a bunch of other swimmers were heading out and back to the locker room, one of them collapsed by the entrance, having a sort of seizure. A guy I know IRL, we'll call him D, who I don't like very much appeared out of no where and was suddenly giving the collapsed guy medical attention. D looked up at me and held out his hand, asking me to give him my phone. I hesitantly complied. Seems like there could be multiple ways to interpret this one. Hmmhmm hmmity hmm.
I was at a Christmas party with a good portion of my family, as well as a couple of familiar coworkers and people I didn't know or recognize at all. It was a fairly nice party, with lots of tables, food, and nice music playing. We were all standing in line at a vending machine, but when it was my turn to pop in some change and pick my drink, I couldn't for the life of me figure the thing out. Standing directly behind me was an old coworker of mine, we'll call her W, who was starting to get quite angry at how long I was taking. She eventually slapped the change out of my fumbling hands, yelling about how I needed to get a move on and let everybody else go. My cousin, who was standing behind W, told her to take it easy. I slumped my head and walked over to the nearby fridge, which had a smaller selection of drinks.
I saw one that caught my eye: Strawberry soda in a very fancy bottle. I picked it up and went back over to my cousin, who was now standing next to this girl I didn't recognize. They were both drinking bottles of beer, so when the girl saw me approach, she gave a cold look at my bottle of soda and rolled her eyes. Seems everyone just wasn't having it with me at this party! Her and my cousin sauntered away, talking about something incoherently. In real life, I actually have never had alcohol to this day, and I don't plan on it. If I were at a party like this, that's pretty much exactly how it would go. I'm happy with the amount of detail recalled~

Didn't sleep too well last night. As it would turn out, I had a pretty good 2 hour nap late into the evening, so come bed time later that night, I really wasn't all that tired. Therefore, the night was spent sort of sleeping but frequently waking up, much to my dismay. Luckily enough, I was able to recall multiple dreams, but on the downside, they're all basically fragments. Here they are anyways:
I was eating at Olive Garden, when all around me the customers and waiters and waitresses all started going crazy, dancing around like lunatics, throwing things at each other. I huddled up further into my booth and continued to enjoy my breadsticks. Clearly my dream self has important priorities!
I was in this huge house with a lot of my family as well as complete and total strangers. The front side of the house was open to the outside street, where multiple houses alongside it were selling goods. Not much of note here.
I was in a small room that looked like something out of Homestuck, and on the wall, projected, was a cool looking animation of David Strider and Jade Harley. This fragment may have been a part of the same house dream just before it. Funny I had Homestuck appear here, as I've not been into it in a couple of years now.
I was on an alien world, and everything was blowing up. ......
My ex and I entered into a contract of sorts, and we were living together and going about our day-to-day pretty happily. Still learning to get into the habit of reality checking when she's involved, as she's basically the biggest dream sign I have.

Since starting back in my lucid dreaming practices a couple of weeks back, I've recalled quite a few dreams, almost one every night, barring a few days, but I've yet to put any of those in here. With that being said, here's this morning's, in which I recalled two pretty sparse fragments and one non lucid dream.
My dad was insistently questioning me about shower curtains. Literally all I've got on this one. What could it mean? Are the shower curtains symbolic of the walls we put up around ourselves? 6deep8me.
I was in a very ritzy looking cafe, enjoying a cup of coffee and browsing my phone, looking at various pictures of a girl I thought was cute. Again, just a fragment. Unlike the strange nature of that first fragment, however, this dream had a nice, fluffy, happy feeling to it. Now, for the actual full non-lucid:
I was in some sort of ruins, and could see a sort of heads up display that looked like No Man's Sky's HUD. Lately, it seems like NMS has worked its way into my dreams in subtle ways. I was exploring these ruins on some sort of vague quest, gathering up materials and items. Eventually I found my way into a big building, which looked like something straight out of the game The Witness. It even had a similar puzzle inside of it that I was required to solve. Floating above the ground was a chrome-colored monolith with a red tree insignia on it. Touching the monolith made it dive into the ground, and several huge, red trees sprouted up around me. A river of orange-ish colored water began flowing between the crevices in the floor. How would I solve this puzzle? Unfortunately you get the cliffhanger that never ends on this one, as that's all I can remember.

Two work related dreams recalled this morning, both in a good amount of detail. Work seems to be becoming more of a recurring thing in my dreams lately.
Oddly, in this dream, I wasn't myself, or rather, I was viewing the dream characters in it without them even knowing I was there, almost as if I was a ghost. Not sure what to make of that.
There were four workers who were doing their jobs in a sort of desert looking area, stacking and breaking boxes. They all looked rather miserable.
One of the workers, a middle aged black man, decided that enough was enough, and was going to leave the job later that day. The other three workers tried to console him and get him to stay, but their words fell on deaf ears, as this man had a newfound determination, and most importantly, a plan. Throughout this entire thing, I gazed from afar, although my view seemed to be getting hazy.
Woke up, went back to bed, and BAM.
Back to being myself, this dream involved me at work, doing a job I don't have IRL. I was backing a truck up into the front of this old lady's driveway, waiting for some of the passerby to move so i didn't run them over. Once the truck was parked, I went to go clean some stuff off her driveway, and she came out during this process and proceeded to give me instructions.
One of the workers came over and interrupted our conversation, saying "Tanner! Your mom is here to help out!"
So I excitedly asked the old lady if it was okay if I left, and she didn't seem to mind.
I quickly crossed the area till I got to the main portion of it, and sure enough, there was my mother walking around looking for me. I caught up to her and we talked about a lot as we headed towards the job site.
The actual job here was a bit odd though. When we got there, my dad was waiting there for us as well, so we split up, with me and my dad handling one zone and mom handling the other zone. These zones had snake like creatures poking up from the ground that we had to kill. Dad and I killed it no problem, but mom was in the next zone screaming like she'd just seen a bug and was flipping out on it, based on the noise.
And that's everything. I'm very impressed with the latest boost in recall, and it has me wondering what exactly I've done differently (if anything) to raise it.